Bleeding Heartland - Energy

MidAmerican drops plans for nuclear power plant (updated)

desmoinesdem — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:15:00 GMT

Bullet dodged: MidAmerican Energy announced yesterday that it will not pursue plans to build a new nuclear power plant in Iowa. Details are in this front-page story in today's Des Moines Register. MidAmerican was conducting a three-year feasibility study (paid for by its customers) and had considered sites in Fremont and Muscatine counties for a nuclear power plant. However, utility officials determined that federal officials have not approved the modular design MidAmerican wanted to build. (They can't say they weren't warned.)

I encourage you to click through and read the whole Register article by Perry Beeman and William Petroski. Excerpts are after the jump. Thanks to the environmental organizations and AARP, which fought MidAmerican's efforts to bill ratepayers in advance for building a nuclear power plant. Legislation toward that end cleared the Iowa House in 2011 and an Iowa Senate committee the following year but never came up for a vote in the full Senate amid strong Democratic opposition.

Last month MidAmerican announced a planned $1.9 billion investment in wind energy, which "will add up to 1,050 megawatts of wind generation and up to 656 new wind turbines in Iowa by year-end 2015."

UPDATE: MidAmerican's feasibility study is online here (pdf). The company's official statement and excerpts from Dar Danielson's report for Radio Iowa are now after the jump.

SECOND UPDATE: Added local reaction from Joe Jarosz's report for the Muscatine Journal.
"MidAmerican decides against Iowa nuclear plant," from the June 4 Des Moines Register:

The utility has decided against building any major power plant. That's because there is no approved design for the modular nuclear plant it envisioned, and there are too many questions about limits on carbon emissions from a natural gas plant, the company said.
"We opted for what was in the best interest of our customers," MidAmerican vice president for regulatory affairs Dean Crist told The Des Moines Register. [...]
The lack of an approved design for the new plants is another major reason few reactors are expected to be built in the next decade.
MidAmerican will ask the Iowa Utilities Board to approve a refund and cancel on July 1 the special charge ratepayers paid for the study. The utility collected $14.2 million over several years, and it will return the $8.8 million it didn't spend on the site and market analysis, tests, and the like.
The money would be refunded over a year, beginning in August.
MidAmerican plans to let its land options expire, and will sell a couple of Muscatine County properties it bought for soil tests.
Crist said it probably will be toward the end of this decade before the utility takes another hard look at a major power plant project.

Statement posted on MidAmerican's webiste:

MidAmerican Energy Announces Iowa Nuclear Feasibility Assessment Results
DES MOINES, Iowa - (June 4, 2013) - MidAmerican Energy Company has completed its nuclear feasibility study and is sharing the results with Iowa regulators, local officials, landowners and the media. MidAmerican Energy also is proposing to refund a substantial amount of the funds collected to conduct the assessment.
The nuclear feasibility study, which has been underway since 2010, resulted in several conclusions: (1) there are viable sites in Iowa that are potentially acceptable for a nuclear generation facility; (2) new small modular reactors can be a cost-effective alternative to other forms of generation when carbon emissions are constrained or taxed; and (3) new nuclear technologies will offer significantly enhanced safety capabilities. The study also concluded that it is premature, given the uncertainty of carbon regulation and the extensive regulatory review for new nuclear reactor designs, to immediately pursue any additional site work on a future generation option, including a nuclear facility.
The assessment was submitted to the Iowa Utilities Board on June 3. Because MidAmerican Energy effectively managed costs and completed the assessment ahead of schedule, the company has requested the Iowa Utilities Board approve a plan that allows MidAmerican Energy to refund $8.8 million of the funds collected from its Iowa customers and to stop collecting the half-percent charge for the assessment, effective July 1, three months earlier than planned. The refund and elimination of the half-percent charge for the nuclear assessment will result in a slight decrease in Iowa customers' bill amounts starting this summer.
In 2010, MidAmerican Energy worked with state regulators, the Office of Consumer Advocate and political leaders to enact a law that authorized an assessment of nuclear generation potential in Iowa. The assessment began in 2010. Since that time, MidAmerican Energy identified various sites that met rigorous nuclear regulatory requirements throughout the state and eventually narrowed the locations to two sites for additional testing. In fall 2012, soil and environmental assessments were taken in Fremont and Muscatine counties to assess land suitability in the event a determination was made to develop a generation facility.
Based on the assessment's results, no land in Iowa will be purchased by MidAmerican Energy at this time to develop a nuclear generation facility. MidAmerican Energy's land options in Fremont County will expire, and the company will not pursue an extension on its land options in Muscatine County. The two rural residences that MidAmerican Energy currently owns in Muscatine County will be put up for sale later this year.
MidAmerican Energy will continue to assess and review all sources of generation in order to continue finding ways to serve its customers and remain a low-cost energy provider. MidAmerican Energy's recent announcement to build additional wind generation is one example of how the company is pursuing options to keep future costs down for customers. If approved by the Iowa Utilities Board, the wind expansion will reduce future customer rates by $10 million a year in 2017, starting with a $3.3 million reduction to customer rates in 2015.
MidAmerican Energy Company, Iowa's largest energy company, provides electric service to 734,000 customers and natural gas service to 714,000 customers in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and South Dakota. It is headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa. Information about MidAmerican Energy is available on the company's website, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages, which can be accessed via www.midamericanenergy.com.

From Dar Danielson's report for Radio Iowa:

He says they also found a nuclear plant could compete with a natural gas plant if a carbon tax is in place. Crist says they looked at all those factors in deciding whether to take the next step.
"What we chose to do at the end here is to pause while environmental regulations take on more certainty - so we know what those are - natural gas prices, those sort of things. We feel it is appropriate to end the study now and not continue on with further development at this time," Crist says.
Crist says it will likely be several years before the company makes any decision on building either a new natural gas or nuclear plant.
"I think it'll be closer to the end of this decade before we decide what to build," Crist says. "As we get more clarity around environmental regulations, as we get more clarity around natural gas supplies and related costs, all that will feed into the analysis of what's best interest of customers."

SECOND UPDATE: Joe Jarosz reported from Wilton in Muscatine County,

Dianne Glenney of Wilton helped found the group Saving America's Farmland and Environment, which is opposed to constructing a nuclear plant on Muscatine County farmland. She said she let out a big sigh of relief when she heard MidAmerican's announcement.
"Safety was always our top priority," Glenney said, adding that the lives of Wilton residents were far more important than any potential economic impact on her community. "Any accident would've wiped out five million acres." [...]
When reached for comment Tuesday, Scott Sauer, a member of the Muscatine County Board of Supervisors, said he had not read the press release yet, but said his position has never wavered. Sauer believes companies like MidAmerican Energy should use old power plant sites before considering building new plants, encouraging companies to do so with tax incentives to rebuild on those sites.
"I don't want to see new construction on new sites and take existing agriculture ground out of commission," Sauer said. "I never understood why they would do that."
Jeff Kaufmann of Wilton is a former Republican state legislator and current member of the Cedar County Board of Supervisors. He said that even with Tuesday's news, MidAmerican Energy continued to show poor communication skills with the public.
"All the major stakeholders (legislators, board of supervisors, members of S.A.F.E), MidAmerican didn't have the courtesy to call, and made them read about it through a press release," Kaufmann said, adding he even heard a rumor that the company conducted the feasibility study to receive the rate increase they were given. "I hope they did not put the community through this just so they would have a narrative to justify a rate increase."
Kaufmann, who has worked with S.A.F.E., said Glenney and the group are a model for the community and has his utmost respect. He said that at the beginning of the study, he didn't know a lot about nuclear energy but learned much from the group.

I wish Kaufmann had educated himself more about nuclear energy before voting for the bill MidAmerican was pushing in 2011.

Latest IA-Sen news: taxes, spending, and problem solving

desmoinesdem — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:15:00 GMT

Time for another discussion thread on the race for Iowa's open U.S. Senate seat. Recent news on the campaign is after the jump.
So far two Republicans have confirmed plans to seek the Senate seat. Former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker's campaign website is up and running. He plans a formal announcement on June 3.

Earlier this month, Ames attorney Paul Lunde said he plans to run as well. Best known as the Republican challenger to Representative Neal Smith in 1992, Lunde is unlikely to become a factor in the GOP primary.

I haven't heard any news lately about Senator Chuck Grassley's staffer David Young, who has been talking with Iowa Republicans about the race.

Secretary of State Matt Schultz traveled to Washington last week to talk about a possible Senate bid. State Senator Joni Ernst and former State Representative Rod Roberts told the Omaha World-Herald's Andrew Nelson that "they would also likely travel to Washington as they decide whether to enter the race."

Ernst, who served as the Montgomery County auditor for six years before winning a special election to the Iowa Senate in January 2011, said she planned to decide soon but didn't know when and needed to consult with a wide range of people before she does.
"I look at the federal government and where we are in the United States today, and I see out-of-control spending and a huge deficit," Ernst said. "I would really like to focus my efforts in that area."

Memo to Ernst: in reality, the federal deficit is falling much faster than the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office previously estimated. The important task for Congress now is to "not blow it and keep the recovery on track"--that is, not to starve the economy with too much austerity.

One sign that Ernst is leaning toward running: she changed her mind about raising Iowa's gasoline tax. Mike Wiser reported on May 15,

State Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Red Oak, said her potential bid to replace Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin in the Senate weighed on her mind when she decided to pull her support from the controversial tax increase.
"I think so, when we look at Iowa as a whole," Ernst said. "I tend to focus on my district, but we do have to look at the big picture."
She said the fuel tax may have benefited her rural southern Iowa district, especially if the formula was figured differently, "but we get such a small percentage of any increase that (a fuel tax hike is) not worth it unless we see reductions in other areas." [...]
Ernst said she agreed to support the fuel tax increase if there was movement on property tax reform, but that's been holed up in conference committee. She said the state already is spending more money than it did last year and still not offering substantial tax relief.
"Right now, we're looking at an increase of over 3 percent from general fund dollars, but when you look at one-time money being spent, you're looking at over a 6 percent increase in spending, and I can't do that in good conscience," she said. "I think fuel tax is off the table right now."

Republicans could do a lot worse than Ernst as a nominee, and I'm not the only Democrat who thinks so. On Monday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee called attention to her past support for a gas tax hike.

"Joni Ernst had no problem raising taxes on all Iowans before she was considering running for Senate, and Iowans deserve better than someone whose personal political ambition is the most important aspect of her decision-making process," committee spokesman Justin Barasky said. "The truth is, Joni Ernst has been championing a tax increase on Iowa's middle-class families and probably saw polling showing that's a really bad idea. What else will Joni Ernst suddenly have a change of heart on now that she has national aspirations?"
For years, lawmakers have debated raising the state's fuel tax, which has not increased since 1989 and is set at 22 cents. A commission appointed by Gov. Terry Branstad recommended last year an increase of 8 to 10 cents, plus boosts in certain fees to pay for a backlog of road repairs. [...]
On Monday, Ernst said she changed her mind on the tax because the state is doing much better financially than it once was.
"After years of mismanagement by Democratic governors, we now have a healthy surplus in the state," she said. "I think there are other ways to pay for road repairs than raising taxes."

She's wrong about "mismanagement"; Iowa finished the 2010 and 2011 fiscal years in surplus, based on budgets passed by a Democratic legislature and signed by Governor Chet Culver. But Iowa Republicans will continue to push their false narrative through the next election cycle.

It's no surprise that Ernst supported the gas tax increase; quite a few Republicans representing rural districts saw that policy as a way to improve crumbling farm to market roads. But the major interest groups that have lobbied for the policy, such as road builders and the Iowa Farm Bureau, have less influence in a statewide race than they do at the Iowa capitol.

Representative Bruce Braley still appears likely to be unchallenged for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. Last week his campaign launched the "Iowa Problem Solver" website to showcase how "Bruce Braley fights for common sense solutions and gets things done for Iowa" as a member of Congress since 2007. So far, featured posts have highlighted how Braley:

worked to keep Iowa air traffic control towers open;

wrote legislation that "gave employers a payroll tax cut if they hired someone who was unemployed for more than 60 days";

helped pass language providing tax credits "to businesses that hire previously unemployed veterans and veterans returning from service abroad";

fought to keep student loan interest rates low;

created a "worker training program for renewable energy jobs";

secured federal funds to rebuild two railroad bridges destroyed by the 2008 floods;

helped make the adoption tax credit permanent;

fought to pass the "bipartisan farm bill" last year;

helped changed Medicare reimbursement rates for Iowa health care providers (as part of the 2010 health care reform law);

pushed for federal funds to help "enforce traffic laws that punish reckless drivers for illegally passing stopped school buses;

worked to change regulations that would have hurt a Marshalltown manufacturer;

fought to keep rural post offices open;

and "worked to give farmers a voice at the EPA." (Bleeding Heartland took a less favorable view of that "problem solving.")

Final note: For whatever reason, Buzzfeed's Benny Johnson and Kate Nocera ranked Braley number 13 on their list of "biggest Bros" of Congress.

Any comments about the Senate race are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: With the Boy Scouts about to vote on whether to allow LGBT scouts and leaders to participate, Braley continues to urge supporters to sign his campaign's petition to lift the Boy Scouts' ban on gay youth and parents. These progressive issue-based petitions are a good list-building tactic for the Braley campaign in the absence of primary competition or a Republican candidate to define yet.

At least one Bleeding Heartland reader was polled this week by Quinnipac, asking about Ernst, Whitaker and Republican Party of Iowa chair A.J. Spiker as potential Senate candidates. Anyone else receive the same polling phone call?

Bruce Braley explains his support for Keystone XL

desmoinesdem — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:45:00 GMT

Last week, Representative Bruce Braley (D, IA-01) voted for a bill that would force the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. He did not send out any press release explaining that vote.

A Bleeding Heartland reader contacted Braley about his support for Keystone XL and shared the congressman's reply. I've posted it after the jump, along with information challenging some of Braley's assertions.

Hi [name],
I understand your concerns regarding the Keystone XL pipeline project. This is an important issue and I'm glad you have shared your views with me.
As you know, pipeline infrastructure is not only a key component of transporting energy, but an opportunity for job creation. The Keystone XL Pipeline, which was supported by a majority of Iowans in a recent Pew Charitable Trusts survey, would provide Iowans with $465 million in wages and benefits over the next 25 years.
With 41,110 miles of pipeline running through every one of our state's 99 counties, Iowans are no strangers to pipeline infrastructure. With our own state in mind, I have supported Keystone XL as long it meets all environmental and safety requirements, and it's done with the input of people living in the affected area.
While Keystone XL will be good for our economy, I voted for a number of amendments to improve the bill, including amendments that would require TransCanada to offset any additional greenhouse gas emissions, require the President to sign off on air protection plans, and that would keep oil transported through Keystone XL in the U.S. for domestic purposes. I also voted for amendments to require the courts to deal with property rights issues before construction begins and allow individuals to go to court in the most appropriate circuit if they feel their private property has been infringed upon.
I also support improvements that would ensure that Native American tribes and cultural and sacred sites are protected, require that the Secretary of Transportation deem the infrastructure safe before a pipeline is built, and guarantee that Keystone XL will reduce gas prices for Americans.
Finally, the U.S. State Department recently performed an Environmental Impact Study, concluding that construction of the Keystone Pipeline would not have a significant impact on global warming, as refusing pipeline construction will have no impact on the amount of oil extracted from Canadian oil sands. While this study carries weight, I also am doing what I can to make sure this is indeed the case - such as supporting the amendments requiring that any additional greenhouse gas emissions be offset. I will continue to weigh this issue, and help make sure that we are doing what's best for Iowa's economy, but doing it in the most thoughtful ways.
Thank you for contacting me.

A few points are worth remembering:

Independent analysts dispute the job creation estimates offered by supporters of Keystone XL.

The State Department's draft supplemental environmental impact statement on Keystone XL has some glaring problems:

Experts who helped draft the report had previously worked for TransCanada, the company looking to build the Keystone pipeline, and other energy companies poised to benefit from Keystone's construction. State released documents in conjunction with the Keystone report in which these experts' work histories were redacted so that anyone reading the documents wouldn't know who'd previously hired them. Yet unredacted versions of these documents obtained by Mother Jones confirm that three experts working for an outside contractor had done consulting work for TransCanada and other oil companies with a stake in the Keystone's approval.

