# Federal Government



Opponents of Iowa rail consolidation must act fast to register concerns

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

The U.S. Surface Transportation Board announced on February 29 it accepted Canadian National’s request to classify its proposed acquisition of Iowa Northern Railway as a “Minor” transaction. The federal regulator also established a procedural schedule going forward for interested parties to weigh in as the proposed acquisition undergoes review.

Canadian National had been facing opposition to its classification request from entities like Canadian Pacific Kansas City and the National Grain and Feed Association. Both had called for the Surface Transportation Board to classify the deal as a “Significant” transaction when being reviewed for consideration.

While on its face the classification decision may appear as a setback for those who oppose the deal due to increased consolidation of the rail industry and its potential for further abuses of monopoly power, the 9-page decision by the Surface Transportation Board makes clear that no final determination has been made.

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Iowa Northern Railway deal warrants heightened scrutiny

Quaker Oats plant in Cedar Rapids, photographed by David Harmantas (Shutterstock).

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

Attorneys for Canadian Pacific Kansas City submitted a 59-page filing to the U.S. Surface Transportation Board on February 26 regarding the proposed acquisition of Iowa Northern Railway by Canadian National.

The Canadian Pacific Kansas City filing highlights the proposed deal’s “national importance” and cites “competitive concerns of significant magnitude” in calling for the Surface Transportation Board to classify Canadian National’s takeover attempt of Iowa Northern as a “Significant” transaction rather than the “Minor” transaction status that Canadian National has sought.

The distinction matters because “Minor” transactions aren’t subject to the same regulatory requirements as “Significant” transactions—meaning the public would have less access to information and less time to review the deal.

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Pay attention to how officials talk—and how they act

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird receives an award from the Iowa State Sheriffs’ and Deputies’ Association in December 2023. Photo first published on the Attorney General’s official Facebook page.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com

Voters have busy lives—families to care for, jobs demanding their attention, bills to worry about. 

So, they can be forgiven if they do not closely track their government leaders’ statements and actions. Sometimes voters may find discrepancies between what politicians say and what they do.

Here is one example:

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird was in the news last week asking Congress to replenish a federal program, the Victims of Crime Act, which assists crime victims in a variety of ways.

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Iowa state auditor asks feds to block fertilizer plant sale

State Auditor Rob Sand has asked federal regulators to block Koch Industries’ planned acquisition of OCI Global’s Nitrogen Iowa fertilizer plant in Lee County.

In a January 30 letter to Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and Assistant U.S. Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who leads the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, Sand noted tax incentives totaling some $550 million had supported building the plant, which “was pitched to taxpayers as a project that would encourage future competition and growth for the region.”

Scott Syroka highlighted the problematic sale in a Bleeding Heartland post last month. That article detailed how then Governor Terry Branstad’s administration orchestrated a package including $300 million in federal tax giveaways related to a flood relief program, $133 million in local tax abatements from Lee County over twenty years, and $112 million in state tax credits or forgivable loans.

The auditor’s letter argued that a sale to Koch Industries would likely increase fertilizer costs for farmers. It would also negate the original intent of the deal; the idea that Koch wouldn’t own the new plant justified “the massive commitment of tax dollars in the first place.” Sand said he agreed with comments Branstad made to reporters in 2013, asserting that the Koch brothers “don’t want the competition,” whereas Iowans “want competition.”

Sand is the first Iowa statewide official to contact federal officials about the sale, which OCI Global announced in December.

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Was childhood obesity a real concern or pretext for Iowa's governor?  

Bernie Scolaro is a retired school counselor, a past president of the Sioux City Education Association, and former Sioux City school board member.

My mother used to make our lunches and send us off to school. Our packed lunch consisted of something like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and for dessert, something like a Hostess Ho Ho or Ding Dong. I would come home and have a snack, usually a couple of chocolate chip cookies. At dinner, my parents always wanted to make sure my siblings and I ate everything on our plate—after all, people were “starving to death in Biafra.”  

I was never heavy, but I do remember my mother calling me “pleasantly plump” a few times. I guess that phrase made it more “pleasant” to carry a little more weight. My mother never looked to Governor Nelson D. Rockefeller to tell me when or how much to eat. That was personal and a family matter, certainly not political.

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Advocates say Iowa Medicaid violating federal voter registration law

Zachary Roth is the national democracy reporter for States Newsroom. Jared Strong is senior reporter for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

Iowa’s health department is failing to comply with the federal requirement to make voter registration accessible to people applying for Medicaid, multiple advocates say, likely leading significant numbers of low-income Iowans to be left off the rolls.

“I would regard this as major noncompliance with an agency’s obligations under the NVRA,” said Brenda Wright, special litigation and policy counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She was referring to the National Voter Registration Act, the 1993 law that requires state agencies to offer their clients the chance to register to vote. 

The concerns come at a time when Iowa already appears to be struggling to get people on public assistance to register, and as the 2024 election approaches.

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America Needs Farmers—just not their politics

Photo of happy farmer by Serg Grbanoff, available via Shutterstock.

Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers.

America Needs Farmers.

This statement has become a cultural touchstone. It became popular during the 1980s farm crisis, as a way to raise awareness of the difficulties suffered in the Midwest agricultural industry.

This phrase and branding has seen a bit of a renaissance in the past decade—featured on bumper stickers, commercials, apparel branding, and even partnerships with major universities like the University of Iowa.

