Stimulus Mousetrap

Stimulus Mousetrap



By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, February 19, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Environment: The controversy over the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse goes on. It's not in the stimulus bill per se, but protecting its habitat is. And protecting critters' habitats has hurt the economy, cost lives and lost jobs.

The Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse is an endangered rodent. About an inch tall, it has a life span of up to a year. It's found in the marshes around San Francisco Bay, including some in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district.

The $30 million said to be in the stimulus bill for it is actually the total amount the California Coastal Conservancy, a state agency, listed for various projects on its wish list. That list was submitted to various federal agencies for "shovel-ready" projects.

There are five ongoing wetlands restoration projects on the list. Steve Ritchie, a Coastal Commission staff member who helped draw up the list, says the projects would benefit dozens of species, including salmon, egrets and, yes, the mouse that roared. Those projects, he says, mean "at least 100 new jobs."

But are they really jobs or "make-work" projects? Jobs are what you get up and go to every day, year after year. Once these wetlands are "restored" or the stimulus money is spent, what happens then? How does restored mouse habitat boost GDP?

In the name of saving wetlands and other critter habitats, much harm to people has been done. It was the Army Corps of Engineers, ironically, that had a "shovel-ready" project to build floodgates to keep water from the Gulf of Mexico from pouring into Lake Pontchartrain on the north side of New Orleans.

Save Our Wetlands, the environmental group that successfully sued in 1977, claimed the floodgates proposed by the corps would spoil wetlands. We ask: Was the damage to the city of New Orleans, its people, and the nation's economy by Katrina worth it?

Four trapped firefighters, fighting a blaze in Washington State, burned to death July 10, 2001 as permission to draw water from the nearby Chewuch River was withheld for nine hours by officials fearful that protected salmon and trout might get scooped up.

Protection of critter habitat has prevented the clearing of brush that has fueled devastating fires in California, Australia and elsewhere, destroying jobs and lives while producing, ironically, crispy critters. In the name of animal protection, we've blocked construction of everything from highways to hospitals.

If you want to protect critter habitat, do it in the regular budget process where the pluses and minuses can and should be debated. Don't sneak it into a stimulus bill.



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