Incredibly, statistician David Malitz found that the State Department's draft supplemental environmental impact statement failed to calculate the expected size and rate of oil spills per pipeline mile per year. Spills like the one in Arkansas, which recently made national news, would be extremely costly in economic and health terms. Malitz found

that based upon reported historical industry experience, we would expect about 1.9 spill incidents per year from the 875 mile proposed pipeline, with an average total spill volume per year of 805 barrels (almost 34,000 gallons). About 1/8 of these incidents on average (0.126) would be "large" (the SEIS classified spills of 1,000 to 20,000 barrels as "large").
Over a longer time span, say a decade, we would expect about 19 spill incidents with an aggregate spill volume of about 8,000 barrels, enough to fill about half of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. We would expect about 1.3 of these spills to be "large," which means that on average we would expect a "large" spill to occur about once every 8 years or so. Clearly, based upon reported historical industry performance, spills in general and large spills in particular would not be a rare occurrence for the proposed pipeline.

Braley did support the amendments he cited above, which were intended to protect the environment, public safety, public health, and property rights. He failed to mention that the House Energy and Commerce Committee rejected every single one of those amendments. Braley then voted to approve the bill anyway (pdf containing roll call). Most of the Democrats on the committee opposed the bill.

Braley claims to support "improvements that would ensure that Native American tribes and cultural and sacred sites are protected," but there is no record of his vote on a rejected amendment that would have done so. He also did not vote on a failed amendment that would have delayed implementation of the bill "unless the Energy and Commerce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives finds that operation of the Keystone XL pipeline is projected to reduce gasoline prices in the United States." (Supporters don't want to admit that Keystone XL is likely to increase domestic gasoline prices.)

Braley supports keeping tar sands oil transported through Keystone XL in the U.S., but even supporters of the pipeline admit that much of the oil would be exported after being processed in American refineries.

Braley writes in the e-mail posted above, "I have supported Keystone XL as long it meets all environmental and safety requirements, and it's done with the input of people living in the affected area." But the bill he voted for would explicitly shut down any further environmental and safety reviews before the pipeline is built.

Braley writes that he supports "amendments requiring that any additional greenhouse gas emissions be offset." Any such amendment is doomed to fail when the full House of Representatives considers this bill, probably sometime next month. In any case, there is no realistic way to offset emissions on this scale: "The 181 million metric tons of (CO2e) from Keystone XL is equivalent to the tailpipe emissions from more than 37.7 million cars."

A different Bleeding Heartland reader informed me that Braley's staff in Washington told environmental advocates last week that the congressman had "heard a lot" from the Laborers Union and other organized labor voices in support of Keystone XL. The organized labor movement is quick to denounce corporate propaganda regarding certain public policies on wages and benefits. I would like to see more healthy skepticism when corporations exaggerate the number of jobs that could be created by environmentally devastating projects.

IA-01: Swati Dandekar speculation thread

desmoinesdem — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:55:00 GMT

Former State Representative and State Senator Swati Dandekar is reportedly considering a bid for the open first Congressional district seat.
Dandekar was elected twice to the Linn-Mar school board and later served three terms in the Iowa House, representing a suburban Linn County district. In 2008 she was elected to an open Iowa Senate seat covering Marion and other parts of the Cedar Rapids suburbs. She resigned before the end of her first term to accept Governor Terry Branstad's appointment to the Iowa Utilities Board, throwing control of the Iowa Senate in jeopardy.

Democrat Liz Mathis ended up winning the 2011 special election for Dandekar's seat. In retrospect, many Democrats would consider that an upgrade, since Mathis was barely challenged in her 2012 re-election bid and (unlike Dandekar) is not considered one of the conservatives in the Senate Democratic caucus.

James Q. Lynch reported for the Cedar Rapids Gazette yesterday that there's a "coming soon" notice on the website SwatiDandekarforIowa.com. He quoted Dandekar's friend and former campaign treasurer, Charlie Kress, as saying "a lot of people are pushing" Dandekar to run for the open Congressional seat.

Kress has met with the Dandekars to discuss a congressional campaign. He believes Dandekar is interested, but probably won't announce her candidacy until late summer or fall. In the meantime, she's fielding calls from people within the 20-county district as well as politicos in Washington, Kress said.

Speaking to Lynch, former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge put a positive spin on a Dandekar candidacy:

"She's certainly proven in the past to be a good campaigner and a better fundraiser than many," Judge said. "She has the capacity to put a campaign together and it would be great to have her in the race.
"She would be a strong candidate, a moderate Democrat who has been true to her convictions and the people she represented," Judge said. [...]
For Judge, part of Dandekar's appeal is her potential to break the glass political ceiling in Iowa. It is one of a handful of states never to elect a woman to Congress.
So Dandekar's gender would be a positive, Judge said.
"I'm certainly interested in finding a strong woman for that seat," Judge said. "The kind of support she could draw, she might be a stronger candidate than people think."

Dandekar did not respond to my request for comment last month about a possible Congressional bid. Todd Dorman is skeptical that she would give up a seat on the Iowa Utilities Board to run for Congress, but I don't think she would need to give up that position during the campaign--only if elected.

I am highly skeptical that Dandekar could win a Democratic primary in IA-01. Linn County has the largest population of the 20 counties, but it doesn't dominate the Congressional district by any means. Many Democrats won't forgive Dandekar for taking a job offer from Branstad when Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal was our main firewall against Branstad's policy agenda.

Environmentally-minded primary voters won't appreciate Dandekar's work to promote Mid-American Energy's nuclear power bill during the 2011 legislative session. The AARP in Iowa also lobbied strongly against the nuclear bill.

Pro-equality Democratic voters won't appreciate Dandekar's 2005 Iowa House vote for a state constitutional amendment that would have banned not only same-sex marriage but also civil unions (read the full text here). The amendment passed the Iowa House by 54 votes to 44, with support from almost all of the Republicans and seven Democrats (Dandekar, Dolores Mertz, Mike Reasoner, Brian Quirk, Wayne Ford, Paul Shomshor, Kurt Swaim).

In fairness to Dandekar, she did not come out for a constitutional amendment on marriage after the Iowa Supreme Court's 2009 decision in Varnum v Brien. Several other Senate Democrats went out of their way at that time to say they opposed same-sex marriage, including Joe Seng, Jack Kibbie, and Tom Hancock. Hancock even signed a discharge petition trying to get a Senate floor vote on a marriage amendment.

Any relevant thoughts are welcome in this thread.

Bruce Braley is no Tom Harkin

desmoinesdem — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 21:45:00 GMT

The breaking news in Iowa politics this afternoon is Senator Tom Harkin "officially" endorsing Representative Bruce Braley for U.S. Senate. Why this is supposed to be newsworthy, I can't explain.

The under-the-radar but more important news is that during a meeting of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week, Braley joined conservative Democrats and all the Republicans to vote for H.R. 3, a bill mandating approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. An Energy and Commerce Committee press release explaining the purpose of this bill is after the jump.

For now let's leave aside the many environmental arguments against building the Keystone XL pipeline, and the big problems with the State Department's draft environmental impact statement on the project.

Braley is smart enough to know that Keystone XL won't create the thousands of jobs proponents claim. In fact, the pipeline is more likely to increase than decrease gasoline prices in the Midwest. Maybe Braley's longstanding support for Keystone XL is a gesture toward the labor unions that support the project, or maybe it's more convenient to vote for fake jobs than to explain why the jobs propaganda is wrong. Most of the House Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee oppose this bill. Braley's companions, aside from the committee Republicans, were John Barrow of Georgia, Gene Green of Texas, and Jim Matheson of Utah. They aren't pro-labor but have extremely poor voting records on the environment, a lot worse than Braley's.

Harkin has always been a strong supporter of organized labor, but he didn't let that cloud his judgment on Keystone XL. He has voted against that project repeatedly, most recently during the Senate's federal budget "vote-o-rama" last month. Iowa will be worse off without Harkin in the Senate.

UPDATE: Corrected the second paragraph to note that Braley voted for this bill when the full Energy and Commerce Committee approved it on April 17, not during the subcommittee meeting the previous day. Corrected the fourth paragraph to note that three other House Democrats supported the bill during the full committee vote. Added more details on the case against this bill after the jump.
House Energy and Commerce Committee press release:

Committee Stands Up for Jobs and Approves Bipartisan Bill to Build Keystone XL Pipeline and Advance North American Energy Independence
April 17, 2013
H.R. 3, Which Will Soon be Considered By the Full House, Will Eliminate Roadblocks to Construction of $7 Billion Jobs and Energy Project
WASHINGTON, DC - The Energy and Commerce Committee today advanced legislation to build the Keystone XL pipeline. H.R. 3, the Northern Route Approval Act, will put an end to years of bureaucratic delays and finally allow construction of the project that would create thousands of American jobs and displace overseas imports with millions of barrels of safe and secure Canadian oil supplies. The committee approved the measure by a bipartisan vote of 30 to 18.
H.R. 3, authored by Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE), will eliminate the need for a Presidential Permit and find that the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) issued by the Secretary of State on August 26, 2011, shall satisfy all NEPA requirements. The legislation addresses all other necessary federal permits and limits legal challenges that could bring further delays. Similar legislation was necessary in the 1970's to achieve construction of the game-changing Alaska pipeline.
"My bill ends the long-drawn out process of delay-by-review and allows us to begin building the Keystone Pipeline. This issue has been studied in-depth. There are more pages of review on the Keystone Pipeline than make up The Bible, War and Peace, Atlas Shrugged, and Obamacare - combined," said Terry. "The scientists at the State Department continue to say that there will be no significant impacts to the environment. There is no reason we should continue the delays. I urge my colleagues to join me in passing H.R. 3 so we can begin building the Keystone Pipeline."
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) added, "The Keystone XL project is a critical component of our North American energy independence plan. The American people have waited patiently for over four-and-a-half years for Keystone's jobs and energy supplies, and this bipartisan bill will finally end the delays of this project once and for all."
"Many people say that this is an exercise in futility because if it passes the House it will never pass the Senate, but I would remind everyone that when the Senate adopted its budget recently, there was an amendment in support of the Keystone pipeline that was approved by a vote of 62-37, with 17 Democrats supporting it," said Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY). "I would urge everyone to support this important bill and help America become more energy independent."
Click HERE to view a list of letters and statements in support for the Northern Route Approval Act.

Statement from Energy and Commerce Committee ranking Democrat Henry Waxman during an April 10 subcommittee hearing on this bill.

Today, this Subcommittee is holding a hearing on legislation to make climate change worse by giving preferential treatment to TransCanada's Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. I believe this would be a terrible mistake.
Step outside today. The temperature is going to be around 90. The normal high temperature for April 10th in the District of Columbia is 65, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This isn't an isolated incident. Last year alone, the United States broke or tied 34,000 high temperature records.
We know climate change is happening now, and the costs are beginning to mount. The Government Accountability Office added climate change to its high risk list, due to the huge financial exposure it poses for the United States. In 2011 and in 2012, our country experienced weather and climate disasters from Hurricane Sandy to droughts to floods to wildfires. These disasters affected our farm lands, communities across the Southwest and West, coastal areas, and other areas all over this country. And if you add up the costs of these disasters, it came to around $188 billion. These disasters aren't over - as climate change worsens, we are going to see even more disasters in the future.
So faced with these threats from climate change, you would expect this Committee, to be holding hearings and trying to work together on legislation. But that's not what we're doing. We won't even hold a hearing on the science of this issue. Look at the record of this Committee. In the last Congress, the House Republicans voted to say that climate change was a hoax. They voted 53 times to block any action on climate change. They voted to defund research. They voted to block action by the EPA to control pollution, to prevent energy efficiency measures from going into effect, and to stop the Administration from encouraging developing countries to do their part to address this serious, global issue.
This is a problem. We've asked the Republicans to hold a hearing with the experts, because they've said over and over again that the science is not clear. But they won't bring in the scientific experts to talk about the matter.
The Republicans say we need North American energy independence. Well that's fine, but as long as we're dependent on oil, and as long as oil prices are set in the world market, we will be vulnerable to oil price spikes, no matter how much oil we produce at home. The real goal is to reduce our dependence on oil altogether. Thanks to President Obama's fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, our oil use is falling. We are shifting to hybrids and electric vehicles. Still, we are going to need oil for the foreseeable future, even though we won't need as much of it.
But why do we need to get our oil from the dirty tar sands of Canada? Just to get the tar sands out of the ground and ready to go through a pipeline takes a huge amount of energy and releases a lot of carbon pollution. This is some of the dirtiest oil in the world, so it makes no sense for us to rush to use more of it. And if we do not agree to import this tar sands oil, Canada won't produce as much of it because they face big difficulties getting it to market.
Some say that if we don't take the tar sands, Canada will send it to China. But they can't get it to the West coast of Canada to take it to China. Instead, they want to take it through the United States in a pipeline, with America bearing all the risks of spills, and then bring it to the Gulf of Mexico, where it will likely be exported anyway.
Pipeline supporters say that because there is demand for oil, the oil will be produced. So whether or not we build Keystone XL, they say, oil companies will expand production in the tar sands. Market economics actually tells us that the most competitive oil will be produced. Tar sands oil is expensive to extract, land-locked, and highly polluting. Producers are already facing lower prices for their product because of transportation constraints. Absent the Keystone XL pipeline, getting tar sands to market will cost more, and tar sands will be less competitive with the alternatives. Those alternatives now include a lot more U.S. shale oil from the Bakken and other areas.
So I think it would be a big mistake to agree to the tar sands pipeline. But this decision is under consideration right now by the State Department. Rather than let them make a deliberate decision, this Committee would like to legislate a special earmark to approve this particular project. No other project is going to get this special treatment. In this Committee, the oil people get special treatment. Those who worry about climate change don't even get a chance to be heard from.
Our job is to do something about serious problems that are going to affect the future of our country, our children, and our grandchildren. This Committee is absent without leave on the issue of climate change.

A report released this week analyzed the "true climate impact" of Keystone XL and found, among other things:

- The 181 million metric tons of (CO2e) from Keystone XL is equivalent to the tailpipe emissions from more than 37.7 million cars. This is more cars than are currently registered on the entire West Coast (California, Washington, and Oregon), plus Florida, Michigan, and New York - combined.
- Between 2015 and 2050, the pipeline alone would result in emissions of 6.34 billion metric tons of CO2e. This amount is greater than the 2011 total annual carbon dioxide emissions of the United States.

Iowa Court Ruling Favors Distributed Generation

greggheide — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 18:25:04 GMT

Today (April 12), Midwest Energy News ran the first coverage I've seen on an Iowa district court ruling in favor of allowing solar installers to install PV systems on a customers property and enter into a power purchase agreement with that customer.While great news, I'll explain why you may not want to get overly excited over this development. I'll apologize in advance for sounding like a grumpy curmudgeon. I'm a fun guy,Really!!

There are reasons I'm sounding glass half empty here. First, this ruling could be appealed (and over turned by a higher court). This happened in 2005 when the Iowa Supreme Court reversed its ruling that required rural electric cooperatives to offer net metering. Let"s hope this recent ruling fares better. Still, as the good folks quoted in the article note, this decision will no doubt influence other court and utility commission rulings around the country. That's good news.

The next reason I'm only moderately excited here is that this ruling only affects one financing method for solar PV, not any of the underlying regulatory changes necessary for its use to become widespread in Iowa. Many Iowans don't have access to net metering or standard interconnection procedures (investor owned utilities only, not RECs and Municipals). They also can't get a fair price for electricity sales. Remember that feed in tariff legislation I've been blogging about? The state Senate Democrats were unable to bring SF372 to the senate floor for a vote. Chalk up another one for the utility lobby. So, if you're dealing with any or all of these issues, you probably don't care much about leasing a PV system. Your potential PV system salesman won't be very interested either.

Also, there are ways to structure a lease agreement without entering into a Power Purchase agreement with your PV salesman. Ideally, leases should also save you money over your current monthly electric bill and eventually enable you the option to own the asset. Leasing does have its place, schools, hospital, and other non-profit entities will be interested for sure.