America Needs Farmers, or “ANF,” has become less of a slogan for awareness, and more a brand or identity that Midwesterners tout alongside Carhartt or John Deere. The slogan is now almost synonymous with the Iowa Hawkeyes and rural farming, and is controlled by the Iowa Farm Bureau, a 501(c)5 organization representing farmers across Iowa.

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Iowa Department of Corrections asks for cannabis exemption

Carl Olsen is the founder of Iowans for Medical Marijuana.

The Iowa Department of Corrections filed two study bills this week, asking Iowa legislators to make an exception to the state’s medical cannabis program, Iowa Code Chapter 124E.

Senate Study Bill 3020 and companion House Study Bill 524 call for amending the statute so the state can

Revoke a medical cannabidiol registration card issued to a person who becomes committed to the custody of the director of the Iowa department of corrections or placed under the supervision of the Iowa department of corrections.

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A bad deal gets worse: Koch trying to buy Iowa fertilizer plant

Governor Kim Reynolds with her predecessor Terry Branstad in photo originally published on Reynolds’ official Facebook page in September 2020

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

Antitrust regulators should block the proposed sale of OCI Global’s Iowa Fertilizer Co. plant in Wever (Lee County) to Koch Industries. The deal would be outrageous, but we must look back to fully understand why.

HOW IOWA TAXPAYERS HELPED FUND OCI’S FERTILIZER PLANT IN WEVER

Then-governor Terry Branstad and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds offered nearly $550 million in tax giveaways to OCI’s predecessor, Orascom, to build the plant prior to its 2017 ribbon cutting.

That included $133 million in local giveaways such as Lee County property tax abatement over twenty years. Another $112 million in state giveaways like corporate tax credits and forgivable loans. And an estimated $300 million in federal tax giveaways from the get-go thanks to the Iowa Finance Authority approving Orascom for $1.2 billion in Midwestern Disaster Area bonds created by Congress after the 2008 floods.

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Regulators should derail Canadian bid for Iowa Northern Railway

Large wheels for agricultural equipment on a freight train; photo by Maksim Safaniuk, available via Shutterstock.

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

North American rail giant Canadian National announced on December 6 it would attempt to acquire the Waterloo-based short line railroad Iowa Northern Railway. Before that can happen though, the deal must undergo review by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board. The board should block this acquisition, and it’s not even a close call.

Short line railroads are the small and medium businesses of rail. Short lines like Iowa Northern Railway operate nearly half of all freight rail track in Iowa, according to the railroad interest group GoRail. These short lines run shorter distances and connect rural areas with larger, national rail networks.

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U.S. government should help families decorate veterans' graves overseas

Tombstone of Lawrence F. Shea at his war grave on the American cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands. Photo by Arne Hückelheim, available via Wikimedia Commons

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com

Veterans Day is around the corner. For John and Bob, the day will be for remembering the men and women who serve in the United States military—and two service members, in particular. 

For John, it will be his son, Robert, a Marine lieutenant who will forever be 29 years old. For Bob, it will be his father, Karl, forever the face on treasured family photographs of a handsome 26-year-old Army captain.

John and Bob are patriots through and through. They are not big-government fanatics. They have something else in common, too. They both believe the American people should never forget the ultimate sacrifice paid by members of the U.S. military, and that is a reason they are disappointed with a decision made by the government they love.

They believe the federal government has made a terrible, insensitive mistake by walking away from a pledge to the families of our war dead after World War II—to make it convenient for Gold Star families to remember their 234,000 loved ones who are interred or commemorated in 26 military cemeteries and memorials in more than a dozen foreign countries. 

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Question reveals differing views on "wasteful" spending

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com

For many years, an Iowa State University political science professor and I met several times a year for coffee and conversation.

During our coffee klatches, I probed my friend’s thinking on world affairs, on government issues, and on politics in Iowa and across the United States. I suspect he tried to use these get-togethers to give me a something of a graduate-level seminar in American government, absent any lectures. 

Educators these days are frequently accused of trying to indoctrinate their students with a particular point of view. But what I came to realize during those sessions at the Stomping Grounds coffee shop in Ames was fundamental to excellence in teaching: The professor did not tell me what to think. He tried to get me to think more clearly and to analyze with more sophistication and depth. He helped me spot weaknesses in my own opinions and develop a better understanding of factors that may lead other people to see things differently than I did.

After retiring, my friend sold his acreage and left Iowa for a more scenic place to live. Our caffeine intake has declined, but we still stay in touch via email. Last week, the professor’s Stomping Grounds “student” field-tested the professor’s method of posing challenging questions to get people to re-examine their own opinions and see why some people have a different view than other people. 

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1/3 of crop insurance subsidies flow to insurance corps, agents—not farmers

Anne Schechinger is Senior Analyst of Economics for the Environmental Working Group. This report first appeared on the EWG’s website. 

Overview

  • Crop insurance companies and agents received almost $33.3 billion from taxpayers and farmers over the last 10 years. 
  • Ten of these companies are owned by publicly traded corporations with enormous net worths and massive executive salaries.
  • Lowering program delivery payments to companies and agents and other subsidies could save over $1 billion a year, while maintaining a safety net for farmers.

The federal Crop Insurance Program is known for paying billions of dollars every year to farmers when they experience reductions in crop yield or revenue. But the Department of Agriculture program also sends billions of dollars annually – much of it taxpayer-funded – to a small number of crop insurance companies that service the policies. Many of these companies are owned by extremely wealthy, publicly traded global corporations. The program also gives billions of dollars annually to crop insurance agents – a cost that has soared in recent years.

