Crazy Grants : July 12th

Alcohol Research Resource Awards	$500,000
Research alcohol.
34th America's Cup	$1,300,000
Provide fencing, signs, parking management, and litter collection for a private boat race.
Fish Community Assessment in Eastern Rivers and Mountains Network and Integration with Existing Monitoring Data	$67,000
Maintain a fish database.
FY13 Coral Reef Conservation Program Domestic Coral Reef Conservation Grants	$50,000
Coral reef preservation.
FY13-14 CRCP State and Territorial Coral Reef Conservation Cooperative Agreements	$500,000
Coral reef preservation. Yeah. Just like the grant before this, except ten times more.
Fiscal Year 2013 NOAA Gulf of Mexico Bay-Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) Program	$100,000
This is money for "an environmental education program that promotes locally relevant, experiential learning in the K-12 environment."
Species Recovery Grants to States (Section 6 Program)	$600,000
Money to study, count, or design conservation programs for water animals that are endangered, no longer endangered, candidates for the endangered list, or proposed to be candidates to be on the endangered species list. Basically money for anything involving animals in the water.
FY13 Species Recovery Grants to Tribes	$100,000
Just like the previous grant except this is money for American Indian tribes to study, count, or design conservation programs for water animals that are endangered, no longer endangered, candidates for the endangered list, or proposed to be candidates to be on the endangered species list. Basically money for anything involving animals in the water.
BLM CA Conservation Lands Foundation 15.231	$200,000
Unable to decipher the proposal to know what the grant money is for. It is from the Bureau of Land Management. Amusing stipulation in the grant agreement: 7. Increasing Seat Belt Use - Recipients of grants/cooperative agreements and/or sub-awards are encouraged to adopt and enforce on-the-job seat belt use policies and programs for their employees when operating company-owned, rented, or personally owned vehicles. These measures include, but are not limited to, conducting education, awareness, and other appropriate programs for their employees about the importance of wearing seat belts and the consequences of not wearing them.
BLM CA Conservation Lands Foundation 15.225	$200,000
Same as previous grant above.
Cooperative Forest and Resource Management	$100,000
Benefit the public through: woodland restoration fuels reduction ( benefit the public by making them use less fuel? ) watershed and wetlands protection invasive species management ( benefit the public by killing animals? )
Specialized Heavy Vehicle Inspection Study	$90,000
Conduct a study to see if companies that exceed commercial vehicle weight limits violate other safety regulations. Sounds like an excuse to look for more violations.
California Tiger Salamander Larval Density and Survival at Natural and Created Breeding Pools	$20,000+
Part of an 11 year study to create baseline data of the density of California Tiger Salamander larval density and survival in natural and artificial environments. After that, will this be used to dictate land use and environmental policies if densities vary year from year?
Sacramento Orcutt Grass	$25,000
Plant Sacramento Orcutt Grass on several protected sites. Planting Grass!
Today's Crazy Grants Total	$3,852,000+
Today's Grants.gov Total	$77,740,000+

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It's not an Immigration Problem

The American farmers across this country could lose 5 to 9 billion dollars due to a shortage of farm workers.

About 60% of farm workers are illegal immigrants. Georgia anti-immigration laws ( I believe sourcing article means illegal-immigrant laws, big difference ) scared away many illegal immigrants in 2011. Only 7,000 of the available 12,000 jobs were filled.

There is a 30% to 40% drop in available labor force in California.

Criminals Help Curb the Tide of Illegal Immigrants

One reason for the shortage of farm workers is a shortage of illegal immigrants.

Smugglers are charging more to get people into the US. Drug cartels are forcing those choosing to enter the US illegal to traffic drugs. This is hindering peoples decision to enter the US illegally.

Who would have thought that criminals could get people to not break the law?

Solution?

An overhaul of H-2A federal guest worker program is said to be a good solution. Make it quicker and give it a path citizenship. The path to citizenship for the US is way out of hand and does need to be overhauled. It is way too expensive and complicated.

In the meantime, with unemployment in the US over 8% the solution is not to get more legal or illegal immigrants into the country. We need to get Americans working the fields and orchards. Why won't anyone say this?

Instead of the government wasting money on building fake power lines to hunt birds or giving grants to count birds in Mexico, why doesn't the government spend our tax dollars on PSAs announcing picking seasons? Maybe set up a website identifying who needs workers? Maybe just identify websites that have farm jobs.

A google search can help. And I'll do my part. Here are three sites to get started on looking for a farm job:


Farm and Ranch Jobs

There's nothing wrong with an honest days work of hard labor. A day you make a dollar is better than a day wishing you could earn a dollar.

Farm and Ranch Jobs