Finally, my opinion is that third party PPA leasing will be mostly used by customers interconnecting to Alliant energy, a utility with relatively high Iowa retail electric rates, net metering, and standard interconnection procedures. I see this as a continuation of the unequal experience Iowans have when trying build renewable energy systems. Solar installs in Alliant Energy service territory have become fairly easy and will become commonplace. Iowans working with other Iowa utilities could have more difficulties or find out it is almost impossible to build the same system. This unequal treatment for Iowa ratepayers will most likely result in more constituent calls to Iowa legislators to fix these regulatory issues and level the playing field in Iowa. Hopefully Iowa policy advocates will also unite and send a clear message to Iowa legislators about the policy changes Iowa needs to advance locally owned renewable energy. This court ruling should help move our state in the right direction.

Gregg Heide

renewablefarmerblogspot.com

Latest Obama cabinet appointments: Energy and EPA

desmoinesdem — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 13:10:00 GMT

President Barack Obama announced two new cabinet appointments yesterday: Ernest Moniz as secretary of Energy and Gina McCarthy as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. Bleeding Heartland posted background on Moniz and McCarthy here; I've added more information after the jump.

McCarthy has served as the EPA's top air quality official since 2009. Because she is well-qualified for the position and committed to making the country's air cleaner, environmentalists are excited about this choice. I hope that Obama is not merely "promoting a climate change champion" to soften the blow when he approves the KeystoneXL pipeline. The State Department's draft report on KeystoneXL whitewashed the impact that project would have on the environment.

Also yesterday, Obama formally nominated Sylvia Matthews Burwell to be the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. The White House announcement notes, "She served as Deputy Director of the OMB from 1998 to 2001, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff to the President and Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration." UPDATE: I should have added that Burwell is a former president of the Gates Foundation's Global Development Program, and that her most recent job was running the Wal-Mart Foundation.

The president has not yet announced his picks to run the departments of Labor, Transportation, or Commerce.
From Kate Sheppard, Enviros Cheer Obama EPA Pick:

As the assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, McCarthy has helped implement a raft of new or improved national standards for pollutants such as mercury, sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions, and soot, and she oversaw the first-ever limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. [...]
Her appointment to the top spot at EPA is seen by enviros as good news for the future of greenhouse gas regulations. After rolling out emission limits for new power plants last year, the EPA is now expected to set rules for existing power plants-a huge task given the number of old, dirty plants around the country. That's just one item on a long list of environmental regulations that were delayed until after the 2012 election. Now McCarthy will manage the implementation and/or drafting of these regs.
Another reason enviros are cheering McCarthy's appointment is her bipartisan history. Before coming to the EPA, McCarthy worked for Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his undersecretary for environmental policy. After that, she worked for Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell, another Republican.

From Susie Cagle's profile of McCarthy for Grist:

McCarthy is squarely on the side of fighting climate change through sometimes aggressive policy-making. Her work in Massachusetts helped lead to the landmark Supreme Court case in 2007 that gave the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. [...]
The National Journal has a good profile of "pragmatic" but "aspirational" McCarthy and her "ready sense of humor and tough-talking style." [...]
McCarthy has a history of climate action, but also a history of supporting natural gas and oil drilling à la Obama's "all of the above" energy strategy. Industry is a little uncomfortable with McCarthy because of her cozy relationships with environmental causes, but some environmentalists question McCarthy's cozy relationships with industry.

From Grist's backgrounder on Ernest Moniz:

How do environmental groups feel about his nomination?
A charitable way to describe how they feel would be: mixed.
As noted above, his program at MIT receives a lot of money from fossil fuel interests. And Moniz has been unabashed in his advocacy of the use of natural gas as a "bridge" fuel and even some expansion of nuclear power. (You can read his thoughts on the latter here.)
The Hill has a small collection of quotes from disaffected greens, but the better overview comes from Inside Climate News, which has a good article on Moniz's background. It starts with his thoughts on natural gas.
In December, while speaking at the University of Texas at Austin, Moniz warned that while natural gas could reduce carbon emissions by displacing coal-fired electricity, its increasing use could also slow growth in the clean energy sector.
"When it comes to carbon, [natural] gas is part of our solution at least for some time," said Moniz, who served as undersecretary of energy during the Clinton administration. "And we should take advantage of the time to innovate and bring down the cost of renewables. The worst thing w[ould] be is to get time and not use it. And that I'm afraid is where we are."
This isn't incorrect, mind you - natural gas has spurred a drop in carbon emissions and is certainly going to be part of the mix. But it's not something that most environmental organizations are currently championing, especially given the process usually used to extract that gas: fracking.
Moniz has accepted fracking as a necessary-but-unnecessarily-polluting evil.

Weekend open thread: Frightening news

desmoinesdem — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:42:06 GMT

What's on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

To get the conversation started, I've posted some scary or disturbing news after the jump.
The Iowa Supreme Court ruled this week in favor of a husband who wants to bury his wife in Iowa, despite her preference to be buried in Montana. I am not an attorney, but I think the five justices in the majority got this one wrong. She had been separated from her husband for more than 15 years at the time of her death and had appointed her sister as executor of her will.

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday that a 2008 law requires residents to spell out in their health care power of attorney document who they want to handle burial arrangements. If they don't, the decision will fall first to their spouse and then to their children, but they are not required to honor burial wishes.
The court made the ruling in the case of Mary Florence Whalen, who died in June in Anamosa at age 86.
Whalen was visiting Iowa from New Mexico last year, when she became too ill to return home. In Iowa, she stayed with her husband, Michael Whalen, who had separated from her in 1996 and moved to Anamosa.
Two months before she died, in April 2012, Whalen wrote a letter to her 10 children and her sister, Mary Ann McCluskey, the executor of her estate. In the letter, she said she wanted to be buried in Billings, Mont., because she had spent 51 years of her life and raised 10 children there. She said she had already purchased a plot and a casket and left instructions for her burial.
"I just want all of you to know that this is very important to me and because you all love and respect me, I know that you will see that my wishes are carried out," the letter said.
But although Whalen had named her sister executor and detailed the burial wishes in her will, she did not designate anyone to handle burial arrangements on her health care power of attorney declaration.

This poor woman lived in New Mexico toward the end of her life and could not have expected to die in Iowa. She stated her wishes clearly in writing to her sister and her children. How was she supposed to know about an obscure provision in Iowa law, requiring her to designate in her medical power of attorney document a person to handle burial arrangements? I agree with Chief Justice Mark Cady, who wrote in a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Bruce Zager,

"Last wishes are sacrosanct, and every law or statute concerning last wishes has been constructed solidly upon this fundamental, common understanding," he wrote. "This statute did not clearly negate our rich common law that has always protected our last wishes to claim our final resting place."

Incidentally, how big a jerk is her husband for not honoring her wishes? She should have divorced that guy instead of remaining separated for all those years.

Speaking of court rulings, this week the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to individual campaign contribution limits. Technically, the plaintiff is challenging only the limit on how much any one individual can donate collectively to candidates for federal office during a two-year election cycle (not the $5,000 limit on contributions to any one federal campaign during that period). However, in light of the Roberts Five's expansive Citizens United ruling, I would not be surprised to see the same group strike down all federal campaign contribution limits. If that happens, a few individuals writing six-figure or seven-figure checks will more easily be able to buy members of Congress. As Fred Wertheimer writes, the court could "create a system of legalized bribery in Washington."

Todd Dorman's latest column for the Cedar Rapids Gazette tells a sad local story about compulsive gambling. He cites some of the conflicting evidence about whether living in close proximity to a casino increases gambling addiction. I don't think Americans appreciate the huge scope of this problem. The talented former Des Moines Register writer Ken Fuson has spoken publicly and written about how his gambling addiction affected his life. The Linn County election on a proposed casino is in Cedar Rapids is set for March 5. I would vote no if I lived there.

A hospital in Flint, Michigan is getting sued after management honored a request from a man with a swastika tattoo not to assign African-American nurses to care for his infant in the NICU. Apparently it is not unusual for hospitals to honor patients' racist requests.

Fordham University law professor Kimani Paul-Emile said she suspects nurses file more discrimination suits than doctors.
"With nurses and other sorts of staff, the hospital is telling them they can or cannot do something," she said. "That might go to why you might see more lawsuits brought by nurses."
She wrote an article last year in the UCLA Law Review titled "Patients' Racial Preferences and the Medical Culture of Accommodation." It was the source of the "open secrets" phrase.
Paul-Emile's research cited a 2007 study at the University of Michigan Health System and others on how physicians respond to patients' requests to be assigned providers of the same gender, race or religion.
The survey of emergency physicians found patients often make such requests, and they are routinely accommodated. A third of doctors who responded said they felt patients perceive better care from providers of shared demographics, with racial matches considered more important than gender or religion.
"The notion of white patients rejecting minority physicians for bigoted reasons in emergency departments and other hospital settings is deeply troubling and uncomfortably reminiscent of the type of discrimination that the civil rights statutes were designed to eliminate," Paul-Emile wrote in her article.
Another study she cited found that patient requests for care by a physician are most often accommodated when made by racial minority patients.

I wonder how often Iowa hospitals honor such requests.

Robert Draper's cover story for last Sunday's New York Times Magazine should scare the living daylights out of Republicans.

The unnerving truth, which the Red Edge team and other younger conservatives worry that their leaders have yet to appreciate, is that the Republican Party's technological deficiencies barely begin to explain why the G.O.P. has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. The party brand - which is to say, its message and its messengers - has become practically abhorrent to emerging demographic groups like Latinos and African-Americans, not to mention an entire generation of young voters. As one of the party's most highly respected strategists told me: "It ought to concern people that the most Republican part of the electorate under Ronald Reagan were 18-to-29-year-olds. And today, people I know who are under 40 are embarrassed to say they're Republicans. They're embarrassed! They get harassed for it, the same way we used to give liberals a hard time."

I put that part in bold to emphasize that the Democratic advantage with young voters was not inevitable. When I was in high school and college, Republicans did extremely well with my age group. In fact, the first generation after the baby boomers is still the most GOP-leaning age cohort, to my knowledge.

This part of Draper's piece would terrify me if I were a Republican.

The first [focus group] consisted of 10 single, middle-class women in their 20s; the second, of 10 20-something men who were either jobless or employed but seeking better work. All of them voted for Obama but did not identify themselves as committed Democrats and were sufficiently ambivalent about the president's performance that Anderson deemed them within reach of the Republicans. Each group sat around a large conference table with the pollster, while I viewed the proceedings from behind a panel of one-way glass.
The all-female focus group began with a sobering assessment of the Obama economy. All of the women spoke gloomily about the prospect of paying off student loans, about what they believed to be Social Security's likely insolvency and about their children's schooling. A few of them bitterly opined that the Democrats care little about the working class but lavish the poor with federal aid. "You get more off welfare than you would at a minimum-wage job," observed one of them. Another added, "And if you have a kid, you're set up for life!"
About an hour into the session, Anderson walked up to a whiteboard and took out a magic marker. "I'm going to write down a word, and you guys free-associate with whatever comes to mind," she said. The first word she wrote was "Democrat."
"Young people," one woman called out.
"Liberal," another said. Followed by: "Diverse." "Bill Clinton.""Change.""Open-minded.""Spending.""Handouts.""Green.""More science-based."
When Anderson then wrote "Republican," the outburst was immediate and vehement: "Corporate greed.""Old.""Middle-aged white men." "Rich." "Religious." "Conservative." "Hypocritical." "Military retirees." "Narrow-minded." "Rigid." "Not progressive." "Polarizing." "Stuck in their ways." "Farmers."
Anderson concluded the group on a somewhat beseeching note. "Let's talk about Republicans," she said. "What if anything could they do to earn your vote?"
A self-identified anti-abortion, "very conservative" 27-year-old Obama voter named Gretchen replied: "Don't be so right wing! You know, on abortion, they're so out there. That all-or-nothing type of thing, that's the way Romney came across. And you know, come up with ways to compromise."
"What would be the sign to you that the Republican Party is moving in the right direction?" Anderson asked them.
"Maybe actually pass something?" suggested a 28-year-old schoolteacher named Courtney, who also identified herself as conservative.
The session with the young men was equally jarring. None of them expressed great enthusiasm for Obama. But their depiction of Republicans was even more lacerating than the women's had been. "Racist," "out of touch" and "hateful" made the list - "and put '1950s' on there too!" one called out.

When I was in my 20s, the self-identified anti-abortion, conservative young people who thought welfare moms were "set up for life" were voting Republican.

I saved the worst news for last: "Six underground tanks holding radioactive waste are leaking at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in eastern Washington." The reservation is already "America's most contaminated facility." Lacking the technology to safely keep nuclear waste out of groundwater permanently, we should not even be considering building more nuclear power plants.

Iowa Congressional voting on the environment: Not a pretty picture

desmoinesdem — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 16:55:00 GMT

The future of Iowa's Congressional representation is not encouraging, judging from the latest League of Conservation Voters' scorecard.
The League of Conservation Voters recently published its 2012 National Environmental Scorecard (pdf). For every member of Congress, you can find the score for votes taken only in 2012, the score for votes taken during the 112th Congress (2011 and 2012), and the lifetime score for all the years that person has served in Congress.

The League of Conservation Voters scored 14 U.S. Senate votes during 2012. You can find a description of each vote on pages 7 through 11 of the report. Tables showing each senator's total score and action on every significant environmental vote are on pages 12 through 17.

Iowa's Republican Senator Chuck Grassley scored a 14 out of a possible 100 for his votes in 2012. He cast the anti-environment vote on 12 of the scored legislative items. Twice he cast pro-environment votes: once relating to the military's investment in alternative fuels, and another time related to conservation programs on private farmland. Grassley's score for the 112th Congress (that is, the last two years combined) was only 8 out of a possible 100. That's down significantly from his lifetime League of Conservation Voters score of 21. Some Senate Republicans scored even worse than Grassley; a few scored significantly better.

Democratic Senator Tom Harkin's voting on environmental issues has improved lately. He scored 93 percent for 2012, voting the "wrong" way only once, relating to an amendment on genetically-modified farm-raised salmon. Harkin's score was 92 for the 112th Congress, an improvement on his lifetime League of Conservation Voters score of 83.

Harkin's voting record is about average for a Senate Democrat. Quite a few members of the Senate Democratic caucus tied his score of 93 for 2012. Sixteen Senate Democrats voted the anti-environmental position more often than Harkin did in 2012.

Turning to the House of Representatives scores, things start to look really ugly. The report notes that during 2012, the Republican-controlled House "continued its war on the environment, public health, and clean energy throughout 2012, cementing its record as the most anti-environmental House in our nation's history."

The 2012 National Environmental Scorecard includes 35 House votes, which is the same number as in the 2011 Scorecard, but far more than were ever included in any Scorecard before that. These 35 votes are what we consider the most significant House votes on the environment from throughout the year. Many others warranted inclusion and would have been included in a typical year. In fact, all told there were more than a hundred House votes on the environment and public health in 2012. In many cases, only final passage votes are included here, even though lawmakers voted on countless amendments with enormous environmental implications. With rare exception, amendments to improve anti-environmental bills failed, while amendments to make them even worse passed.
Over the course of the year, the U.S. House left virtually no environmental issue untouched. They forced votes on sweeping bills attacking cornerstone environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. One bill to gut the Clean Air Act was so breathtaking it was dubbed "The War on Lungs." There were also countless attempts to promote drilling at all costs, including a bill so brazen it was dubbed "Oil Above All." There was also a ruse of a transportation bill that would have increased our dependence on oil, threatened our coasts and other special places, and legislatively approved the harmful Keystone XL tar sands pipeline while doing nothing to advance a forward-looking transportation policy. There were massive assaults on our natural heritage, including national monuments, national parks, national forests, coastlines, and wildlife such as salmon, sea turtles, and migratory birds. And even as evidence of the growing climate crisis became painfully obvious, a majority in the U.S. House repeatedly voted against efforts to confront it.

Bleeding Heartland covered some of these votes, such as the "Stop the War on Coal Act," backed by four of Iowa's five House members. But even though I try to follow Congressional voting closely, I was shocked by the number of terrible House votes on the environment during 2012.

