President Obama is waging an expensive war against Asian carp, the Associated Press reports.
The Obama administration will spend about $50 million this year to shield the Great Lakes from greedy Asian carp, including first-time water sampling to determine whether the destructive fish have established a foothold in Lakes Michigan and Erie, officials said Thursday. …
The federal government has already budgeted more than $100 million over the past two years in the fight against bighead and silver carp. They were imported from Asia decades ago and have migrated up the Mississippi River and its tributaries since escaping from fish farms and sewage lagoons in the Deep South. They have infested the Illinois River, which leads to Lake Michigan. …
Some funding for the Asian carp program has come from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a federal plan to fix the region's biggest environmental problems. President Barack Obama has requested $300 million for the program in 2013 on top of $1 billion appropriated since 2008.