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Jumping off a fiscal cliff isn't an option

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring.

Where I grew up there were multiple sources of news. To hear the news, men gathered at the post office and Standard station, while women preferred the Clover Farm Store or Rebekah Lodge. 

It wasn’t broadcast news. It was secret, local news that an impolite observer might call gossip.

There was typical gossip including who bought a new combine, whose car was parked too long at the lower tavern, and who had the worst dye job in town. 

But there were special categories delivered only in whispers. Things like a cancer diagnosis, a church lady with a fresh shiner, or a recent bankruptcy. These whispers were met with silence, and the few Catholics crossing themselves.

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Grassley highlights inspector general vacancies at federal agencies

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Federal government whistleblowers have a champion in the U.S. Senate: Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

We can measure a politician’s sincerity about a specific issue or policy by how consistently he or she maintains that position, regardless of which party holds power. Through the years—decades, really—that Grassley has served in the U.S. Senate, he has always insisted that government employees who expose questionable dealings or negligent mismanagement by their superiors must be protected in their jobs, without fear of retaliation.

That’s particularly true when the employee’s specific job is to investigate such dealings. Those crucial public servants are the “inspectors general” of the various federal agencies.

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Iowans back debt ceiling plan, after winning concession on biofuels

All four Iowans in the U.S. House voted on April 26 for a plan to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion for the coming year, in exchange for “aggressive caps on federal spending” over the next decade.

The House approved the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 by 217 votes to 215, meaning House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had no votes to spare.

The speaker secured passage of his bill by making concessions on biofuels subsidies on the eve of the vote. McCarthy had previously indicated he was not open to altering the bill, but a group of Republicans from the Midwest—including Iowa’s Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01), Ashley Hinson (IA-02), Zach Nunn (IA-03), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04)—insisted on changes.

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Democrats must offer a vision for children and families

Charles Bruner served in the Iowa legislature from 1978 to 1990 and was founding director of the Child and Family Policy Center from 1989 through 2016. For the last six years, he headed a Health Equity and Young Children initiative focusing on primary child health care for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Democrats prioritize investing in children but don’t stress the importance of parents in raising the next generation. Republicans do the opposite.

The electorate wants both.

Until we make children’s issues part of our political dialogue, we will not do either.

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USDA makes federal farm subsidies less transparent

Anne Schechinger is Senior Analyst of Economics for the Environmental Working Group. This report, which she co-authored with the EWG’s Senior Vice President for Government Affairs Scott Faber, first appeared on the EWG’s website. 

The Environmental Working Group’s newly updated Farm Subsidy Database shows that federal farm subsidies between 1995 and 2021 totaled $478 billion. This huge amount of taxpayer money does almost nothing to help farmers reduce their greenhouse gas emissions or adapt to adverse weather conditions caused by the climate crisis.

Our database update also shows that farm subsidy funding still goes to the largest and wealthiest farms, which can weather the climate crisis best, and that payments are getting less transparent, obscuring who has received almost $3.1 billion in payments. 

The Department of Agriculture’s subsidy funding could be used in much more useful ways that would help farmers in mitigating their emissions and becoming more resilient to hazardous weather conditions. Instead, it’s still a handout for rich landowners, city dwellers and family members of farmers. Even the USDA is benefiting, with one of its divisions receiving almost $350 million in payments.

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Zach Nunn has a lot to learn about federal food programs

Fresh off his assignment to the House Agriculture Committee, U.S. Representative Zach Nunn revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of who benefits from federal food assistance programs.

Although the first-term Republican told an interviewer that nutritional assistance goes “largely to blue state communities,” one federal food program alone serves nearly 10 percent of Nunn’s constituents in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

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Corporations exploit CO2 pipeline regulatory gaps in tax credit gold rush

Carolyn Raffensperger is the executive director of the Science & Environmental Health Network. Sheri Deal-Tyne is a researcher for the Science & Environmental Health Network.

A contentious battle wages in the Midwest, Gulf states, and California over Carbon Capture and Storage and siting of CO2 pipelines. One key issue in the battle: the federal pipeline regulatory agency, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), does not have regulations in place that can assure the safety of these extraordinarily dangerous pipelines. PHMSA itself acknowledges that CO2 pipelines are underregulated, and the agency currently lacks the technical knowledge required to inform minimum safety standards.

The Inflation Reduction Act, which Congress approved and President Joe Biden signed in August, is driving the rush to site these pipelines. That law unleashed a gold rush in 45Q tax credits for carbon capture and storage, and the thousands upon thousands of miles of CO2 pipelines, which would be required to transport the CO2 away from facilities where the CO2 is captured to the disposal or usage sites in distant states.

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Hey, politicians, are loan bailouts good or bad?

Randy Evans can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com

I try to stay atop the day’s news. But I must have dozed off last week — because I missed the response from Iowa Republican leaders to the Biden administration’s announcement of $1.3 billion in debt relief to 36,000 farmers who have fallen behind on their farm loan payments.

In making the announcement, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, “Through no fault of their own, our nation’s farmers and ranchers have faced incredibly tough circumstances over the last few years. The funding included in today’s announcement helps keep our farmers farming and provides a fresh start for producers in challenging positions.”