You can find descriptions of the 35 scored votes on pages 18 through 29 of this pdf file. Charts showing all of the House members' votes on each issue follow; the Iowans' votes are on pages 40 and 41.

I have criticized some environmental scorecards before, because they may count missed votes as anti-environmental votes. This year that didn't affect any Iowan significantly, although it did unjustly lower the score of at least one House Democrat, Louise Slaughter of New York.

As one would expect based on their past voting records, Steve King and Tom Latham back the anti-environmental position almost all of the time. Latham received a score of 6 percent for 2012 and 9 percent for the 112th Congress as a whole. His lifetime League of Conservation Voters score is just 8 percent.

King received a score of 9 for 2012 and for the 112th Congress, but his lifetime score is even lower at 5 percent. The League of Conservation Voters gave both King and Latham credit for supporting the National Flood Insurance program and clean energy funding in 2012, but they voted the "wrong" way on just about everything else.

Leonard Boswell, who lost his re-election bid against Latham in November, has long had the worst environmental voting record among Iowa Democrats in Congress. In 2012, Boswell scored even lower than usual for him, 46 percent. His score for the 112th Congress was 56 out of a possible 100, below his already-poor (for a Democrat) lifetime score of 61. Going through the whole report, I found that only 18 House Democrats had a worse voting record on the environment than Boswell did during 2012.

Once upon a time, Dave Loebsack (IA-02) was a reliable pro-environment vote. Not any longer. In 2012 he had a League of Conservation Voters score of 69; only 27 House Democrats scored worse last year. Loebsack's score for the 112th Congress was 81, causing his lifetime environmental voting record to slide to 87 percent. When Democrats controlled the House, Loebsack wasn't faced with a lot of tough choices on environmental votes. With Republicans in control, he often appears not to want to stick his neck out.

Bruce Braley (IA-01) chalked up the best score in the Iowa delegation with 83 for his environmental votes during 2012. His score for the 112th Congress was 84, not far below his lifetime score of 88. A lot of House Democrats tied Braley's score for 2012, but he's still below average in his caucus. Only 52 House Democrats voted against the environment more often during 2012 than Braley did.

I expect worse environmental voting from Braley going forward, because he's leaving his Congressional district with a partisan voting index of D+5 to run for statewide office in 2014. I expect Loebsack to continue on roughly the same track during the next two years, as he tries to hold his D+4 House seat in a midterm election.

If Braley is elected to the U.S. Senate in 2014, I expect his environmental voting to be comparable to Tom Harkin's lifetime score, rather than Harkin's higher scores from 2011 and 2012.

Any relevant thoughts are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: Iowa's House members missed a handful of votes scored by the League of Conservation Voters last year. Braley was absent when the House voted to instruct conferees to insist on including the Keystone XL oil pipeline in the final version of a transportation bill. Loebsack, Boswell, Latham, and King all supported this motion. Based on Braley's previous public statement supporting KeystoneXL, I assume he also would have cast the anti-environment vote here.

Loebsack was absent when the House defeated an amendment to "reduce funding for fossil fuel research and development programs by $554 million." The League of Conservation Voters considers yes to be the pro-environment vote here, on the grounds that "Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize fossil fuel research when energy companies have every incentive to pay for it themselves. Moreover, taxpayer dollars spent on fossil fuels are resources diverted away from investments in clean energy technologies that do not pollute the planet and do not contribute to climate change.

Ironically, Steve King was Iowa's only "pro-environment" vote on this amendment. He presumably supported it as a vehicle to reduce federal spending; King doesn't generally fight legislation that's good for fossil fuels industries. Braley, Boswell and Latham all helped defeat that amendment, I assume Loebsack would also have voted no (which in this case was the anti-environment vote).

Latham was absent when the House voted to instruct conferees to "remove the authority for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ever revisit a coal ash-specific federal standard, an unprecedented revocation of the EPA's authority to protect Americans from exposure to toxic waste." Among the Iowans in the House, only Braley voted against this amendment (the pro-environment vote). Boswell, Loebsack, and King all helped pass this motion. Since fewer than ten House Republicans voted against the motion, and Latham's record on similar issues tracks closely with King's, I assume that Latham would have taken the anti-environment position here.

King was absent when the House rejected an amendment to "eliminate $100 million in the bill for uranium enrichment research by the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), a company long beset by technical and financial troubles. This subsidy would support the production of nuclear materials for use in commercial nuclear power reactors and nuclear weapons." The League of Conservation Voters considers a yes vote to be "pro-environment" here. Braley, Loebsack, Boswell, and Latham all cast anti-environment votes to help defeat the amendment. I wouldn't venture to guess where King would have landed on this amendment. The yes votes were an unusual combination of House progressives (who oppose nuclear power) and tea party conservatives (who oppose wasteful government spending). Plenty of King's close allies in the House Republican caucus were among the 60 GOP "pro-environment" votes here.

Mid-week open thread, with latest Obama cabinet news

desmoinesdem — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 02:25:00 GMT

Do you want the good news first, or the bad news? President Barack Obama has reportedly settled on a strong candidate to replace Lisa Jackson as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. On the flip side, Steven Chu's successor at the Department of Energy is likely to be a nuclear physicist with connections to major polluting industries. Details are after the jump. Still no word on the next secretary of transportation.

Florida Governor Rick Scott is the latest Republican governor to decide to expand Medicaid under the 2010 health care reform law. He was one of those leading the charge to have the law declared unconstitutional. Some comments from today's press conference are after the jump as well. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder are all Republicans who opposed the Obama administration policy but have agreed to expand Medicaid in their states. I hope that when Iowa Governor Terry Branstad meets with U.S. Health and Human Services officials later this week, he will find some face-saving way to agree to expand Medicaid here. So far he sounds determined to resist the policy, despite the consensus of every major Iowa medical group as well as a wide array of religious and social justice organizations.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.
Jeff Mason and Roberta Rampton reported for Reuters that "air quality expert Gina McCarthy" will be Obama's pick for the EPA.

McCarthy would likely become the face of Obama's latest push to fight climate change. Currently the assistant administrator for the EPA Office of Air and Radiation, she would replace Lisa Jackson, who stepped down as EPA chief this month.
[...]
A Boston native, McCarthy came to Washington after serving as the top environmental regulator in Massachusetts and Connecticut under Democratic and Republican governors.
Former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, a Democrat, appointed her chairwoman of a council to oversee a review of a proposed hazardous waste incinerator in the Boston area in 1990.
She later served as an environmental policy adviser to then-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and launched the state's first Climate Protection Action Plan. Romney was Obama's Republican opponent in the 2012 presidential election.
In 2004, McCarthy was appointed to head Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection under then-Governor Jodi Rell, also a Republican, and helped lead the state into a carbon cap-and-trade system for Northeastern states, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

The same report names Ernest Moniz as the president's choice to lead the Department of Energy.

Moniz, a former undersecretary of energy during the Clinton administration, is director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Energy Initiative, a research group that gets funding from industry heavyweights including BP, Chevron, and Saudi Aramco for academic work on projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. [...]
At MIT, Moniz led intensive studies about the future of coal, nuclear energy and natural gas, and he helped attract funding and research momentum to energy projects on campus. [...]
Some green groups are skeptical about Moniz because of his support for natural gas and have started petitions against his potential nomination.
They are wary of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," a method used by gas drillers to blast sand, water and chemicals into layers of shale to unleash natural gas trapped deep beneath the ground.

From Sam Baker's report for The Hill:

Scott isn't the first high-profile GOP governor to accept the Medicaid expansion, but he's arguably the biggest get for the Obama administration. Florida led the 26-state lawsuit that said the entire healthcare law - specifically including its Medicaid expansion - was unconstitutional.
Roughly 1 million Floridians will have access to healthcare coverage if the state legislature approves Scott's plan. He said he would only support the expansion for three years, and would back out if the federal government backs away from its funding commitments.
"While the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the cost of new people in Medicaid, I cannot, in good conscience, deny the uninsured access to care," Scott said at a news conference.
Scott said last year that he would not participate in the expansion, and he has also refused any role for the state government setting up an insurance exchange - the other half of the healthcare law's coverage expansion.
"This would be devastating ... this is an expansion that just doesn't make any sense," Scott said in a 2012 interview with Fox News.

Bruce Rastetter tried to educate distinguished Iowa professor

desmoinesdem — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 22:09:32 GMT

Personal business and political agendas aren't supposed to influence the work of the Iowa Board of Regents, so why did Bruce Rastetter ask University of Iowa President Sally Mason to arrange a meeting between ethanol industry representatives and Professor Jerald Schnoor?
This controversy began with Elizabeth Harball's article for Scientific American on January 28, called "Rising Use of Corn Ethanol Stresses Midwestern Aquifers."

At a biofuels energy symposium hosted by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies last week in Washington, D.C., professor Jerald Schnoor said corn ethanol production facilities require large quantities of high-purity water during the fermentation process.
This water is obtained from underground aquifers, and as ethanol production reaches a fever pitch in Iowa, the state's water supply is threatened. Even in 2009, Iowa state geologists warned that the Jordan aquifer was being pumped at an unsustainable rate in several counties, exceeding the state's 1975 base line within the next two decades.
"We're near record devotion of acres to corn right now," said Schnoor, who also headed the Iowa Climate Change Advisory Council in 2007. Up to 40 percent of corn production in the United States now goes to ethanol fuel. Schnoor estimated that up to three-quarters of corn crops in his home state are devoted to ethanol production, stressing Iowa's groundwater sources.
He cited the Lincolnway Energy Plant in Nevada, Iowa, as an example. This plant, which Schnoor acknowledged was older and less efficient than newer plants, produces 50 million gallons of ethanol every year by processing 100,000 acres of corn. He said this process requires 200 million gallons of water per year.

Schnoor's analysis didn't sit well with Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw. He e-mailed Board of Regents President Pro-Tem Rastetter, who has long had business interests in the ethanol industry.

In 2003, Mr. Rastetter co-founded Hawkeye Energy Holdings which grew to become a producer of over 450 million gallons of ethanol per year becoming, at the time, the third-largest pure play ethanol producer in the United States. He served as CEO of Hawkeye Energy until 2011.

Shaw's message described Schnoor as an "embarrassment" to the University of Iowa. Rastetter forwarded the e-mail to university President Mason, adding this comment:

Sally, the industry would appreciate being able to provide factual information so this professor isn't uninformed. Is there a way to accomplish that? Thanks Bruce.

Ethanol industry bigwigs might not appreciate Schnoor's analysis, but it's ludicrous to call this guy "uninformed" about his subject.

University of Iowa professor Jerry Schnoor co-founded the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research (CGRER) in 1990.
As the organization's co-director, Schnoor allocates seed grants, organizes symposiums, and conducts lectures nationwide about environmental change. Along co-director Greg Carmichael, he makes yearly budgeting, managerial, and promotional decisions for the Center.
Schnoor is a professor in the departments of civil & environmental engineering and occupational & environmental health. He joined the University's College of Engineering in 1977, and now holds the esteemed Allen S. Henry Chair in Engineering. His research interests include carbon sequestration, water quality modeling, phytoremidiation, and the causes of global warming.
In 2007, Iowa Governor Chet Culver hired Schnoor to head the Iowa Climate Change Advisory Council (ICCAC). A 27-member panel of academics and professionals, the Council guides Culver's effort to reduce Iowa's greenhouse gas emissions. In 2008, the ICCAC issued its final report, a 470-page document to direct the governor's environmental agenda.
Also in 2007, Schnoor became editor-in-chief of Environmental Science & Technology. Launched in 1967 by the American Chemical Society, ES&T is a bi-monthly magazine that publishes both peer-reviewed scholarly research and journalistic feature articles. The publication ranks among the leading international environmental journals, according to recent Impact Factor and citation figures.
Among his prior achievements, Schnoor testified before the United States Congress to support the Clean Air Act Amendment of 1990 at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency's head administrator. He has also serve on several commissions for the EPA, including the Board of Scientific Counselors and the Scientific Advisory Board.
Schnoor earned a Ph.D. in civil engineering in 1975 and an M.S. in environmental health engineering in 1974 from The University of Texas. In 1972 he received a B.S. in chemical engineering from Iowa State University.
He represents The University of Iowa and CGRER at numerous speaking engagements every month. Schnoor has addressed politicians and elementary school students alike about green energy, climate change, and reducing atmospheric carbon emissions. Along with his scholarly pursuits, Schnoor and his CGRER graduate assistants have planted over 250,000 trees to help sequester carbon from the environment.

Iowa Senate Education Committee Chair Herman Quirmbach, who is a tenured professor at Iowa State University, asserted that Rastetter's "interference" had "severe implications" for academic freedom. Rastetter told the Des Moines Register that he was just "sharing information" with Mason. He denied that he was trying to influence academic research at the University of Iowa.

A plain reading of Rastetter's e-mail indicates that he was hoping biofuels advocates would influence Schnoor's public comments about the industry.

Rastetter reportedly talks to Iowa State University President Steve Leath almost every day, which is at odds with longtime practice on the Board of Regents.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund has criticized Rastetter's actions as a Regent before. Today the group released this statement:

Rastetter Has To Go
New scandal at University of Iowa is the last straw, CCI members renew call for Rastetter termination
Des Moines, Iowa -
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund (Iowa CCI Action Fund) members are renewing their call for Regent President Pro-Tem Bruce Rastetter to be removed from the board after news broke Tuesday that Rastetter attempted to silence a University of Iowa professor from speaking out against the environmental impacts of ethanol production.
An ethanol industry lobbyist complained to Rastetter about UI professor Jerald Schnoor's public statements cautioning against ethanol expansion because of water quality concerns. Rastetter responded by asking UI president Sally Mason to take action against the professor.
"This is the last straw and these abuses of power have to stop. Enough is enough. Rastetter has to go. We cannot afford to have a person in a public position who has been caught - over and over again - using his public position to pursue his own private gain." said Ross Grooters, a CCI Action Fund member from Pleasant Hill.
"This is a good government issue. Government officials are supposed to serve the public interest and the common good, but Rastetter's actions are a black eye to the reputation of the state of Iowa."
The Iowa Board of Regents has been rocked by scandals in the last 9 months, the largest after Senator Tom Harkin chose not to leave 40 years of congressional papers at his alma mater, Iowa State University because of repeated attempts by [Regents President Craig] Lang and Rastetter to limit the academic freedom of the Tom Harkin Institute of Public Policy.
Both Lang and Rastetter have close personal and financial connections to corporate agribusiness interests.
Last year, CCI members filed an ethics complaint against Rastetter after a batch of emails were disclosed by the Associated Press showing that Rastetter tried to use his regent connections to push Iowa State University into backing a land grab in Tanzania by Rastetter's private multinational corporation, AgriSol.
Last summer, CCI members were thrown out of a Regents meeting in Cedar Falls and prevented from publicly addressing the board, even after repeated requests to the Regents director for public comment time. Around the same time, a coalition of students and faculty at the University of Northern Iowa were also prevented from giving public comment opposing the closing of UNI's Price Laboratory, and graduate student unionists at the University of Iowa were also denied an opportunity to address the regents.
Last Fall, the Board of Regents also hired Rasetter's personal lobbyist and public relations officer, Joe Murphy, to become ISU's new university lobbyist - without publishing the job opening, conducting an open search, or following the university's diversity-in-hiring guidelines.
Iowa CCI Action Fund members' 2013 legislative agenda may be viewed here.
For more information, visit www.cciactionfund.org

Rastetter won't be removed from the Board of Regents as long as Terry Branstad is governor. The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board dismissed Iowa CCI's complaint against Rastetter last August, after he "filed an amended financial disclosure statement." I think the board failed to recognize a clear conflict of interest on Rastetter's part. He didn't disclose his involvement with Agrisol Energy, which was trying to work with Iowa State University on a major land project in Tanzania. ISU later pulled out of that project after its potential impact on local residents drew more scrutiny.

Any relevant thoughts are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: Governor Branstad's communication director Tim Albrecht called the latest allegations against Rastetter "absurd and baseless."

"Bruce Rastetter sought to share additional knowledge to ensure a professor had all the information available with regard to renewable fuels," Albrecht said. "The governor stands behind Bruce Rastetter."

