"This is a serious challenge, a serious threat," Durbin said. "When it comes to the ... threat, we are not in denial. We are not in a go-slow mode. We are in a full attack, full-speed ahead mode. We want to stop this ... from advancing."What is this threat? To build the suspense, I inserted ellipses in Sen. Durbin's comments above. The federal government has launched a "multi-pronged," $80 million counter-offensive to head off the threat of ... a fish called the Asian carp.
Now, all joking aside, it does appear that the fish is a threat to the existing fishing industry around the Great Lakes. The fish consumes a vast quantity of food daily, which negatively impacts the food supply available to fish native to those waters. Not only that, but these buggers can range from 40 to 100 pounds in some cases. That's a big fish by inland water standards.
Still, instead of assigning someone within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the task of overseeing the $80 million effort, the White House has appointed a "czar." In other words, an individual who may very well be unaccountable to Congress, whose oversight authority extends only to those working for the various federal agencies and bureaucracies (such as the Fish and Wildlife Service) except where proscribed by law.
Honestly, I don't think I have too much heartburn over the initiative. But I do wonder why it takes a "carp czar" to do the job. This just doesn't pass the ... smell test for me.
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