I am not here to question the wisdom of the federal assistance. But the silence from Governor Kim Reynolds and U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst is markedly different from their criticism after President Joe Biden announced in August that the government would forgive up to $10,000 in federal student loans for most borrowers.

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As climate change produces excess moisture, crop insurance costs balloon

Anne Schechinger is Senior Analyst of Economics for the Environmental Working Group. This report first appeared on the EWG’s website.

A new EWG analysis has found that the overwhelming majority of Midwestern counties with increased precipitation between 2001 and 2020 also had growing crop insurance costs during that period due to wetter weather linked to the climate crisis. 

In all, 661 counties got a crop insurance indemnity payment for excess moisture at some point during that period, adding up to $12.9 billion – one-third of the $38.9 billion in total crop insurance payments for all causes of loss in these counties.

This is the first analysis of the link between recent wetter Midwestern weather caused by climate change and rapidly ballooning crop insurance payments in the region for crops that have failed or been harmed by rain, snow, sleet and other wet weather – issues lumped together by the federal Crop Insurance Program under the term “excess moisture.”

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Little of USDA’s conservation spending went to "climate-smart" agriculture

Anne Schechinger is Senior Analyst of Economics for the Environmental Working Group. This report first appeared on the Environmental Working Group’s website.

Farmers received almost $7.4 billion in payments from two of the largest federal agricultural conservation programs between 2017 and 2020, but only a small proportion of these payments went to practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farming. 

This finding comes from the Environmental Working Group’s newest update to its Conservation Database, which provides 2017–2020 payment data for five of the largest Agriculture Department farm conservation programs.

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Six Iowa creeks have new names, replacing derogatory term

The U.S. Department of Interior announced on September 8 that its Board on Geographic Names voted to approve new names “for nearly 650 geographic features” formerly containing the word “squaw,” including six creek segments in Iowa.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve in that role, created a Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force last year. Its first project was to find replacement names for geographic features on federal lands bearing the term squaw, which “has historically been used as an offensive ethnic, racial, and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women.”

The task force identified seven features in Iowa among a nationwide list of more than 660, and proposed alternate names for consideration in February. After working through thousands of public comments, the task force finalized the replacement names, which are listed here.

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Grassley, Hinson bash student loan relief, but not other government handouts

Like their counterparts across the country, top Iowa Republicans howled on August 24 when President Joe Biden rolled out a three-pronged student loan relief program.

Speaking at a town hall meeting, Senator Chuck Grassley asserted that it’s “unfair” to forgive some student loans but not help other people who struggle to repay their obligations.

U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson denounced the plan as a “handout to the wealthy and a total slap in the face” to working people who didn’t go to college or already paid off their student loans.

The outrage over student debt relief was striking, since Grassley and Hinson have not objected to some other federal government handouts, which benefited their own families.

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It's about time to fund the IRS

This column by Rick Morain first appeared in the Jefferson Herald.

U.S. Senate Democrats passed their omnibus Inflation Reduction Act on August 7 by 51 votes to 50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. They did so under so-called “reconciliation” rules, which require only a simple majority to pass bills related to appropriations, rather than the usual filibuster-blocking 60-vote margin.

The bill then went to the House, where Democrats approved it on a party-line 220 to 207 vote on August 12. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill this week.

The measure contains a number of provisions dear to the hearts of Democrats and many moderates: empowering Medicare to negotiate prices for several key drugs, capping Medicare recipients’ out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 a year, climate control incentives, extension of federal health care subsidies, a 15 percent minimum tax for most corporations whose profits exceed $1 billion a year, and other long-sought goodies.

By raising more money than the act will spend over a 10-year period, it will also enable the government to pay down some of the national debt by several hundred billion dollars. That hasn’t happened for the past 25 years.

A section of the act that particularly irritates Congressional Republicans – and many of their well-heeled donors – increases the funding of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by $80 billion over the next 10 years. A little more than half of that increase will go to hire thousands of new agents to audit tax returns.

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Hearing obliterates Grassley's excuses for Trump on pressuring DOJ

Senator Chuck Grassley has not been following the work of the House Select Committee investigating the events of January 6, 2021, he told Dr. Bob Leonard of KNIA-KRLS Radio this week.

He should have watched the televised hearings on June 23. The focus was how President Donald Trump tried to use the U.S. Department of Justice to help him subvert the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election. The key elements of that conspiracy have been known since the Senate Judiciary Committee investigated that angle last year. But witnesses and exhibits provided many new details.

The testimony from former administration officials and Trump attorneys obliterated the alternate reality Grassley promoted last year, in which the president “did not exert improper influence on the Justice Department.”

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Three Iowans among first to have sentences commuted by Biden

President Joe Biden issued three pardons on April 26 and announced commutations for 75 people convicted of nonviolent federal drug offenses.

In a written statement, Biden said he was using his clemency powers during “Second Chance Month” to pardon “three people who have demonstrated their commitment to rehabilitation and are striving every day to give back and contribute to their communities.”

I am also commuting the sentences of 75 people who are serving long sentences for non-violent drug offenses, many of whom have been serving on home confinement during the COVID-pandemic—and many of whom would have received a lower sentence if they were charged with the same offense today, thanks to the bipartisan First Step Act. 

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Violence Against Women Act reauthorized in big spending bill

President Joe Biden has signed into law a $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill, which funds the federal government through September 30. The president’s action on March 15 ends a cycle of short-term continuing spending resolutions that kept the government operating on spending levels approved during Donald Trump’s administration.