Big surprise: the governor stands behind the guy who gave more than $150,000 to his 2010 campaign. Rastetter was Branstad's top individual donor for that election cycle.

UPDATE: Your unintentional comedy for the week comes from Perry Beeman's front-page article on this story for the Des Moines Register's February 20 edition.

Rastetter said he was simply passing along an email, thinking Mason might want to set up a meeting between Schnoor and the ethanol backers. He said he had not seen Schnoor's remarks and wasn't endorsing them or the complaints from the ethanol lobby.

Sure, he wasn't endorsing the ethanol lobby's complaints. It's totally neutral and non-interfering to call a professor "uninformed."

Schnoor handled the situation with class, judging from Beeman's report.

Schnoor had no problem with Mason's office calling. "I didn't think the request was unusual, and I'm happy to talk with the Renewable Fuels Association," he said. [...]
Mason was traveling and unavailable for comment, but her chief of staff, Mark Braun, said she asked him to handle the situation when Rastetter's email arrived.
He contacted Schnoor and requested that the professor contact Shaw, the ethanol lobbyist. Schnoor tried twice, with no success.
Shaw said he was out of town when Schnoor called. He said he copied Rastetter on an email he sent to a policy aide in the governor's office because "he's the only one I know who has any connection to the University of Iowa."

Schnoor's office contact information is available online. Shaw could have simply picked up the phone to give Schnoor the ethanol industry's side of the story. Instead, he complained to a member of the Board of Regents that a university professor was an "embarrassment." He was angling for Rastetter to throw his weight around--with good reason.

MidAmerican and Iowa wind farm property tax

greggheide — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 19:16:12 GMT

I've been trying to determine if MidAmerican Energy Company (MEC) is paying the correct amount of property tax on their wind farm property in Pocahontas County. As it turns out, this is not an easy task for an interested Iowa tax payer. The reason for this winter "adventure" stems from the county supervisors proposed creation of a Tax Increment Finance district around MEC's wind project. If they proceed, tax revenue would be diverted away from our school district, fire department, etc., for other projects in the county. An individual taxpayer within the school district will mostly likely see their tax rates increase as a result. Since the county is debating where to spend their "windfall" revenue, I became curious about how the county determined the tax rates for an asset with over a $1/2 billion in value. In the interest of full disclosure, I have a company that offers consulting for wind farm development, so I have some experience with this issue. (continues below)

Iowa wind energy conversion properties are locally assessed. The county assessor's office informed me of the assessed value of MEC's project. It was built in 3 phases, with different values for the turbines in each phase. I asked to review all documents used to determine the value of the project, and was told by the assessor that they were not available to the public. Iowa law allows tax payers in the county to access this information, so, after I asked an attorney to send a letter asking for this information and referencing the appropriate section of the Iowa code, I now have about 80 pages of information on this project provided by MEC to the county for my review. Most of these documents are construction invoices paid by the utility, along with brief cover letters from MEC stating the value of turbines, substation, met tower, and land. The assessor tells me the construction invoices were not used, only the cover letters. The invoices are not in what I would consider a useful format for the county, but the cover letters themselves seem insufficient to determine the value of this sizable wind project.

The 80 pages of construction costs MEC provided the assessor were probably capitalized by the utility and depreciated. Therefore, they probably should be included in the counties tax base. I contacted the assessor asking why there was no assessment for the power cables connecting turbines to the substation. Her response directed that I contact MEC and ask them. Other items not listed are construction insurance, contract labor expenses, overhead, interest, accounting charges, pre-construction land acquisition costs, land rent costs before construction, cost of compliance with regulations, transmission upgrades, etc. The cover letters provided by MEC to the county do not itemize these costs, so it is difficult for a taxpayer in the county to determine is this process was done correctly. Frankly, if this process was used for all of MEC's wind projects, each should probably be reviewed more thoroughly.

Since MEC is a rate regulated utility, they probably filed very detailed cost recovery documents at the Iowa Utilities board for this project. Reviewing these documents should be an easy way for taxpayers and county employees to determine what the tax rates should be. I contacted MEC as instructed, asked some of these questions, and asked to review their utilities board filings for this project. Dean Crist at MEC responded, stating all relevant costs incurred by the utility were taken into account, and provided to the county. He also said their utility board filings would not be useful to determine the tax rates for this project and listed several reasons why. He also mentioned that "Costs of facilities beyond the first wind substation (e.g., transmission substations and lines) are not taxed as wind energy conversion property, but are separately taxed by local taxing authorities under Iowa Code Section 437A, utility property replacement tax, submitted in reports filed each year with the Iowa Department of Management and Iowa Department of Revenue. MidAmerican is billed for and pays the taxes on these facilities as well." This is presumably at a different tax rate than if the facilities were taxed as wind energy conversion property, potentially not very fair to a non-utility wind developer or our school district.

I disagree with his position on the utilities board documents, as the utility filings to a 3rd party who regulates them should be very helpful. Any costs submitted to the utilities board for rate recovery on this project should be taxed as wind energy conversion property in my opinion. If their submissions to the county are correct, MEC should welcome a request for supporting documentation by interested taxpayers. So far, they are ignoring this request. Since MEC is a state approved utility franchise, it seems more transparency on this issue would benefit all involved.

So it appears that I have "gone down the proverbial rabbit hole" trying to determine if my school district is receiving proper revenue from MEC's wind property. Readers who have made it all the way through this post should be commended. More information on my effort to get to the bottom of this issue, will be posted as warranted on my blog- http://renewablefarmer.blogspo...

Gregg Heide
Pomeroy Iowa

State of the Union and Rubio response discussion thread

desmoinesdem — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:43:08 GMT

President Barack Obama delivers another State of the Union address tonight, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is set to give the Republican response. I will miss most of the president's speech but plan to watch the replay later and will update this post with highlights. Meanwhile, feel free to comment on any topics raised during the speeches in this thread.

UPDATE: Highlights from the speeches and reaction from the Iowans in Congress are after the jump.

I find it depressing that when I came home to catch up on the news, the blogosphere and twitterverse were obsessing over Rubio taking a drink of water during his remarks. So sue him, he's not the most camera-savvy politician in Washington (yet). Who cares?
The full text from the State of the Union is on NPR's website. Highlights:

But we gather here knowing that there are millions of Americans whose hard work and dedication have not yet been rewarded. Our economy is adding jobs - but too many people still can't find full-time employment. Corporate profits have rocketed to all-time highs - but for more than a decade, wages and incomes have barely budged.
It is our generation's task, then, to reignite the true engine of America's economic growth - a rising, thriving middle class.
It is our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country - the idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or who you love.
It is our unfinished task to make sure that this government works on behalf of the many, and not just the few; that it encourages free enterprise, rewards individual initiative, and opens the doors of opportunity to every child across this great nation. [...]
Our work must begin by making some basic decisions about our budget - decisions that will have a huge impact on the strength of our recovery.
Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion - mostly through spending cuts, but also by raising tax rates on the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. As a result, we are more than halfway towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists say we need to stabilize our finances.
Now we need to finish the job. And the question is, how?
In 2011, Congress passed a law saying that if both parties couldn't agree on a plan to reach our deficit goal, about a trillion dollars' worth of budget cuts would automatically go into effect this year. These sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness. They'd devastate priorities like education, energy, and medical research. They would certainly slow our recovery, and cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs. That's why Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, and economists have already said that these cuts, known here in Washington as "the sequester," are a really bad idea.
Now, some in this Congress have proposed preventing only the defense cuts by making even bigger cuts to things like education and job training; Medicare and Social Security benefits.
That idea is even worse. Yes, the biggest driver of our long-term debt is the rising cost of health care for an aging population. And those of us who care deeply about programs like Medicare must embrace the need for modest reforms - otherwise, our retirement programs will crowd out the investments we need for our children, and jeopardize the promise of a secure retirement for future generations.
But we can't ask senior citizens and working families to shoulder the entire burden of deficit reduction while asking nothing more from the wealthiest and most powerful. We won't grow the middle class simply by shifting the cost of health care or college onto families that are already struggling, or by forcing communities to lay off more teachers, cops, and firefighters. Most Americans - Democrats, Republicans, and Independents - understand that we can't just cut our way to prosperity. They know that broad-based economic growth requires a balanced approach to deficit reduction, with spending cuts and revenue, and with everybody doing their fair share. And that's the approach I offer tonight.
On Medicare, I'm prepared to enact reforms that will achieve the same amount of health care savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission. Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs. The reforms I'm proposing go even further. We'll reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies and ask more from the wealthiest seniors. We'll bring down costs by changing the way our government pays for Medicare, because our medical bills shouldn't be based on the number of tests ordered or days spent in the hospital - they should be based on the quality of care that our seniors receive. And I am open to additional reforms from both parties, so long as they don't violate the guarantee of a secure retirement. Our government shouldn't make promises we cannot keep - but we must keep the promises we've already made.
To hit the rest of our deficit reduction target, we should do what leaders in both parties have already suggested, and save hundreds of billions of dollars by getting rid of tax loopholes and deductions for the well-off and well-connected. After all, why would we choose to make deeper cuts to education and Medicare just to protect special interest tax breaks? How is that fair? How does that promote growth?
Now is our best chance for bipartisan, comprehensive tax reform that encourages job creation and helps bring down the deficit. The American people deserve a tax code that helps small businesses spend less time filling out complicated forms, and more time expanding and hiring; a tax code that ensures billionaires with high-powered accountants can't pay a lower rate than their hard-working secretaries; a tax code that lowers incentives to move jobs overseas, and lowers tax rates for businesses and manufacturers that create jobs right here in America. That's what tax reform can deliver. That's what we can do together.
If we want to make the best products, we also have to invest in the best ideas. Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy. Today, our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer's; developing drugs to regenerate damaged organs; devising new material to make batteries ten times more powerful. Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation. Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the Space Race. And today, no area holds more promise than our investments in American energy.
After years of talking about it, we are finally poised to control our own energy future. We produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years. We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas, and the amount of renewable energy we generate from sources like wind and solar - with tens of thousands of good, American jobs to show for it. We produce more natural gas than ever before - and nearly everyone's energy bill is lower because of it. And over the last four years, our emissions of the dangerous carbon pollution that threatens our planet have actually fallen.
But for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change. Yes, it's true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods - all are now more frequent and intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science - and act before it's too late.
The good news is, we can make meaningful progress on this issue while driving strong economic growth. I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago. But if Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will. I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.
Four years ago, other countries dominated the clean energy market and the jobs that came with it. We've begun to change that. Last year, wind energy added nearly half of all new power capacity in America. So let's generate even more. Solar energy gets cheaper by the year - so let's drive costs down even further. As long as countries like China keep going all-in on clean energy, so must we.
In the meantime, the natural gas boom has led to cleaner power and greater energy independence. That's why my Administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits. But I also want to work with this Congress to encourage the research and technology that helps natural gas burn even cleaner and protects our air and water.
Indeed, much of our new-found energy is drawn from lands and waters that we, the public, own together. So tonight, I propose we use some of our oil and gas revenues to fund an Energy Security Trust that will drive new research and technology to shift our cars and trucks off oil for good. If a non-partisan coalition of CEOs and retired generals and admirals can get behind this idea, then so can we. Let's take their advice and free our families and businesses from the painful spikes in gas prices we've put up with for far too long. I'm also issuing a new goal for America: let's cut in half the energy wasted by our homes and businesses over the next twenty years. The states with the best ideas to create jobs and lower energy bills by constructing more efficient buildings will receive federal support to help make it happen.
America's energy sector is just one part of an aging infrastructure badly in need of repair. Ask any CEO where they'd rather locate and hire: a country with deteriorating roads and bridges, or one with high-speed rail and internet; high-tech schools and self-healing power grids. The CEO of Siemens America - a company that brought hundreds of new jobs to North Carolina - has said that if we upgrade our infrastructure, they'll bring even more jobs. And I know that you want these job-creating projects in your districts. I've seen you all at the ribbon-cuttings.
Tonight, I propose a "Fix-It-First" program to put people to work as soon as possible on our most urgent repairs, like the nearly 70,000 structurally deficient bridges across the country. And to make sure taxpayers don't shoulder the whole burden, I'm also proposing a Partnership to Rebuild America that attracts private capital to upgrade what our businesses need most: modern ports to move our goods; modern pipelines to withstand a storm; modern schools worthy of our children. Let's prove that there is no better place to do business than the United States of America. And let's start right away. [...]
Tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America. Every dollar we invest in high-quality early education can save more than seven dollars later on - by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime. In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children, like Georgia or Oklahoma, studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, and form more stable families of their own. So let's do what works, and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind. Let's give our kids that chance. [...]
Our economy is stronger when we harness the talents and ingenuity of striving, hopeful immigrants. And right now, leaders from the business, labor, law enforcement, and faith communities all agree that the time has come to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
Real reform means strong border security, and we can build on the progress my Administration has already made - putting more boots on the southern border than at any time in our history, and reducing illegal crossings to their lowest levels in 40 years.
Real reform means establishing a responsible pathway to earned citizenship - a path that includes passing a background check, paying taxes and a meaningful penalty, learning English, and going to the back of the line behind the folks trying to come here legally.
And real reform means fixing the legal immigration system to cut waiting periods, reduce bureaucracy, and attract the highly-skilled entrepreneurs and engineers that will help create jobs and grow our economy. [...]
We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers, and daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace, and free from the fear of domestic violence. Today, the Senate passed the Violence Against Women Act that Joe Biden originally wrote almost 20 years ago. I urge the House to do the same. And I ask this Congress to declare that women should earn a living equal to their efforts, and finally pass the Paycheck Fairness Act this year.
We know our economy is stronger when we reward an honest day's work with honest wages. But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we've put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That's wrong. That's why, since the last time this Congress raised the minimum wage, nineteen states have chosen to bump theirs even higher.
Tonight, let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families. It could mean the difference between groceries or the food bank; rent or eviction; scraping by or finally getting ahead. For businesses across the country, it would mean customers with more money in their pockets. In fact, working folks shouldn't have to wait year after year for the minimum wage to go up while CEO pay has never been higher. So here's an idea that Governor Romney and I actually agreed on last year: let's tie the minimum wage to the cost of living, so that it finally becomes a wage you can live on.[...]
Tonight, we stand united in saluting the troops and civilians who sacrifice every day to protect us. Because of them, we can say with confidence that America will complete its mission in Afghanistan, and achieve our objective of defeating the core of al Qaeda. Already, we have brought home 33,000 of our brave servicemen and women. This spring, our forces will move into a support role, while Afghan security forces take the lead. Tonight, I can announce that over the next year, another 34,000 American troops will come home from Afghanistan. This drawdown will continue. And by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over.
Beyond 2014, America's commitment to a unified and sovereign Afghanistan will endure, but the nature of our commitment will change. We are negotiating an agreement with the Afghan government that focuses on two missions: training and equipping Afghan forces so that the country does not again slip into chaos, and counter-terrorism efforts that allow us to pursue the remnants of al Qaeda and their affiliates. [...]
But defending our freedom is not the job of our military alone. We must all do our part to make sure our God-given rights are protected here at home. That includes our most fundamental right as citizens: the right to vote. When any Americans - no matter where they live or what their party - are denied that right simply because they can't wait for five, six, seven hours just to cast their ballot, we are betraying our ideals. That's why, tonight, I'm announcing a non-partisan commission to improve the voting experience in America. And I'm asking two long-time experts in the field, who've recently served as the top attorneys for my campaign and for Governor Romney's campaign, to lead it. We can fix this, and we will. The American people demand it. And so does our democracy.
Of course, what I've said tonight matters little if we don't come together to protect our most precious resource - our children.
It has been two months since Newtown. I know this is not the first time this country has debated how to reduce gun violence. But this time is different. Overwhelming majorities of Americans - Americans who believe in the 2nd Amendment - have come together around commonsense reform - like background checks that will make it harder for criminals to get their hands on a gun. Senators of both parties are working together on tough new laws to prevent anyone from buying guns for resale to criminals. Police chiefs are asking our help to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, because they are tired of being outgunned.
Each of these proposals deserves a vote in Congress. If you want to vote no, that's your choice. But these proposals deserve a vote. Because in the two months since Newtown, more than a thousand birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun.
One of those we lost was a young girl named Hadiya Pendleton. She was 15 years old. She loved Fig Newtons and lip gloss. She was a majorette. She was so good to her friends, they all thought they were her best friend. Just three weeks ago, she was here, in Washington, with her classmates, performing for her country at my inauguration. And a week later, she was shot and killed in a Chicago park after school, just a mile away from my house.
Hadiya's parents, Nate and Cleo, are in this chamber tonight, along with more than two dozen Americans whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence. They deserve a vote.
Gabby Giffords deserves a vote.
The families of Newtown deserve a vote.
The families of Aurora deserve a vote.
The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence - they deserve a simple vote.

