California Board of Geology Terminated in New Budget Deal

As a result of the new California State Budget, the Geology Board is slated to be terminated.

The termination of the Geology Board and transfer of its authorities to the Board of Professional Engineers and Surveyors is on page 26 of the final State Budget

http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/Enacted/BudgetSummary/FullBudgetSummary.pdf

This appears to be a significant detriment to the professional practice of geology in the State of California.

According to the Geology Board, they aren’t sure that it’s a done deal yet, and they recommend that you contact your local representatives if you’d like to protest this decision. The Geology Board plans to continue to operate business as usual until they hear otherwise.

Monitoring the Stimulus

Monitoring is an important aspect of practice for engineering geologists, geologists, engineers, and other geoscientists. It is often a key component of our designs and solutions and as most owners know, it can be a bit pricey at times.

Now my goal is to keep this blog politically neutral, though I will happily discuss issues of potential interest to Arizona AEG members, other AEG members, and the rest of the people who follow this blog. I missed the speech by President Obama to a joint-session of Congress the other day and I missed the Republican response. It seems that a part of the Republican Response by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal included specific mention of the inclusion of 'volcano monitoring' in the Stimulus bill that we've heard so much about. Apparently he mentioned it as a waste of tax-payer money.

This has raised a bit of an uproar from people in the geologic community. This response at the Magma Cum Laude blog takes Governor Jindal to task on the issue. This response by the Green Gabbro blog discusses how volcanic hazard monitoring does create jobs and stimulate the economy (in addition to being a good idea). There are many more responses linked at the Magma Cum Laude blog. I can't help but wonder if Governor Jindal considers hurricane monitoring a waste of tax payer money.

Anyway, I found this unfortunate example of science becoming political (an all too common thing these days) that may be of interest to those following this blog.

Edit: I just heard from a friend of mine who works at the Hawaii Volcanoes Observatory (HVO). His response - 'Governor Jindal has done more volcanic hazard awareness in 15 seconds than the USGS has done in 15 years'. Perhaps it was all a bit of reverse psychology.

Presidential Candidates Respond to Science Survey

AEG, through its membership with American Geological Institute, participated in the Scientists & Engineers for America Coalition (SEA). SEA submitted a series of questions to the candidates specific to science and technology. Click the link below to see each candidate's response. If the link does not work, copy and paste it in your browser.

http://sharp.sefora.org/innovation2008/compare/race/president/2008/

And a bit more information at Arizona Geology.