The enormous package combines twelve appropriations bills covering portions of the federal government, as well as an additional $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine and several unrelated pieces of legislation. One of those reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act through 2027, a task that had remained unfinished for years. Congress last reauthorized the 1994 legislation addressing violence against women in 2013, and that authorization expired in 2019.

Iowa’s Senator Joni Ernst was a key negotiator of the final deal on the Violence Against Women Act and celebrated its passage this week.

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Federal auditors reviewing CARES Act funds for governor's staff salaries

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General is reviewing documentation provided to justify Governor Kim Reynolds’ use of federal COVID-19 relief funds to compensate staff in her office, Deputy Inspector General Richard Delmar told Bleeding Heartland on March 14.

The State Auditor’s office concluded in November and reaffirmed this month that Reynolds used $448,449 in CARES Act funds to pay part of the salaries and benefits of 21 permanent staffers between March and June 2020 in order to “cover a budget shortfall that was not a result of the pandemic.” State Auditor Rob Sand called on Reynolds to return the money to Iowa’s Coronavirus Relief Fund before the end of 2021. The governor’s office has insisted its use of COVID-19 relief funds for staff salaries was justified.

When the State Auditor’s office published its findings in November, Delmar told Bleeding Heartland his office “has not initiated an audit of the Governor’s Office salaries and awaits resolution of this matter between the Iowa State Auditor and the Governor’s Office.”

Asked this week about the impasse between Reynolds and state auditors, Delmar confirmed via email, “We have requested documentation of the uses from the State Auditor’s Office and are in the process of reviewing it.”

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Bobby Kaufmann telling new story about obscene gesture

State Representative Bobby Kaufmann gained extensive media coverage in January for raising his middle fingers at the end of a speech to a conservative audience at the Iowa capitol. At the time, Kaufmann told reporters he was trying to convey widespread frustration with federal government policies and national problems.

But the Republican lawmaker told a different story at a recent meeting with constituents. Now he is claiming his “double-finger” was directed at specific individuals who have supposedly threatened his family.

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Governor will struggle to justify CARES Act funds for staff salaries

Governor Kim Reynolds used $448,449 in federal COVID-19 relief funds to cover a shortfall in her office budget without documenting that 21 of her staffers were “substantially dedicated” to the pandemic response, a state audit determined.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General asked state auditors in January 2021 to review whether the spending complied with rules governing the use of Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds. Bleeding Heartland was first to report in September 2020 on CARES Act payments supporting the governor’s permanent staffers, and reported exclusively last December on how documents were altered to make a “FY 2020 Shortfall” in the governor’s office budget appear to be “COVID-19 Personnel Costs.”

State Auditor Rob Sand warned the Reynolds administration in October 2020 that without adequate documentation, COVID-19 relief funds used to pay governor’s staff salaries might need to be repaid to the federal government. The report issued this week advised the governor to return the money to Iowa’s Coronavirus Relief Fund “for other eligible and supported uses prior to the December 31, 2021 deadline.”

The governor’s spokesperson Alex Murphy told reporters the office is “now working with Treasury to provide them documentation” to support the CARES Act spending.

That’s easier said than done.

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Grassley waives off Trump's efforts to overturn 2020 election

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Democratic staff on October 7 published the most extensive report to date on how President Donald Trump and his allies pressured the Department of Justice to help overturn the 2020 presidential election. The interim report and newly-released transcripts from the committee’s interviews with three former senior DOJ officials provide many details on the criminal conspiracy that played out in plain sight last December and January.

Also on October 7, Judiciary’s ranking Republican, Senator Chuck Grassley, released the minority staff’s report on the same investigation. In this 140-page dispatch from bizarro world masquerading as a “factual summary” of DOJ officials’ testimony, Trump “did not exert improper influence on the Justice Department,” and did not use the department to overturn the election. Rather, his “concerns centered on ‘legitimate complaints and reports of crimes’ relating to election allegations.”

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Governor taps American Rescue Plan for IT project predating pandemic

UPDATE: In November 2023, a spokesperson for OCIO told Bleeding Heartland, “OCIO never executed a contract for Master Data Management in any RFP.” She did not explain why the project was shelved. However, it appears that the American Rescue Plan funds allocated for this project were not spent for that purpose. In December 2023, the spokesperson confirmed, “Master Data Management has not moved forward since October 2021.” Original post follows.

Governor Kim Reynolds has allocated $13 million from the state’s American Rescue Plan funds for a data project that has been in the works since 2019.

Last year, the governor approved a request from the state’s Office of Chief Information Officer (OCIO) to pay for the Master Data Management Program with $13 million from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. But those funds were never spent, according to pandemic spending reports and documents obtained through public records requests.

OCIO recently transferred the $13 million earmarked for the data management project back to the agency that administers Iowa’s Coronavirus Relief Fund, spokesperson Cayanna Reinier told Bleeding Heartland on September 29. She added that OCIO is “in the process of restarting” the project and “looking forward to moving ahead” with it, now that the governor’s office has approved the use of American Rescue Plan funds.

It’s far from clear this program is an eligible expense under the latest federal relief package.

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VA vaccine mandate won't apply to Iowa Veterans Home

Staff at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown, where a recent COVID-19 outbreak killed two fully vaccinated residents, are not subject to a new vaccine mandate issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough announced on July 26 that coronavirus vaccinations are now required for “Title 38 VA health care personnel — including physicians, dentists, podiatrists, optometrists, registered nurses, physician assistants, expanded-function dental auxiliaries and chiropractors — who work in Veterans Health Administration facilities, visit VHA facilities or provide direct care to those VA serves.”

