Again, for those of you just seeing this, a quote from an earlier post of mine, citing a new initiative from the White House to “crack down on waste” that leads with a subject near to my heart. This is what the email from Joe Biden said this morning, in part:
Did you know that the government spends millions to maintain buildings that have sat vacant for years? Or that your tax dollars pay to needlessly ship copies of the Federal Register to thousands of government offices across the country even though the same information is available online?
And I bet you didn’t know that your tax dollars pay for a website dedicated to the Desert Tortoise. I’m sure it’s a wonderful species, but we can’t afford to have a standalone site devoted to every member of the animal kingdom. It’s just one of hundreds of government websites that should be consolidated or eliminated.
And I said:
It’s a small stupid thing, but it just reinforces the fundamental dishonesty of this administration. This is the website he’s talking about. It’s a low-budget website. The money involved in putting it together has already been spent. The only reason to get rid of it is that it works to promote appreciation for an endangered species that the Administration has decided stands in the way of its policies being enacted.
The website at deserttortoise.gov is run by the Desert Manager’s Group, a network of federal, state, and local agency staff including the Department of Defense (which, of course, manages millions of acres of land in the California desert). In the words of the website itself, the purpose of the Desert Tortoise website:
The deserttortoise.gov website provides information and weblinks related to the threatened Mojave population of the desert tortoise. Included within this site are photographs, maps, tools and resources for Recovery Implementation Teams, information about the range-wide monitoring program, and educational and outreach materials. We encourage you to browse, learn, and enjoy!
It’s a way of making information available transparently — remember transparency? — from a mind-boggling range of agencies for the use of land managers and their contractors, state and local agencies, developers, and members of the public.
A source with detailed knowledge of the Desert Managers Group and its budget (which should after all be public information) tells me that the total annual cost of operating the website at deserttortoise.gov is $125.00, plus eight hours of staff time. Per year.
BrightSource, the developer of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, has received (last I checked) $600 million in direct grants from the federal government, and $1.3 billion in loan guarantees. That’s $1,900,000,000 taxpayers’ money for a project that will denude 4,000 acres of old-growth desert, kill between 400 and 1,000 tortoises, and provide electrical power for maybe two decades.
That’s enough money to maintain the website at deserttortoise.gov for 15,200,000 years.
Irritating on a number of different levels, but ultimately further confirmation of two hunches I have about Obama: he is utterly unserious about fiscal and environmental issues.
=v= I’m happy to chip in my share. Where do I send my check?
this makes me very angry
Jym, as a taxpaying American your share of the cost of the desert tortoise website is forty-two cents every million years.
Meanwhile, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-missing-billions-20110613,0,4414060.story
Don’t mind me, I’m moving out of the solar system.
Thank you, Chris. This is astounding. Jaw-dropping. INSANE.
=v= Heck, I’ll be happy to round it up to 50 cents. The website obviously needs an update; it doesn’t even have a “Like this on Facebook” button.
“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”
— Ansel Adams
Michelle Obama was in the Southland yesterday raising funds for her husband’s pointless reelection campaign (what reeelection you say?) at a $1000 per-pop lunch. And here we are defending a $125 per annum website to save a species of tortoise that has roamed these landscapes for millions of years? This is a complete and utter travesty. You are so outta here, Barack.
Thanks for reporting this, Chris.
How do we turn our outrage into action? Send Sheriff Biden an email at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Oh, here’s Sheriff Biden’s direct contact link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact-vp.
OK, here’s my comment if anyone wants to use it for talking points. Thanks Chris for providing the great background information!
Send to Sheriff Biden: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact-vp
RE: Campaign on Waste
Mr. Biden, the deserttortoise.gov website is not an example of government waste. The desert tortoise is a federally protected species that multiple state and federal agencies are legally tasked with managing. The annual cost of the website is a miniscule $125.00, plus eight hours of staff time PER YEAR. Deserttortoise.gov centralizes information from multiple sources, for use by a broad network of private contractors, federal, state and local agency staff, including the Department of Defense who manages millions of acres of desert tortoise habitat. It prevents duplication, waste and facilitates coordination between a multitude of agencies and the private sector. Besides, its already paid for and requires very little maintenance and upkeep. Why eliminate something that’s already been paid for?
In contrast, the Administration has given $1,900,000,000 of our taxpayer dollars to BrightSource to permanently destroy 4,000 acres of intact Mojave desert and displace or kill as many as 3,000 desert tortoises.
Responsible, cost-effective solar energy generation should be sited in the vast urban environment or EPA identified degraded lands, first. Is the real reason for eliminating deserttortoise.gov because the desert tortoise is obstructing the Administrations plans for big solar in California’s deserts?
Deserttortoise.org should be hailed as an example of how collaboration and innovation have cut costs, eliminated duplication and increased the efficiency of government.
This sits at the same level of inanity as Sarah Palin’s fruit flight criticism. Well… okay… Palin’s criticism was perhaps slightly more inane, but not by much. What we’re getting a hint at here is what we can expect if Palin or Bachmann is elected. They won’t be, of course. Women are only tokens in the republican party after all, not to mention these two tokens happen to be genuine morons. But it’s sad to see nearly the same level of stupidity on the left. Obama must be awesome, really awesome, to get elected with an idiot Biden on his side.
@Michael Gordon who said, “You are so outta here, Barack.”
Woh! Hold on there cowboy. Don’t be so hasty. Look at what the alternatives are first, eh? Slim pickin’s if I do say so.
Kevin73: The “lesser of two evils” approach to our completely broken political system will no longer suffice. Look where it’s gotten us.
The pickin’s are slim, so perhaps NOW is a good time for The Revolution?
i’m about as politically and environmentally liberal as it gets, and even i don’t think the government should be paying for something like this. i’d much rather see citizens start a non-government organization to run this website. the cost of the website might seem like small change, but it’s a slippery slope. how would you feel if the government funded a website to promote a particular agricultural industry, such as meat or dairy? (which is not far from what the FDA currently does in some cases). unless a website directly relates to the function of a government agency, then i don’t think the government should be involved in it.
Do me a favor, saul.
Look at the website we’re talking about, including the list of agencies involved, then look at the information that’s there and the mission of the website in providing that information, and then
— in light of the fact that the federal government has certain legal obligations to educate agency staff and the public about species that have been listed under ESA —
ask yourself whether $125 a year to accomplish those legally mandated goals isn’t in fact a triumph of good government that both major parties ought to be lauding. If they were being honest with us about what they want government to be.
Saul, Chris:
It’s all pretty complicated; there is no black OR white. Our government grants billions of dollars in farm subsidies every year. I’m vegan, and I completely disapprove of my taxes going towards animal agriculture from which I receive no benefits.
I’d much rather see citizens fund their own bacon and steak. The cost of these subsidies might seem like small change, but it’s a slippery slope. ;)