NPR also posted the full text from Rubio's response on behalf of Republicans. I didn't watch the whole delivery, but the speech seemed to hit a lot of stale talking points:

My parents immigrated here in pursuit of the opportunity to improve their life and give their children the chance at an even better one. They made it to the middle class, my dad working as a bartender and my mother as a cashier and a maid. I didn't inherit any money from them. But I inherited something far better - the real opportunity to accomplish my dreams.
This opportunity - to make it to the middle class or beyond no matter where you start out in life - it isn't bestowed on us from Washington. It comes from a vibrant free economy where people can risk their own money to open a business. And when they succeed, they hire more people, who in turn invest or spend the money they make, helping others start a business and create jobs.
Presidents in both parties - from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan - have known that our free enterprise economy is the source of our middle class prosperity.
But President Obama? He believes it's the cause of our problems. That the economic downturn happened because our government didn't tax enough, spend enough and control enough. And, therefore, as you heard tonight, his solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more.
This idea - that our problems were caused by a government that was too small - it's just not true. In fact, a major cause of our recent downturn was a housing crisis created by reckless government policies.
And the idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers - that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried.
More government isn't going to help you get ahead. It's going to hold you back.
More government isn't going to create more opportunities. It's going to limit them.
And more government isn't going to inspire new ideas, new businesses and new private sector jobs. It's going to create uncertainty.
Because more government breeds complicated rules and laws that a small business can't afford to follow.
Because more government raises taxes on employers who then pass the costs on to their employees through fewer hours, lower pay and even layoffs.
And because many government programs that claim to help the middle class, often end up hurting them instead.
For example, Obamacare was supposed to help middle class Americans afford health insurance. But now, some people are losing the health insurance they were happy with. And because Obamacare created expensive requirements for companies with more than 50 employees, now many of these businesses aren't hiring. Not only that; they're being forced to lay people off and switch from full-time employees to part-time workers.
Now does this mean there's no role for government? Of course not. It plays a crucial part in keeping us safe, enforcing rules, and providing some security against the risks of modern life. But government's role is wisely limited by the Constitution. And it can't play its essential role when it ignores those limits.
There are valid reasons to be concerned about the President's plan to grow our government. But any time anyone opposes the President's agenda, he and his allies usually respond by falsely attacking their motives.
When we point out that no matter how many job-killing laws we pass, our government can't control the weather - he accuses us of wanting dirty water and dirty air.
When we suggest we strengthen our safety net programs by giving states more flexibility to manage them - he accuses us of wanting to leave the elderly and disabled to fend for themselves.
And tonight, he even criticized us for refusing to raise taxes to delay military cuts - cuts that were his idea in the first place.
But his favorite attack of all is that those who don't agree with him - they only care about rich people.
Mr. President, I still live in the same working class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren't millionaires. They're retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They're workers who have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work to pay the bills. They're immigrants, who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy.
The tax increases and the deficit spending you propose will hurt middle class families. It will cost them their raises. It will cost them their benefits. It may even cost some of them their jobs.
And it will hurt seniors because it does nothing to save Medicare and Social Security.
So Mr. President, I don't oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors.
Hard-working middle class Americans who don't need us to come up with a plan to grow the government. They want a plan to grow the middle class.
Economic growth is the best way to help the middle class. Unfortunately, our economy actually shrank during the last three months of 2012.
But if we can get the economy to grow at just 4 percent a year, it would create millions of middle class jobs. And it could reduce our deficits by almost $4 trillion dollars over the next decade.
Tax increases can't do this. Raising taxes won't create private sector jobs. And there's no realistic tax increase that could lower our deficits by almost $4 trillion. That's why I hope the President will abandon his obsession with raising taxes and instead work with us to achieve real growth in our economy.
One of the best ways to encourage growth is through our energy industry. Of course solar and wind energy should be a part of our energy portfolio. But God also blessed America with abundant coal, oil and natural gas. Instead of wasting more taxpayer money on so-called "clean energy" companies like Solyndra, let's open up more federal lands for safe and responsible exploration. And let's reform our energy regulations so that they're reasonable and based on common sense. If we can grow our energy industry, it will make us energy independent, it will create middle class jobs and it will help bring manufacturing back from places like China.
Simplifying our tax code will also help the middle class, because it will make it easier for small businesses to hire and grow.
And we agree with the President that we should lower our corporate tax rate, which is one of the highest in the world, so that companies will start bringing their money and their jobs back here from overseas.
We can also help our economy grow if we have a legal immigration system that allows us to attract and assimilate the world's best and brightest. We need a responsible, permanent solution to the problem of those who are here illegally. But first, we must follow through on the broken promises of the past to secure our borders and enforce our laws.
Helping the middle class grow will also require an education system that gives people the skills today's jobs entail and the knowledge that tomorrow's world will require.
We need to incentivize local school districts to offer more advanced placement courses and more vocational and career training.
We need to give all parents, especially the parents of children with special needs, the opportunity to send their children to the school of their choice.
And because tuition costs have grown so fast, we need to change the way we pay for higher education.
[...]
All these measures are key to helping the economy grow. But we won't be able to sustain a vibrant middle class unless we solve our debt problem.
Every dollar our government borrows is money that isn't being invested to create jobs. And the uncertainty created by the debt is one reason why many businesses aren't hiring.
The President loves to blame the debt on President Bush. But President Obama created more debt in four years than his predecessor did in eight.
The real cause of our debt is that our government has been spending 1 trillion dollars more than it takes in every year. That's why we need a balanced budget amendment.
The biggest obstacles to balancing the budget are programs where spending is already locked in. One of these programs, Medicare, is especially important to me. It provided my father the care he needed to battle cancer and ultimately die with dignity. And it pays for the care my mother receives now.
I would never support any changes to Medicare that would hurt seniors like my mother. But anyone who is in favor of leaving Medicare exactly the way it is right now, is in favor of bankrupting it.
Republicans have offered a detailed and credible plan that helps save Medicare without hurting today's retirees. Instead of playing politics with Medicare, when is the President going to offer his plan to save it? Tonight would have been a good time for him to do it.
Of course, we face other challenges as well. We were all heart broken by the recent tragedy in Connecticut. We must effectively deal with the rise of violence in our country. But unconstitutionally undermining the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans is not the way to do it.
On foreign policy, America continues to be indispensable to the goal of global liberty, prosperity and safeguarding human rights. The world is a better place when America is the strongest nation on earth. But we can't remain powerful if we don't have an economy that can afford it.
In the short time I've been here in Washington, nothing has frustrated me more than false choices like the ones the President laid out tonight.
The choice isn't just between big government or big business. What we need is an accountable, efficient and effective government that allows small and new businesses to create middle class jobs.
We don't have to raise taxes to avoid the President's devastating cuts to our military. Republicans have passed a plan that replaces these cuts with responsible spending reforms.
In order to balance our budget, the choice doesn't have to be either higher taxes or dramatic benefit cuts for those in need. Instead we should grow our economy so that we create new taxpayers, not new taxes, and so our government can afford to help those who truly cannot help themselves.
And the truth is every problem can't be solved by government. Many are caused by the moral breakdown in our society. And the answers to those challenges lie primarily in our families and our faiths, not our politicians.

Statement from Senator Tom Harkin:

"Tonight the President outlined a pro-job, pro-growth agenda that will rebuild America's middle class and continue our path to economic recovery. The President's plan is designed to help Americans across the full spectrum: from creating jobs to ensuring that all Americans, including individuals with disabilities, have the skills to compete in a 21st-century global economy. The President's agenda is aimed at restoring the promise of the American middle class-that if you work hard and play by the rules, you will be able to earn a fair wage, send your kids to college, and build a nest egg for retirement.
"I was encouraged by his proposals to promote manufacturing and a modern, efficient infrastructure. Both efforts are immediate job creators. In education, modern science teaches us that learning starts at birth, and preparation for learning starts before birth. We know that investing in early childhood education has a high rate of return, so I was heartened by the President's plan. His focus on higher education, including the college scorecard, will help increase affordability and accessibility for our nation's students. I plan to work closely with the President and his Administration on efforts to reduce the burden of student debt. His proposals on clean energy will help states like Iowa continue to lead our green economy into the future.
"With a deadline looming, the President outlined a balanced approach to deficit reduction. I could not agree more. For too long, many in Washington have been pushing not just misguided budgets, but a dangerously misguided premise - that America is broke, and that we can no longer afford the investments that make possible a strong middle class and a world-class economy. The fact is, we cannot simply cut our way out of this mess.
"In his inaugural address, President Obama said we can invest in a new generation without pitting it against the generation who built so much of the freedom, security and prosperity we already enjoy as a nation. In his speech tonight, the President laid out a vision for doing just that - a vision that Iowans and all Americans broadly support."

Statement from Senator Chuck Grassley:

Senator Chuck Grassley made the comment below in response to the President's speech tonight.
"President Obama is a talented speaker and his White House has proven to be politically skilled. At the start of the President's second term, America needs the White House to set aside its campaign apparatus and take the lead with bipartisan discussions and policy work. People at the grass roots know our country can't afford to have those in charge in Washington continue putting off the hard work.
"The biggest challenge for America since President Obama was elected has been the economy and jobs. By and large, the President's programs have been enacted and in a partisan way. The programs haven't worked, with Americans facing an unemployment rate higher than 7.5 percent through next year. America's credit rating was downgraded for the first time ever. Yet in his Inaugural address three weeks ago, the President barely mentioned the economy and jobs.
"Employers need Washington to create an environment for job creation, with tax certainty, regulatory relief, new market opportunities for exports, affordable and secure energy, an education system that works, and fiscal responsibility with public dollars, including an effort to reform entitlement programs. If structural reforms aren't made, we won't be able to keep the promise already made, as the President said, to future generations. Growing deficits and debt are moral issues, too, because if we don't act to curb excessive government spending, our children and grandchildren won't inherit the same opportunities we did to work hard, earn a living, and build a better life.
"Americans also need bipartisan leadership on other big issues. Historically, major reforms have been made with broad-based bipartisan backing. That kind of support ought to be the goal for initiatives like immigration reform and other priorities, including gun violence and protecting the 2nd Amendment, transportation, and national and homeland security. In addition, policy changes should be made through elected representatives in Congress, who are the voice of the people in our system of government and can be held accountable more directly than the executive branch of our government. Transparency must be a reality not just rhetoric. Abuse of executive authority jeopardizes the checks and balances fundamental to our democracy and government of, by, and for the people.
"Strong leadership takes more than lofty words and goals presented in a speech. It takes the hard work of sitting down with people with different points of view to work through the issues. It takes fighting for ideas and finding consensus. It takes sweating the details. The coming months will show if the President has what it takes to reach across party lines and tackle major issues facing this great nation."

Statement from Representative Bruce Braley (D, IA-01):

"I'm glad to hear President Obama refocus on the economy tonight. Congress and the President cannot lose focus on the struggles of the middle class in our country.
"We need a balanced approach to deal with the budget deficit, not a piecemeal approach while standing on the edge of a fiscal cliff. We won't solve this problem unless members of both parties work together.
"But the best way to deal with the budget is to get this economy growing faster and creating good-paying jobs. Doing that takes smart investments in job training, education, infrastructure, and cutting edge technology."

Statement from Representative Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02):

Washington, D.C. - Congressman Dave Loebsack released the following statement after President Obama delivered the State of the Union Address. In the spirit of civility and bipartisan cooperation, for the second year in a row, Loebsack sat with Congressman Justin Amash (R-MI-03) for tonight's address. Loebsack and Amash recently joined together to introduce a bipartisan balanced budget amendment. As a member of the No Labels "problem solvers" group, Loebsack wore an orange lapel pin that read "Stop Fighting, Start Fixing". The bipartisan organization works to bring Democrats and Republicans together to achieve across the aisle cooperation.
"In what remains a deeply divided nation, where there are few things on which many people agree, growing our economy and creating jobs remains a goal that we can all work towards. I was glad to hear the President focus so much of his attention on these important issues. I strongly believe that we must confront the fiscal problems that are facing our nation, but as the President said, we must do this from the middle out, not the top down. I was happy to hear the President talk about the importance of investing in education for kids of all ages. It is one of the best ways to ensure the middle class will prosper.
"When we have a strong middle class, we have a strong nation. We must get the budget in order, but it must be done in a balanced way. It cannot be done on the backs of seniors, the middle-class, and hard working families.
"I was also pleased to hear the President focus on investing in clean energy, including wind energy. I have long been a supporter of the Production Tax Credit, which supports the growth of wind energy jobs in Iowa and across the nation, while lessening our dependence on fossil fuels. 7,000 Iowans are employed in the wind energy industry in Iowa alone and it is important we continue to support and grow this home grown industry."

I hate when Democrats who should know better demagogue on the balanced budget amendment, a truly horrendous policy. Loebsack is no Tom Harkin, that's for sure.

I don't have the full statement from Representative Tom Latham (R, IA-03), because despite repeated requests, his office will not add me to their press list. Oooh, scary liberal blogger!

The Des Moines Register posted parts of his "reaction," which was written ahead of time.

Republican Tom Latham's statement hit reporters' in-boxes when President Barack Obama was still on page 4 of his 13-page State of the Union speech.
The Iowa congressman, seated in the back row, rarely clapped and never rose to applaud the Democratic commander-in-chief. Latham's emailed statement rejected "unrestrained spending" and "the plague of a runaway $16 trillion debt," but added that he stands "ready to work with any of my colleagues, regardless of party affiliation."
"There's hope, I think, for immigration reform," Latham told The Des Moines Register in an interview after the speech, but added that the president "has got to show some leadership." [...]
Latham said: "While (Obama) spoke somewhat about getting the economy going and creating jobs, his approach is not going to work. ... We've got to address the spending problem we have and he just wants to raise taxes."
The preschool idea "sounds good," Latham said, but he questioned whether it's worth higher taxes and one more federal program. Latham wants to see people do well in the private sector, he said, but he's concerned how raising the minimum wage and tying it to the cost of living would hit small businesses.

Representative Steve King (R, IA-04), released a video statement:

Partial transcript, provided by King's office:

"President Obama has said to us, American citizens, that we do not have a spending problem with our Federal Government. Here tonight he laid out a series of things that are spending problems that we have and the President is determined to grow the United States government. When he does that, all the growth that we would have in our government spending comes from borrowing.
We're right now borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar that we're spending. The President's pushing for more, it results in tax increases. We have to stop the irresponsible spending. It's the most important piece of this message that I glean from listening to the President. We don't have a spending problem? Yes, we do Mr. President."

King went on to criticize comprehensive immigration reform, "gun grabbers," and argued that if this country continues to overspend, we will end up like Spain and Greece. King advocated a balanced budget constitutional amendment.

Radio Iowa posted more reaction from Iowa's members of Congress. Excerpts:

Congressman Tom Latham, a Republican from Clive, said there were some things in the speech he agreed with. "I think certainly the concept of adjusting the immigration problem, if they can come up with a good bipartisan solution that secures the border and certifies that and have a good frank discussion about the future as far our undocumented immigrants in this country is something we can all work on," according to Latham.
Latham did [n]ot like the president's threat to enact climate change regulation through executive order. "Individuals everywhere are scared to death of a lot of new regulations coming down that are gonna cost them a great deal of money and really be an impairment as far as economic growth and job creation," Latham said.
"It's one of the big reasons we can't get more people working is people are scared of what he is talking about." [...]
Grassley is also concerned about the president saying he will use executive orders on climate control if he doesn't get the action he wants. "He tends to take every leeway that the law maybe gives him to the maximum. You can't say 'when Congress won't act, I will,' you can only act under the Constitution of this country.... The president just can't just willy-nilly decide he wants to do something," Grassley said.
The senator did find something he liked about the address. "What I thought was positive - probably didn't get much attention and I hope it gets more attention in the future - we've got to keep college tuition costs down," Grassley said.