The Iowa Veterans Home is a state-run facility, but it receives some federal funding, is certified by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and has residents who use VA health care. At least 900 employees work at the Marshalltown facility, which is Iowa’s largest nursing home. Families and guardians were informed in late June that 70 percent of staff had already been vaccinated for COVID-19. That would leave more than 250 unprotected by any coronavirus vaccine.

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Federal government can fix cannabis scheduling problem without new law

Carl Olsen sent the letter enclosed below to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. -promoted by Laura Belin

Cannabis_Reform@finance.senate.gov

Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act
GAI21675 4LN Discussion Draft S.L.C.

Modern state, national, and international drug laws were designed to be flexible.  Instead of statutory classification of drugs, classification is an administrative process called scheduling.  The scheduling of drugs can be adjusted by administrative processes without the need for further legislation or renegotiated international treaties.

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Governor bashes CDC, blames immigrants for COVID-19 spread

As the more transmissible Delta variant causes COVID-19 cases to rise in all 50 states, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control changed its guidance for fully vaccinated individuals on July 27. The CDC now recommends that they “wear a mask indoors in public” in areas “of substantial or high transmission.” In addition, anyone living with unvaccinated or immunocompromised household members, or those at higher risk of severe disease, “might choose to wear a mask regardless of the level of transmission.”

Despite having no science background, Governor Kim Reynolds bashed the new guidance as “not grounded in reality or common sense.” Only a few hours earlier, she had absurdly suggested that immigrants entering Texas might be to blame for accelerating community spread of COVID-19.

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Update on efforts to obtain a federal cannabis exemption for Iowa

Carl Olsen is the founder of Iowans for Medical Marijuana. promoted by Laura Belin

In February 2019, I asked the Iowa Medical Cannabidiol Board, which regulates our state’s medical cannabis program, if there was anything we could be doing about federal drug law, such as obtaining a federal exemption (21 C.F.R. § 1307.03) like the one that currently exists for another federal Schedule I controlled substance, peyote (21 C.F.R. § 1307.31).

In August 2019, at my request, the board recommended that the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) obtain a federal exemption for cannabis. However, the department refused, saying none of the other 46 states that have enacted medical cannabis laws have requested federal exemptions, and that Iowans were not being injured by the federal criminalization of cannabis.

Keep in mind that patients had been testifying before the board about discrimination in schools and health care facilities because of the federal criminalization of cannabis. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller signed a September 2019 bipartisan letter from attorneys general saying the current federal policy “poses a serious threat to public safety.”

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Upside Down week for Iowa Republicans in Congress

In the natural order of things, members of Congress brag about the federal assistance they fought to obtain for their constituents.

The Republicans who represent Iowa in the U.S. House and Senate turned that formula on its head this week. Every one cheered the news that tens of thousands of Iowans will soon lose the federal government support they depend on.

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Open letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan

Mike Tramontina is a lifelong Iowan who enjoys paddling and fishing in Iowa’s rivers and streams even though they are “unfishable” and “unswimmable.” -promoted by Laura Belin

May 5, 2021

Dear Administrator Regan:

It was very disappointing to read the Des Moines Register news article about your visit to Des Moines. While it is good that you joined the announcement of the demolition and redevelopment of the Dico site, you then went to meet with agricultural leaders to learn about the ethanol industry and livestock production. The disappointment was not making time to even take a question about Iowa’s filthy water and disgusting air.

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Iowa turned down $95 million to test school kids for COVID-19

Governor Kim Reynolds revealed on April 29 that she is sending back $95 million in federal funds designated for testing students for COVID-19.

During a Fox News event featuring Republican governors, Reynolds said of President Joe Biden,

I think he thinks the COVID just started. I just returned 95 million dollars because they sent an additional 95 million dollars to the state of Iowa to get our kids back in the classroom by doing surveillance testing. And I said, “We’ve been in the classroom since August. Here’s your 95 million dollars back.”

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Iowa students join lawsuit over discrimination at Christian colleges

Two Iowa students are among the plaintiffs in a groundbreaking federal class action lawsuit filed this past week. The Portland-based Religious Exemption Accountability Project is suing the U.S. Department of Education and its acting assistant secretary for civil rights, seeking “to put an end to the U.S. Department of Education’s complicity in the abuses and unsafe conditions thousands of LGBTQ+ students endure at hundreds of taxpayer-funded, religious colleges and universities.”

Lauren Hoekstra and Avery Bonestroo are undergraduates at Dordt University in Sioux Center, one of 25 Christian institutions where the 33 plaintiffs are now enrolled or formerly studied.

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Governor joins suit challenging limits on state tax cuts

Governor Kim Reynolds signed Iowa on to a lawsuit challenging part of the federal government’s most recent COVID-19 relief package. Thirteen states filed suit in Alabama on March 31, charging that the American Rescue Plan “impermissibly seizes tax authority from the States.” Reynolds announced the lawsuit during a March 31 appearance on WHO Radio’s program hosted by Simon Conway. The Associated Press was first to report the news.

