The news and blogosphere is full of back and forth jabs and plenty of high horses over Gov. Jindal singling out volcano monitoring as an example of federal spending that maybe should not be a priority. A sample here.
“Does the governor have a volcano in his backyard?” asks the mayor of Vancouver, WA self rightiously. Well, no he does not. Which raises the question of why Louisianans, for example, should be paying for volcano monitoring in Washington state. In other words, why is that a necessary federal mission paid for by all taxpayers? Why should the people who live near volcanoes pay for volcano monitoring themselves? Ditto for those in earthquake or hurricane zones.
It amazes me that as I poked around the media and blog discussion of this, that question seems not to be raised. It’s all about whether volcano monitoring is good or bad, not about whether feds or state/locals should do it. Seems obvious to me that Gov. Jindal hit the nail on the head—this should not be a federal priority.