The Weed Agency (30 page)

“Gee, if only we had spent enormous sums building a giant database network to organize all of the requests and data like Weed.gov—oh, that’s right! We did!” fumed Bader.

“Most notable are the requests that we are legally required to respond to in a timely matter—FOIA requests, budgetary requests, and perhaps most significantly, congressional requests.”

“You son of a bitch!” Bader gasped. “You’re going to blame us!”

“Put simply, we and every other agency within the federal government must respond to every congressional request and without delay; to ignore any one of them is to risk being found in contempt of Congress,” Humphrey said, pausing to shake his head in regret.

Javier Puga piped up with a line of questioning that seemed all too perfect, almost rehearsed: “Mr. Humphrey, it sounds like you’re saying that congressional oversight, designed to ensure efficiency and service to the people, is one of your primary obstacles to achieving efficiency and service to the people.”

“Absolutely!” exclaimed Humphrey. “We face severe consequences for failing to respond to a congressional request for information, assistance, or almost any other request; we face significantly lesser consequences for failing to respond to a request from a member of the general public. I wish it were otherwise, the folly of this system has been abundantly clear since my first day at the agency, but to change it, we would need to change the culture of Capitol Hill.”

“This is like watching scapegoating jujitsu,” Lisa marveled from the audience.

“Undoubtedly, our agency needs to develop a better system of processing information about invasive species,” Humphrey continued. “I would prefer a system that included less stove-piping of information through particular channels.”

Commissioner Caleb Lyon cleared his throat, and underneath the desk kicked Beane, who had closed his eyes and was not discernibly awake. “Mr. Humphrey, could you please give
us a sense of how you envision a system that has less … ‘stove-piping,’ as you describe it?”

“It would be wise to think of these incoming reports of weeds, bugs, and other invasive species as intelligence, not data,” Humphrey said. “Data just gets stored somewhere; intelligence is meant to be acted upon,” and the septuagenarians and octogenarians on the commission nodded. “Secondly, perhaps we need a separate director whose job would be to focus particularly on which invasive weed species represent immediate threats to our communities.”

Puga piped up again: “It sounds like you think your agency would be helped if you had a … a director of weed intelligence.”

“Indeed, Congressman,” Humphrey smiled.

“A DWI,” Carrington scoffed.

There was an audible “OW!” from outside the chamber; no one inside the hearing room knew that it was produced by Nick Bader punching a wall and breaking a finger bone.

SEPTEMBER 2007

U.S. National Debt: $9 trillion

The Washington hearing had been of limited use to the commission—the networks cut away as soon as Humphrey began his forty-nine-minute soliloquy about the unpredictable nature of wind patterns on the U.S.-Mexican border. But the field hearing in California was, in retrospect, a mistake.

Lyon felt the commission needed to hear from those most directly impacted by the cheatgrass epidemic, so the members were flown out to Southern California to meet with farmers. He arranged so that the members would travel together as a group—even all going in the same van, driven by the commissioner himself—in an effort to build camaraderie and teamwork.

The morale of the commission had steadily declined from the beginning. Puga and Carrington treated the work as mortal combat, and could barely stand to be in the same room with each other. As commissioners, they were learning to loathe and detest each other in ways that they never had as colleagues in the House. Meanwhile, the pace and duration of the workload began to wear on the Four Fogeys; they were starting to repeat questions, lose focus, and nod off in meetings more regularly. Lyon began to wonder what would happen if one keeled over before the commission finished its work, and how to handle any 3–3 splits in their assessments.

The field hearing in Temecula, California, had started off well enough, with detailed descriptions of how the farmers had dealt with cheatgrass in the past and how and why the 2006 growing season had differed so dramatically. But only twenty minutes passed before one farmer had asked the commissioners about the possibility of a “federal compensation fund,” and with that door open, every subsequent witness followed. The cost of the cheatgrass losses described by the witnesses suddenly jumped in comparison to the written testimony submitted before the hearing.

What was scheduled to be a two-hour hearing turned into four and a half hours of farmers explaining why the federal government, or somebody, really owed them several hundred thousand dollars to make up for everything. Lyon entered the hearing with high hopes of encountering “real” Americans—humble, plainspoken, salt-of-the-earth family farmers who would be a refreshing change from the blame-shifting bureaucrats they had interviewed in Washington. Instead, he found the collection of witnesses to be surprisingly high with whiners and grifters.

The air conditioning in the van was weakening, they had made several wrong turns, and the flight back to Washington
was a redeye. Puga had complained about the amenities every step of the way, and he seethed that Carrington had upgraded himself. Carrington had remarked that the exorbitant cost of the first-class ticket was worth it, just for the opportunity to remind Puga that he was not permitted to use the first-class bathroom.

“Could you please turn the vents on the air conditioning so that they reach the backseats?” snarled Puga.

Carrington looked like he was adjusting the vents, and perhaps moved them one degree closer to the center, between the front seats.

“The air conditioning is weak, it doesn’t matter which way the vents are pointing!” Carrington shot back.

“I wouldn’t know, because you’ve had the center vent pointed at yourself this whole trip!” Puga spat.

“What, are you guys twelve?” groused Lyon, fairly certain he was supposed to make that last turn to get back to the airport; he wondered why all the intersections had
NO U TURNS
signs.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Puga said. “Just like a spoiled elitist to hog all of the air conditioning for himself!”

“Oh, look, the hothead full of hot air can’t take the heat!” sniped Carrington. “I’m so shocked that you’re complaining, because it’s not like you’ve spent your entire legal career complaining, and your entire congressional career complaining, and all of your time on this commission complaining!”

“I’m only complaining because of injustices perpetrated by the likes of you and your right-wing friends! If you guys hadn’t started all this by—”

“I DON’T CARE WHO STARTED IT, I WILL TURN THIS VAN AROUND RIGHT NOW!” bellowed an irate Lyon. “NOW SHUT UP, THE BOTH OF YOU, FOR THE REST OF THIS TRIP!”

The remainder of the car ride was quiet, except for the snoring of two of the Four Fogeys.

After the California trip, the draft report came about surprisingly quickly. Even Puga was willing to acknowledge a long litany of missed warnings, lackadaisical response, communications breakdowns between field offices and headquarters, and a general culture of complacency that ensured the agency’s response would not meet the challenge of the cheatgrass outbreak.

Puga argued that the solution was additional staffers to “facilitate communications and ensure proper prioritization,” while Carrington wanted to clean house as far and wide as possible.

Lyon pushed the two to adopt a multistep process: dismiss the upper management to ensure accountability; bring in new managers to audit the operations to figure out where to cut the fat and ensure the clearest, most direct lines of communication; and then possibly make staff additions based on the needs.

The receptionist at the commission offices buzzed Lyon, and told him he had a visitor.

It was Humphrey.

Humphrey entered, nodded, and stood before Lyon’s desk.

“I am … preparing my exit from the agency,” Humphrey announced.