The states have never delegated to Congress, via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate, tax and spend to study the swimming abilities of fish, government power to address such issues automatically reserved uniquely to the states under the 10th Amendment if the states deem such a study necessary (ahem).
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
The problem is that generations of parents have not been making sure that their children are being taught the federal government's constitutionally limited powers, as the Founding States had meant for those powers to be understood. Consequently, state lawmakers, who are probably as constitutionally clueless as the voters who elected them, don't object when the feds spend money on such things.
Note that if state lawmakers hadn't ratified the ill-conceived 17th Amendment, foolishly giving up the voice of the state legislatures in Congress which was why the Founding States had established the Senate, that federal senators should have killed the HoR bill that appropriated tax dollars for this highly questionable study.
Main point: yes, generations of parents have not taught their children NOTHING, they leave the public schools to deal with that.
Now that generation is running the show!