WSJ Op-Ed on Iowa Pork Forest

(Artist rendering from a Minneapolis Star Tribune Article)

'The Incredible Shrinking Rain Forest: The strange odyssey of Sen. Grassley's earmark' is an Op-Ed in today's WSJ chronicling the sad saga of the Iowa Rainforest:

...Overnight, Iowans found the "Coralville Rain Forest" and its backers the object of ridicule from pork-barrel watchdogs across the political spectrum. The "Iowa Pork Fest" made the network news. This newspaper quipped that for $50 million in federal funds "we could send the whole town on a rain forest vacation." "Build it and they will come" became the new state motto.

As time passed, the spotlight faded. But here in Iowa the struggle to parlay $50 million in federal grant money into a $150 million "world class" environmental-education complex continues. Today, it's worth examining how this particular earmark came about, and why it's failed to make substantial progress on the ground, despite the largess of Mr. Townsend, Mr. Grassley and the American taxpayer...