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Under Trump, farm subsidies soared and the rich got richer

Anne Schechinger: President Joe Biden and Congress must reform a wasteful and unfair farm subsidy system. This report first appeared on the Environmental Working Group’s website. -promoted by Laura Belin

Taxpayer-funded farm subsidies have long been skewed in favor of the richest farmers and landowners. But under the Trump administration, even more money went to the largest and wealthiest farms, further shortchanging smaller, struggling family farms.

The Environmental Working Group’s analysis of records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds that subsidy payments to farmers ballooned from just over $4 billion in 2017 to more than $20 billion in 2020 – driven largely by ad hoc programs meant to offset the effects of President Trump’s failed trade war.

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Feds deny exemption for Iowa's medical cannabis program

Carl Olsen recounts the latest legal steps in his effort to reconcile state and federal drug laws. -promoted by Laura Belin

On November 10, just a week after the election, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) denied our petition for a new federal regulation exempting state medical cannabis programs to be added as 21 C.F.R.

DEA explained that denying the exemption was necessary because it would create an exemption:

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Federal officials: Iowa can't use CARES Act funds for software system

The state of Iowa’s contract with Workday to upgrade computer systems “is not an allowable expenditure” under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Inspector General informed Iowa Department of Management Director David Roederer on October 16.

The State Auditor’s office released a copy of the letter on October 21. State Auditor Rob Sand announced two days earlier that he had also informed Governor Kim Reynolds and Roederer that spending $21 million on Workday-related costs was “not an appropriate use” of the Coronavirus Relief Fund.

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Auditor: Iowa governor misused $21 million in COVID-19 relief funds

Governor Kim Reynolds erred in directing that $21 million in federal funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act be used to cover the cost of a software system purchased before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to State Auditor Rob Sand.

Sand announced on October 19 that he and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Inspector General “have advised Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds that her decision to use millions of CARES Act dollars to help implement a new software system for state government was not an allowable use of the funds.” The Treasury Department and governor’s office did not respond to requests for confirmation and comment.

Sand also described as “questionable” the use of CARES Act funds to pay the governor’s permanent staff. Bleeding Heartland was first to report last month that Reynolds directed $448,449 in COVID-19 relief funds to pay a portion of salaries and benefits for 21 of her staffers from mid-March through June 2020. Sand warned that a federal audit may eventually determine that the payments did not meet requirements, so reallocating the funds to purposes clearly allowed under the CARES Act would be less risky for taxpayers.

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Trump food program letter: Treat or trick?

Herb Strentz reports on how central Iowa food banks are handling an unprecedented letter from the president in boxes for the needy. -promoted by Laura Belin

Halloween will soon be upon us, and there is a “trick or treat” aspect to a flap involving President Donald Trump. I’m not referring to his planned campaign rally at the Des Moines airport, but to a controversy surrounding aid to our nation’s hungry.

Here’s the deal: Given that COVID-19 has cost farmers much of their commercial market and exacerbated food insecurity for millions of people, the U.S. Department of Agriculture advanced a $4 billion Farmers to Families Food Box Program called the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.

Here’s the misdeal: The boxes that program provides to food banks around the nation–and then to food pantries– now include a letter in English and Spanish and adorned by the usual grandiose signature of Donald J. Trump. He takes a measure of credit for the program and writes, “I prioritized sending nutritious food from our farmers to families in need throughout America.”

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Largest farms received most trade bailout, COVID-19 payments

This article first appeared on the Environmental Working Group’s website. -promoted by Laura Belin

The largest and wealthiest U.S. farm businesses received the biggest share of almost $33 billion in payments from two subsidy programs – one created by the Trump administration to respond to the president’s trade war and the other by Congress in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to updates to EWG’s Farm Subsidy Database.

The Market Facilitation Program, or MFP, was intended to offset the perceived damage done by the administration’s trade war, which reduced many farmers’ access to lucrative Chinese markets. Payments for the 2018 and 2019 crop years were just over $23 billion – more than $8.5 billion for 2018 and $14.5 billion for 2019.

EWG’s analysis of Department of Agriculture records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, shows:

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Exclusive: Iowa governor used CARES Act funds to pay staff salaries

Governor Kim Reynolds directed that nearly $450,000 in federal funding the state of Iowa received through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act be used to cover salaries and benefits for staff working in her office.

According to documents Bleeding Heartland obtained from the Iowa Department of Management through public records requests, the funds will cover more than 60 percent of the compensation for 21 employees from March 14 through June 30, 2020.

Reynolds has not disclosed that she allocated funds for that purpose, and reports produced by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency have not mentioned any CARES Act funding received by the governor’s office. Nor do any such disbursements appear on a database showing thousands of state government expenditures under the CARES Act.

The governor’s communications director Pat Garrett did not respond to four requests for comment over a two-week period.

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Iowa's state universities won't follow Trump's payroll tax deferral

Tens of thousands of employees at Iowa’s state universities will have their payroll taxes withheld as usual this fall, despite a recent executive order from President Donald Trump.

Trump moved last month to suspend payroll taxes from September 1 through December 31, 2020. Affected employees would see slightly higher paychecks for the next four months, but would have lower take-home pay from January through April 2021 as employers withhold double the amount for payroll taxes.

