McClatchy reports that doom is descending on America in the form of a plague of bedbugs:

The biggest bedbug outbreak since World War II has sent a collective shudder among apartment dwellers, college students and business travelers across the nation. The bugs — reddish brown, flat and about the size of a grain of rice — suck human blood.

But speaking of bloodsuckers, government bureauweenies are on the case:

Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield just introduced legislation that would authorize $50 million that’s already in the Department of Commerce budget to train health inspectors how to recognize signs of the insects.

The Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2009 also would require public housing agencies to submit bedbug inspection plans to the federal government. It would add bedbugs to a rodent and cockroach program in the Department of Health and Human Services. It also would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research bedbugs’ impact on public mental health.

It doesn’t take much to upset the mental health of Democrats’ constituents. The EPA has gotten involved too, by holding a “bedbug summit.”

The EPA comes up again in paragraph 21 of the 22-paragraph article, where we discover what caused the bedbug outbreak:

Since the EPA restricted the use of several effective pesticides in the 1980s, bedbugs have built resistance to the chemicals that now are on the market, said [Michael] Potter, [a] University of Kentucky entomologist.

Surprise: this problem that bureaucrats want to spend $millions of our money to solve was caused by bureaucrats. It’s reassuring to know that Big Government is always there to hand you a crutch at your own expense after breaking your leg.

On a tip from Franco. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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