How can a grant be both fantastic, and a needless waste?

If it’s this one:

A group of law schools will help expand an online U.S. Supreme Court database so that it reaches back to the court's first recorded decision in 1792.

The schools received an $874,000 National Science Foundation grant in September to begin the four-year project, which will add 19,675 cases to a database that now extends from the Court's 1953 term through 2008, said Lee Epstein, a professor at Northwestern University School of Law. The group will post 4,400 cases by next summer and add more in installments each year, she said.

The other schools involved are the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Washington University Law School, Michigan State University College of Law and the political science departments at Princeton University and Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, N.Y.

Source: Law.com - Law Schools Help Extend U.S. Supreme Court Database to 1792

It’s fantastic that this grant was awarded.  It’s a needless waste because the government should have set this up already.

That said, I noted that my very own Michigan State University is involved.  Go Spartans!  (But why the hell haven’t I heard about it from the school?)