At no point did the eradication program end. In 23-24 Biden’s USDA quadrupled funding to the Panama facility producing sterile flies. The facility had been underfunded for years (/wave Trump1) and at some point during Covid lost contain of the Darian Gap, officially reaching “we fucked up” thresholds in 2022.
Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
It’s the now classic answer to “Why is this happening now?” Trump fucked it up, Biden tried to fix it without any sense of urgency because he just assumed he’d get eight years, and then Trump came back and fucked it up again.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
I would say funding it at 4x is pretty urgent
Folstar@lemmus.org 1 week ago
Sadly, no. That response in 2018-2021 would have been urgent, appropriate. By waiting until 2023 when reports were coming out in '21 that the Darian Gap was failing and '22 that it had failed, Biden did in fact drop the ball. The administration chose to try to work with/through Central American governments who, frankly, hadn’t dealt with screwworms in over a generation and were poorly equipped or completely clueless. Also, it’s worth noting, this facility was relatively inexpensive to operate at less than $20M/year. We had a beautiful system in place but Republican ignorance and Democrat pussyfooting has put us in a terrible position. The sunbelt population boom of the last 50 years was not just about AC.
Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Biden was inaugurated in '21. Why did it take multiple years for that funding to be budgeted?
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
Maybe you don’t remember, but before Trump, we didn’t accept presidential rule by decree
kunaltyagi@programming.dev 1 week ago
I’d assume at least 10x was asked, and it took years for the funding to arrive