LATE UPDATE: Latham's press release finally appeared on his official website.

"As the economy has gone almost 50 months with unemployment at or above 7.8 percent, shrunk 0.1 percent in the last quarter and continued to suffer the plague of a runaway $16 trillion debt, Official Washington's focus must remain on promoting job growth and fiscal responsibility. It would betray our nation's exceptional tradition to accept grim economic news and unrestrained spending as just part of life in the new America.
"Iowans by their nature are humble and accountable, and they exercise commonsense judgment in their daily lives. I will continue to bring these values to my service in Congress and stand ready to work with any of my colleagues, regardless of party affiliation, to put people before politics and progress before partisanship to solve the urgent problems facing our country today."

Cleaner air coming near three of Iowa's largest coal-fired power plants

desmoinesdem — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:50:00 GMT

MidAmerican Energy has agreed to reduce coal emissions at one of its Iowa power plants by the end of 2014 and to phase out seven coal-fired boilers at three Iowa power plants by April 2016, thanks to legal action by the Sierra Club. The settlement announced yesterday means that in future years, fewer people near or downwind of the plants in Council Bluffs, Bettendorf, or Sergeant Bluff will suffer the "devastating impacts of coal on the human body."

Follow me after the jump for details on this very big news for Iowa air quality.
Coal combustion causes thousands of preventable deaths every year as well as chronic illnesses of the respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous systems. MidAmerican operates many of Iowa's largest coal-fired power plants, some of which were violating terms of their air permits. Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, spoke to Radio Iowa yesterday.

"A year ago, we notified MidAmerican that we believed (the company) was violating the Clean Air Act and emitting illegal amounts of pollution out of three of its coal fired power plants," Nilles says. "To their credit, they were willing to sit down and work out an agreement that phases out these (boilers) and increases investments in clean energy."
The agreement filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Iowa states MidAmerican - by April 2016 - will phase out coal burning in two boilers at the Neal Energy Center North in Sergeant Bluff, two more boilers at the Walter Scott, Jr. Energy Center in Council Bluffs and all three boilers at the Riverside Generating Station in Bettendorf. MidAmerican must also complete a project to cut emissions from two other coal burning units in the Sergeant Bluff plant by the end of 2014.

You can read the whole consent decree here. MidAmerican will also build a solar power installation at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Radio Iowa quoted MidAmerican spokeswoman Tina Potthoff as saying the Bettendorf facility will be converted to natural gas, and MidAmerican is still evaluating its options to replace the boilers that will be retired in Council Bluffs and Sergeant Bluff. She added, "We do not anticipate any forced reductions to labor as a result of this [settlement]."

MidAmerican's power plants in Council Bluffs and Sergeant Bluff have been the largest greenhouse gas emitters in Iowa, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In a statement, the investor-owned utility denied wrongdoing.

"MidAmerican Energy has been and remains in compliance with the law," the company said, adding that Iowa authorities had not pursued any enforcement actions against any of its plants.
"MidAmerican Energy entered into settlement discussions as a means to avoid costs to its customers, unnecessary delays, and ongoing uncertainty associated with litigation," it said.

Here's the Sierra Club's press release of January 22:

Settlement Between The Sierra Club and MidAmerican Energy Brings Clean Air Victory to Iowans
Retirement of Seven Coal-Fired Boilers Marks 50,000 Megawatts of U.S. Coal Announced to Retire Since 2010
DES MOINES, IA - Today, the Sierra Club and MidAmerican Energy Company announced a landmark settlement that requires the Iowa utility to phase out coal burning at seven coal-fired boilers, clean up another two coal-fired boilers and build a large solar installation at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. The announcement also pushes the total amount of coal generation retired or announced to retire since 2010 to over 50,000 megawatts, almost one-sixth of the nation's coal fleet.
In 2012, the Sierra Club notified MidAmerican that it was violating the federal Clean Air Act at its Walter Scott, Riverside and George Neal coal plants, by emitting more pollution than allowed by its permits. Today's settlement filed in federal court in Iowa resolves those allegations. According to the Clean Air Task Force, air pollution from these three plants contributes to 45 deaths and 760 asthma attacks annually.
"Clean air, clean water and a booming clean energy economy are part of an Iowa legacy that I am proud to leave for my children and grandchildren," said Pam Mackey Taylor, Chapter Energy Chair of the Sierra Club in Iowa. "Coal's days are numbered here in Iowa. Pollution from MidAmerican's coal-fired power plants causes major health problems in communities across Iowa. Retiring units at these coal plants and installing vital pollution controls at the remaining units will help Iowans breathe easier."
The settlement between Sierra Club and MidAmerican Energy further cements Iowa's position as a national clean energy leader. Iowa passed the first renewable energy standard in the country in 1983, decades before most states even considered similar standards. Iowa now ranks third in the nation in installed wind capacity, draws 22 percent of its electricity from wind energy and is a hub of wind component manufacturing in the Midwest. The wind industry employs 7,000 workers in Iowa, more than any other state.
"Big carbon pollution emitters like MidAmerican's coal-fired power plants are contributing to the climate disruption causing this year's historic drought across the Midwest," said Bruce Nilles, Senior Director of the Beyond Coal campaign. "If we want to ensure that droughts do not become the new normal for Iowa, other utilities must follow suit to phase out coal imported from Wyoming and push Iowa's strong home-grown clean energy development forward."
Today's announcement brings the total number of coal plants retired or announced to retire since 2010 to 130 plants and 50,717 megawatts, almost one sixth of the nation's entire coal fleet. In 2009 these coal plants emitted more than 188 million metric tons of carbon pollution the equivalent annual emissions of more than 39 million passenger vehicles. These plants also emitted more than 7,600 pounds of mercury, a potent neurotoxin, and caused 6,000 heart attacks, 60,000 asthma attacks and 3,600 premature lives annually.
Meanwhile, as coal plants are retired and only one new coal plant has broken ground since November 2008, the United States is also installing record amounts of clean energy. During President's Obama's first term the nation doubled its installations of wind and solar, and in 2012 the US installed more wind and solar than coal, gas or nuclear power, with both wind and solar having their best year ever. In mid-2012 the United States hit the milestone of 50,000 megawatts of wind generation installed, producing enough electricity for 13 million American homes.
"This is great news for the people of Iowa and another important victory for the Beyond Coal campaign. The retirement of these plants means our campaign has achieved an important milestone: we have helped retire more than 50,000 megawatts of coal power, while also bringing online more than 50,000 megawatts of wind energy. Iowans are joining a growing number of citizens around the country who are helping to end our nation's dependency on coal and move the U.S. toward a cleaner energy future," said Michael R. Bloomberg, whose Bloomberg Philanthropies has contributed $50 million to the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign.
Tapping into the Sierra Club's 2.1 million members and supporters, its Beyond Coal campaign is working across the United States to end coal burning no later than 2030, replace coal-fired power plants with clean energy like wind and solar power, and keep the massive U.S. coal reserves underground and out of world markets. It is the largest campaign in the organization's 114-year history, and employs more than 170 staff members who collaborate with thousands of activists and more than a hundred allied organizations nationwide. With a relentless focus on moving the country off of coal fired power, the campaign is engaged in more than a hundred venues, including the courts, regulatory agencies and in communities where decisions about coal mining and coal use are being debated. This includes working with workers and communities to help them transition to clean energy jobs when local coal plants are retired.
The settlement can be viewed here.

Weekend open thread: Money matters

desmoinesdem — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 14:19:45 GMT

What's on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

After the jump I've posted a bunch of links about finances and spending, large and small.
Let's start with some big-ticket items. The U.S. Treasury took the trillion-dollar platinum coin off the table this weekend. It figures that President Barack Obama would unilaterally disarm ahead of the impending debt ceiling showdown with Congress.

On the lighter side, Paul Shawcross, who heads the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget, posted this official response to a petition urging the Obama administration to construct a "death star." Excerpt:

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:
• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

Star Wars geeks and fans of the space program will enjoy reading the whole response.

Don McDowell, who wrote the Cyclone Conservatives blog during the 2007/2008 election cycle, paid $60 for labor and $45 for a rental truck to retrieve the giant metal ROMNEY Believe in Iowa sign that was offered for free last week on Craigslist. A unique piece of political memorabilia like that could be worth a significant amount of money someday. I don't know what you'd do with it in the meantime. Here's a photo of the eyesore; McDowell is second from right.

According to a new report from the Legislative Services Agency, "The average salary for a state worker who is not a supervisor is $51,700." That does not include salaries at the state universities. The full report is here (pdf). Excerpt:

Between January 25, 2011, and August 7, 2012, the number of individuals receiving paychecks from State agencies declined by 929 employees. In terms of FTE [full-time equivalent] positions, there was a decrease of 641.0 FTE positions. Payroll costs showed a corresponding decrease of $58.4 million over the 18-month period. Not all of these costs are savings to the State budget. If jobs are outsourced, the costs reappear as outside contract costs. For example, the DAS eliminated vacant janitorial positions and some staff that oversaw construction projects through outsourcing with a projected net savings after paying for outside suppliers.7
During this time, State agencies also experienced employee turnover and the costs associated with replacing employees who left. Some turnover and the associated costs are inevitable. Some of the costs are direct cash outlays to pay for advertising the opening, for travel for persons interviewing for a position, hiring placement services to locate new employees, and other such items. Many of the costs are opportunity costs for agency personnel. Agency administrators and perhaps senior staff must spend their time reviewing resumes, interviewing candidates, and related activities instead of performing other regular job responsibilities. Staff may absorb the extra workload for the vacant position and this can translate into service delays, more stress, and decreased morale. These opportunity costs translate into reduced organizational efficiencies. The State agencies with lower turnover rates avoid the costs of replacing staff at the normal rates and are able to focus their work efforts on their other primary functions, that is, they operate more efficiently.
This analysis identified three of the larger State agencies with turnover in excess of the national average rate for the 18-month period examined. The DAS [Department of Administrative Services] excess turnover was estimated to cost $886,000 or 4.0% of its annualized payroll. The time, effort, and added expenses from excess turnover totaled between an estimated $2.6 million and $2.9 million statewide. Since many of these costs are opportunity costs, they will not be listed in an expense report but are absorbed as lost efficiencies.

The other two large agencies with "excess" turnover were the Iowa Department of Public Health and the Iowa Department of Revenue.

This report underscores an important fact lawmakers overlook when debating budget allocations: not all costs to the state appear as direct cash outlays. The Iowa Policy Project has repeatedly pointed out how some very expensive state tax breaks and tax credits help wealthy individuals or profitable corporations.

A related issue that comes up in state policy-making: the cost of taking action is easier to assess than the public benefit of taking that action, or the cost of doing nothing. The Sierra Club Iowa Chapter pointed out in its comments on Iowa's draft strategy for removing excess nutrients from waterways,

Regarding the science assessment in the Strategy, we generally agree with the comments of the Iowa DNR in its November 1 document. We would note in addition that when the science assessment attempts to conduct a cost/benefit analysis, it only looks at direct costs to the entity undertaking nutrient reduction measures. There is no attempt to factor in the benefits of nutrient reduction nor the costs of not taking adequate measures to reduce nutrient pollution. These factors should be considered.

In that November 1 document, Iowa DNR experts sharply criticized the proposal:

"We are not willing to endorse this document as written," a group of DNR runoff-pollution experts wrote in a lengthy comment letter after reviewing the plan. "Major fundamental flaws permeate the 'strategy' while concrete ideas for implementation are not provided."
The objections include what the staffers saw as a one-sided, agriculture-friendly strategy for solving long-standing pollution problems disrupting the Gulf's lucrative fishing industry as well as fouling waterways throughout the Iowa and other Midwest states.
"This document reflects a narrow view not appropriate for a state-issued document," the DNR letter reads. "This is evidenced by entire paragraphs being copied from an Iowa Farm Bureau comment letter (without proper citation) submitted in response to the Raccoon River Master Plan, and all costs and benefits being based on production of a single commodity crop."

Getting back to tax credits: Iowa lawmakers created a new solar tax credit during horse-trading toward the end of the 2012 legislative session. A report from the Department of Revenue shows that during 2012, 50 individuals claimed a total of $108,936 solar tax credits, and 14 corporations claimed a total of $66,676 in solar tax credits.

Total awards were $175,612 for the year to-date, $1.32 million below the award cap for calendar year 2012. The 01/01/2012-12/21/2012 average award for an individual was $2,179 and the average corporate award was $4,763. The current numbers are as of December 21, 2012.

Last week Bleeding Heartland user greggheide explained how the solar tax credit law could be improved to stimulate more distributed renewable energy generation.

The legislature's 2013 session begins on Monday. I hope lawmakers will again vote to raise Iowa's earned income tax credit. Doing so would benefit more than 200,000 households which could use the help. We're coming out of a "lost decade" economically for low- and middle-income Iowans. Child poverty is a big and growing problem here. Many children living in poverty have working parents who would benefit from an increase in the earned income tax credit. Incidentally, the largest pockets of poverty in Iowa are in "regional centers," towns with a population between 10,000 and 50,000, according to the Des Moines-based Child & Family Policy Center.

In 2011, the Iowa House and Senate twice approved tax bills including an increase in the earned income tax credit. Governor Terry Branstad line-item vetoed the measure twice, hoping to use the issue as leverage to obtain cuts in income taxes and commercial property taxes.

Iowa lawmakers should advance renewable energy policy

greggheide — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 23:15:11 GMT

Many Iowa Farmers and residents are becoming interested in distributed electrical generation (DG). DG is a broad category, usually consisting of generation installed on Distribution lines (not transmission lines) close to electrical load. Common technologies are Solar PV, Wind Turbines, Fuel Cells, Biomass, etc. Size of systems start with small solar arrays and wind turbines installed on rooftops or farm yards, and continue up to systems of several megawatts constructed near communities or large electric users.

Iowans stand ready to invest in and build these types of renewable energy facilities. However, development of this type lags behind other states and countries, despite the fact that Iowa has excellent wind, solar, and biomass resources. The reason for this is that Iowa lawmakers have not made the policy changes necessary for them to proceed. DG simply needs a fair price for the electricity produced and simple procedures for interconnecting to the electric grid. Iowa lawmakers have declined to take this issue up for several years, fearing the wrath of the utility lobby. Since 2005, Iowa legislators have only been willing to encourage DG in Iowa with several, mostly ineffective incentive programs. The main programs are a tax credit program passed in 2005 to encourage distributed wind energy and a tax credit for solar PV passed in the 2012 legislative session. DG systems need fair treatment from Iowa Utilities, not subsidized, in order to move forward.

Let's look a little deeper.
Depending on your location in the state and which utility you're interconnecting to, installing a DG system may vary from a fairly simple process to a downright impossible undertaking. Iowa has net metering for individuals and businesses wishing to install DG, but only investor owned utilities (Mid-American and Alliant) are required to offer it. Iowa Rural electric coops and municipals are not required to do this, and most don’t have programs that treat DG fairly. Without a stable DG program like net metering or a Feed in Tariff (fair price for electricity sales), the DG system will not be built. The solar tax credit program passed by the legislature will be of no use to a home owner without net metering. Worse yet, the tax credit may be mainly used by customers of one Iowa utility - Alliant energy. That utility already has high retail electric rates, net metering, and a customer rebate program for customer owned generation. In short, the credit may only go to a PV system that already had very favorable economics.

Iowans wishing to build a DG community wind project in the megawatt range will find the news almost all bad. Iowa utilities generally "pay" themselves more for their renewable energy systems than they offer independents. The most glaring example is MidAmerican Energy. A 2003 legislative effort to mandate more renewable electricity in Iowa included a provision that some of that generation would come from DG. Instead of passing that legislation, Lawmakers passed a bill specifically to benefit wind generation owned by MidAmerican. While complicated, the result is that legislators allowed the utility to "pay themselves" 7 to 9 cents per kilowatt hr. Federal law requires MidAmerican to purchase electricity from Farmers and other independents at a figure based on their avoided cost of generation , about 2 cents per KWH. Essentially, MidAmerican was able secure legislation that allowed them to build wind farms in Iowa while also preventing a group of farmers who farmed that land from building a wind project at those locations.

Iowa has a lot of installed renewable energy projects, mainly utility scale wind energy. Does it matter who owns renewables and what size the projects are? The current Iowa renewable energy business model consists of utility scale projects that lease land from landowners. The Iowa Wind Energy Association estimates that $14.46 million dollars are paid to Iowa Landowners annually. It is generally assumed wind farm leases amount to 1% of a wind farms gross revenue. This means that as much as $1.4 Billion dollars in gross revenue leaves rural Iowa every year to MidAmerican Energy – owned by Warren Buffet, and other, mainly out of state companies. Since a percentage of Iowa land is absentee owned, a fair amount of the annual lease payments leave our state as well. Is this the best our Iowa policy makers can do?

Some would have you believe that Iowa can't expand renewable energy unless we make substantial investments in transmission. A recent report released by 25x25.org points out that Germany has transitioned to 25% of its electricity generated by renewables without major transmission upgrades.

Distributed Generation has numerous advantages: More likely to owned by Iowans and have the profits retained here;
Cost competitive with utility scale projects;
Diversifying the electrical grid and improving power quality;
Saving transmission costs by building generation close to where the power is used;
Keeping ratepayers cost of electricity stable

I've attempted to give a glimpse into the current policy makeup of this issue in Iowa and included some links that will allow interested readers to investigate more thoroughly. While changing state policy to encourage more DG will be hard work, the potential rewards in economic development, jobs, and energy security are enormous. Are we up to the challenge?

Gregg Heide
Pomeroy Iowa
http://renewablefarmer.blogspot.com/

Obama cabinet changes discussion thread

desmoinesdem — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 01:25:00 GMT

Change is coming to President Barack Obama's cabinet, as is typical for a second term. After the jump I've posted some links and recent news on possible appointees.

Any comments about the cabinet are welcome in this thread.
Shortly before Christmas, Obama announced that he is nominating Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts to be secretary of state. He will be confirmed with no trouble, as Republicans are eager for another chance to elect Scott Brown.

Timothy Geithner is finally resigning as Treasury secretary (years too late in my opinion). One possible replacement is the president's current Chief of Staff Jack Lew.

At the Pentagon, Obama is reportedly tapping former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. The neocons will fight that nomination for the wrong reasons.

I was very disappointed to learn that Lisa Jackson is leaving as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. She is one of the best in Obama's cabinet and could have accomplished even more if he hadn't repeatedly undercut her to curry favor with business or postpone controversy until after the 2012 election. I fear the New York Post may be right that Jackson is quitting so that she doesn't have to be part of the cabinet when Obama green-lights the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Outgoing Washington Governor Christine Gregoire is a leading contender to replace Jackson at EPA.

According to Ben German of The Hill,

Jackson's departure is part of what's expected to be a larger shakeup of Obama's environment and energy team.
Jane Lubchenco, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has already announced plans to leave, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu is widely expected to depart as well.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in 2011 that he would not be around for a second Obama term, but more recently he said he would consider staying on. Advocates for a more sustainable transportation policy, supporting mass transit, passenger rail, and safe routes for pedestrians and bicyclists, have warmed to LaHood over the last four years.

I assume Tom Vilsack will stay on as secretary of agriculture. I haven't heard anything about the president wanting a change at the USDA, nor have I heard that Vilsack would like to move on. The coming year will be extremely important for agriculture policy, as Congress tries again to pass a new five-year farm bill.

Highway 100 extension in Linn County named a "worst transportation project"

desmoinesdem — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:30:00 GMT

The plan to extend Highway 100 through the Rock Island Preserve in Linn County made the Sierra Club's list of worst transportation projects nationwide. No Iowa projects made the group's "best" list from the same report on Smart Choices, Less Traffic (pdf). After the jump I've enclosed a statement from the Sierra Club Iowa Chapter and excerpts from the full report.
December 19 press release from Sierra Club Iowa Chapter:

Highway 100 Identified as One of Sierra Club's Worst Transportation Projects
[Washington, DC] - The Sierra Club released its list of best and worst transportation projects around the nation in a new report: Smart Choices, Less Traffic: 50 Best and Worst Transportation Projects in the United States. The report identifies specific projects, either planned or under construction, that it supports or opposes based on cost and whether the investment will contribute or set back efforts to expand transportation choices and reduce American oil use.
Iowa's Highway 100 Extension made the list as one of the worst projects.
According to the report, "This outdated project was conceived more than 30 years ago when gasoline cost $1.24 per gallon. It was first envisioned as part of a bypass around Cedar Rapids. Since then, a town has emerged in the center of the proposed route.
"The proposed Highway 100 extension, a 3.8 mile, $200 million project, would add another 10,000 cars per day to the main street, Collins Road, causing congestion, air pollution and dangerous conditions for people who want to walk or bike through town. Moreover, the Highway 100 extension would cut through Rock Island Nature Preserve, one of the most pristine nature preserves in Iowa.
Rock Island Preserve contains prairie, wetlands and woodlands and is home to rare and endangered turtles and butterflies. The proposed route through the preserve would fragment and degrade habitat while polluting air and water."
"It is unconscionable that a highway project would be designed to destroy a nature preserve that is filled with a vast array of plants and animals in a unique and vanishing sand prairie ecosystem, said Pam Mackey-Taylor, Iowa Chapter Energy chair.
The Iowa Department of Transportation declared the project a priority in June 2012 and will be accepting construction bids in early 2013. The project is expected to be completed in 2017.
"Sierra Club is challenging the Environmental Impact Statement in federal court because it did not examine any alternatives outside of the preserve," said Wally Taylor, Iowa Chapter Legal chair.
Each year, America invests more than $200 billion in federal, state, and local tax dollars on transportation infrastructure-bridges and highways, aviation and waterways, public transit and sidewalks. But too often transportation projects undermine the higher national goals of reducing oil consumption, increasing safety, improving public health, and saving local, state or federal government-and citizens-money.
Americans are struggling with the health, climate, and economic costs of our oil-centered transportation system. While new standards that double fuel efficiency of new vehicles to 54.5 mpg by 2025 and cut carbon emissions in half are essential to reducing our dependence on oil and its many consequences, our transportation investments should provide an opportunity to further reduce our dependence on oil, reverse climate disruption, and save money. Because transportation infrastructure lasts for decades, the impacts of transportation investments are felt for many years to come, with huge consequences for America's ability to move beyond oil.
Read the full at http://content.sierraclub.org/...

The full report highlights 22 "best" and 28 "worst" projects around the country. In the opening section of Smart Choices, Less Traffic, the authors examine why we are making so many bad investments in transportation infrastructure.

Today, there is a growing demand for oil-free transportation options.
Americans agree; federal transportation policy should support the development of biking, transit, and pedestrian infrastructure to ensure our roads are safe, convenient, and accessible for all.
• Eighty-two percent of Americans-both urban and rural-feel that "the United States would benefit from an expanded and improved transportation system, such as rail and buses."7
• More than 80 percent of Americans support maintaining or increasing federal funding for biking and walking.8
• Increasingly, people are choosing to live in walkable, mixed-use communities with transportation choices and recreational opportunities.9 The Baby Boomer generation is increasingly demanding opportunities for continued independence, which means accessible transportation options.10 Between 1960 and 2003, the elderly population in the United States more than doubled, increasing 116 percent.11 Projections show that the steady increase in elderly population growth will continue unabated until at least 2030.12
• Eighty percent of Americans now live in metropolitan areas.13
• In 2004, vehicle miles traveled peaked and, for the first year since World War II, Americans began driving less.14
• By 2011, Americans drove 6% fewer miles per year than they were in 2004.15
• One third of Americans don't drive at all. 16 [...]
Though federal transportation policy has made some small steps in the right direction, transportation policy remains stuck in the 20th century. The transportation law Congress passed at the end of June 2012, called MAP-21, failed to include significant steps to address the problem. Notably, the final bill dropped key provisions that would have made streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians, maintained transit commuter benefits at a level equal to parking benefits, and set a national objective for addressing energy consumption in transportation. Though MAP-21 authorizes $105 billion in federal spending for transportation over two years, it spends four times as much on highways as on other modes of transportation.22

Among the remarkable statistics this report highlights:

The average American household spends more on transportation than on food, education or healthcare-16 percent of their annual budget.23 Low-income families spend as much as 55 percent of their household budgets on transportation.24 The average annual operating cost of a private vehicle is $8,220/year, versus $308/year for a bicycle.25

A committee of reviewers, including authors of this report, evaluated transportations projects according to the following criteria:

1. Oil use impact
2. Environmental impact
3. Health impact
4. Economic impact
5. Land use impact

The Highway 100 extension was one of many "worst" projects that "pass through urban parks, nature preserves, cultural heritage sites, open spaces, and valuable farmland." The authors mentioned it as an example of a plan that will "induce demand" rather than solve a long-term transportation problem.

• Induced demand: The worst transportation infrastructure projects drain resources from local economies, costing billions of tax dollars while failing to solve the problems they intend to fix. Frequently, transportation projects are intended to reduce congestion; however, studies show that building or widening highways only invites more traffic, a phenomenon called "induced demand."45 Upon the opening of new road capacity, motorists take longer and more frequent trips or switch routes to take advantage of the new capacity, or new drivers are attracted to the development. Often, induced traffic eats up to 50 to 100 percent of the roadway's new capacity within a few years and creates extra traffic on local streets at both ends of the trip.46 Examples of this kind of project include the Grand Parkway in Texas, the Jefferson Parkway in Colorado, and the Highway 100 Extension in Iowa.

Weekend open thread: Kerry to Secretary of State edition

desmoinesdem — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 13:40:00 GMT

Catching up on news from this week, UN Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew her name from consideration for secretary of state in President Barack Obama's cabinet. Republicans had been hounding her for weeks over public comments she made soon after the September 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.

CNN reported yesterday that as expected, Obama will now name Senator John Kerry to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. I had concerns about Rice in that job because of her financial interest in seeing the Keystone XL oil pipeline completed. But it was phenomenally stupid for Obama administration officials to leak that Kerry was plan B for secretary of state. That gave Senate Republicans every incentive to throw a temper tantrum over Rice. A special election in Massachusetts means just-defeated Scott Brown has a chance to come back to the Senate. Surprise, surprise: Republicans are going to confirm Kerry with no problems.

Although Obama hasn't caved yet on letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire, the president still has a bad habit of rewarding people who don't deal with him in good faith. Senate Republicans had no problem confirming Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state in 2005, even though she had been national security adviser at the time the Bush administration failed to anticipate and prevent the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington. Obama acknowledged what he called "unfair and misleading attacks" on Susan Rice, yet he is giving Republicans a chance to narrow the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate anyway.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Congress approves bill affecting Marshalltown Lennox plant (updated)

desmoinesdem — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:10:00 GMT

This week the U.S. House and Senate both approved a bill to relax some federal energy regulations, including those on refrigerated display cases manufactured in Marshalltown.

UPDATE: President Barack Obama signed the bill on December 18.
The House passed the American Energy Manufacturing Technical Corrections Act by 398 to 2 on December 4. All five representatives from Iowa voted yes. The Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent yesterday. Ramsey Cox reported for The Hill,

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Al.) introduced the American Energy Manufacturing Technical Corrections Act, H.R. 6582, which combines several proposals that the House and Senate have approved this year, including language that would allow manufacturers of walk-in coolers to use different standards to meet energy efficiency goals. It also eases rules for water heaters and over-the-counter refrigerators. [...]
The bill includes parts of a bill from Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), S. 1000, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act. That measure would updates national building codes to be more energy-efficient.

Representative Bruce Braley has been pushing for a portion of this legislation for a long time. U.S. Department of Energy regulations on refrigerated cases would have affected the Lennox Industries plant in Marshalltown. Braley highlighted those efforts in television commercials during his re-election campaign. His office released the following statement on December 4 (emphasis in original).

Bipartisan Braley Effort to Protect Marshalltown Jobs Again Included in House-Passed Bill
Marks second time Braley has passed language through US House
Washington, D.C. - Language written by Rep. Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (GA-03) that would remove burdensome government regulations on refrigerated deli-style display cases that threaten the future of their manufacture in the United States passed the US House today with a vote of 386 - 2 as part of a larger measure, HR 6582, the Energy Manufacturing Technical Corrections Act.
It marks the latest step forward for the bipartisan effort led by Braley. Earlier this year, Braley and Westmoreland successfully attached an amendment that would lift the regulation to another bill, but the legislation stalled during negotiations between the House and Senate.
Lennox Industries, Inc., which makes the deli-style display cases covered by the regulation, has a manufacturing facility in Marshalltown, Iowa, that employs about 1,000 people. The adoption of the amendment will help protect Iowa manufacturing jobs.
"This government regulation simply defies common sense and puts jobs needlessly at risk," Braley said. "The Department of Energy has effectively outlawed refrigerated display cases found in grocery stores and delis all over America. The regulation is unfair and harmful to manufacturing in Iowa.
"We've worked for months to reverse this misguided regulation. I'm hopeful that the legislation passed today will be approved by the Senate and quickly signed into law by President Obama."
The problem remedied by the legislation stems from the federal government's interpretation of a 2005 law that increases energy efficiency standards for appliances. The Department of Energy believed it was required by the law to include refrigerated deli display cases in the same category as standard refrigerators. However, the inherent design of such display cases makes it impossible for the equipment to reach the minimum efficiency standards set forth for refrigerators in the 2005 law, effectively outlawing their manufacture in the United States.
Braley's continued efforts would create a new energy efficiency category for refrigerated deli-style display cases, effectively reversing the regulation and safeguarding the product's continued manufacture in the United States.
In May, Braley and Westmoreland introduced the Better Use of Refrigerator Regulations Act. The legislation was added as an amendment to HR 4480, the Strategic Energy Production Act of 2012, which passed the House in June. The language was also included in a bill that passed the Senate in October, HR 4850, the Enabling Energy Saving Innovations Act.
A photo of the refrigerated deli-style display cases manufactured by Lenox can be viewed below:

UPDATE: Braley's office released this statement after the president signed this bill into law on December 18.

Washington, D.C. - A bill that includes language written by Rep. Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (GA-03) was signed into law by President Obama today. The language removes burdensome government regulations on refrigerated deli-style display cases that threatened the future of their manufacture in the United States.
The bipartisan bill, HR 6582, the Energy Manufacturing Technical Corrections Act, advanced through the House and Senate earlier this month.
Lennox Industries, Inc., which makes the deli-style display cases covered by the regulation, has a manufacturing facility in Marshalltown, Iowa, that employs about 1,000 people. The new law will help protect Iowa manufacturing jobs.
"Today marks the successful conclusion of months of bipartisan work to fix a misguided government regulation that needlessly put American jobs at risk," Braley said. "It shows what we can accomplish if we put our party differences aside and work together to find common ground. This is great news for workers in Marshalltown and across the country, and I applaud President Obama for signing this bill into law."
The problem remedied by the legislation stems from the federal government's interpretation of a 2005 law that increases energy efficiency standards for appliances. The Department of Energy believed it was required by the law to include refrigerated deli display cases in the same category as standard refrigerators. However, the inherent design of such display cases makes it impossible for the equipment to reach the minimum efficiency standards set forth for refrigerators in the 2005 law, effectively outlawing their manufacture in the United States.
With the bill signed into law, the regulation is effectively reversed, safeguarding the product's continued manufacture in the United States.
Braley and Westmoreland have worked for months to reverse the regulation. In May, Braley and Westmoreland introduced the Better Use of Refrigerator Regulations Act. The legislation was added as an amendment to HR 4480, the Strategic Energy Production Act of 2012, which passed the House in June. The language was also included in a bill that passed the Senate in October, HR 4850, the Enabling Energy Saving Innovations Act.