Josh Lehman, communications director for the Iowa Board of Regents, told Bleeding Heartland on September 9,

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Iowa agriculture, climate change, and "SWAPA"

Paul W. Johnson is a preacher’s kid, former Iowa state legislator, former chief of the USDA Soil Conservation Service/Natural Resources Conservation Service, former director of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and a retired farmer. -promoted by Laura Belin

In the early 1980s there was a serious farm crisis in Iowa. Land and commodity prices were falling, so banks were calling in farm loans and foreclosing on farmers who couldn’t pay up. Maurice Dingman was bishop of the Des Moines area during those years, and he was speaking up strongly for farmers who were suffering during this time. I was impressed by his defense of family farmers.

In 1987 David Osterberg and I were serving in the Iowa legislature–he representing Mount Vernon, I representing Decorah–and working on groundwater protection. Industrial agriculture sent their lobbyists to weaken our legislation, and newspapers were carrying stories about their fierce opposition to our work.

During this time, Bishop Dingman phoned us and suggested we have lunch together.

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Ernst's words don't match actions on COVID-19 relief for fossil fuels industry

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst told members of the Iowa Farmers Union in June that she’d prefer for fossil fuel companies not to be eligible for COVID-19 relief funds.

However, months earlier she was among only two farm state senators to sign a letter aimed at ensuring that oil, gas, and coal companies would have access to federal funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

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Grassley, Ernst silent as Trump, Barr continue purge

Another Friday night has brought another irregular ouster of a federal official whose work should be insulated from politics.

Four days later, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, a self-styled warrior for oversight and accountability in Washington, has said nothing. Neither has Senator Joni Ernst, who like Grassley serves on the committee that oversees the justice system.

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The looming environmental catastrophe

Tyler Granger is an Iowa field representative of the National Wildlife Federation. -promoted by Laura Belin

The Trump administration has a terrible track record of refusing to listen to scientists and rolling back industrial pollution regulations–at least 95 rollbacks through the end of 2019. Caitlin McCoy, a fellow in the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School, described the “one-two punch” often employed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): “First a delay rule to buy some time, and then a final substantive rule” that undermines protections for human health or natural resources.

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Senator Grassley, you enabled this

President Donald Trump has added to the list of officials he has sidelined for their role in exposing or investigating him. In what Aaron Blake called a “Friday night news dump for the ages,” Trump informed leaders of the U.S. House and Senate Intelligence Committees on April 3 that he is removing Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

Trump put Atkinson on administrative leave to stop him from doing his job before his dismissal takes effect next month (the president was required to give Congress 30 days notice of such action).

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What the Iowans fought for, bragged about in massive year-end spending bills

The U.S. House and Senate managed to wrap up their work for the year without shutting down the government, an improvement on the state of affairs when the fully Republican-controlled Congress left for the winter holiday break in 2018.

The two huge bills contained about $1.4 trillion in spending, which will keep the federal government open through the end of the current fiscal year on September 30, 2020. President Donald Trump signed the legislation.

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Played for suckers on ethanol, top Iowa Republicans still covering for Trump

Governor Kim Reynolds and U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst praised President Donald Trump in October, when the administration gave assurances corn growers and the ethanol industry would get what they wanted from the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2020 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) guidelines. The governor and senators were among Midwest Republicans who had lobbied Trump on the issue in September.

When the final rule released this week didn’t match the promises, biofuels advocates slammed Trump for not keeping his word to farmers. But top Iowa Republicans let the president off the hook by shifting the blame to the EPA.

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Our biggest ethanol problem? There’s too much of it

Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson challenges the conventional wisdom on a hot political topic. -promoted by Laura Belin

The sky is falling and Midwest rural economies are in danger of collapse. So say the nation’s ethanol producers, corn farmers, and like-minded politicians.

Their collective fingers are pointing at the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s granting of 31 waivers to U.S. refineries lowering the amount of biofuels they are required to blend into the petro-fuels they distribute. The waivers, the stakeholders claim, are the cause of a string of biorefinery closings and idlings.

Working through this, however, does not lead one to necessarily conclude that the infamous 31 waivers are the chief culprits.

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House approves Farm Bill with food assistance cuts: How the Iowans voted

The U.S. House approved a five-year farm bill on June 21 by 213 votes to 211, with support from Iowa GOP Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04). Every Democrat present, including Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02), voted against the bill, as did 20 Republicans (roll call).

A conservative bloc had voted down the same legislation in May, seeking to force House Speaker Paul Ryan to schedule a vote on an immigration bill drafted by Robert Goodlatte. The tactic worked, in the sense that House leaders brought Goodlatte’s bill to the floor shortly before the farm bill. However, the immigration measure lacked the votes to pass the chamber.

According to Politico’s Catherine Boudreau, the legislation was “the first farm bill to pass either chamber with only one-party support,” because “Democrats revolted over its proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly known as food stamps.”

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Rod Blum, David Young, and Steve King vote to gut Wall Street regulations

Iowa’s three Republicans in the U.S. House joined almost all of their GOP colleagues today to approve a bill that would “devastate financial regulation.” The Financial Choice Act would “dismantle” many provisions in the 2010 banking reform law known as Dodd-Frank. It passed by 233 votes to 186 (roll call), with Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) among the 233 Republicans who voted yes. Just one Republican joined 185 House Democrats, including Iowa’s Dave Loebsack (IA-02), to oppose the bill.

House Speaker Paul Ryan is spinning this bill as a rescue of “Main Street America,” but its key beneficiaries would not be small banks, and its provisions could make millions of consumers and investors into sitting ducks for Wall Street abuses.

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Weekend open thread: Alarming ties between Trump and Russia edition

President-elect Donald Trump continues to assemble a cabinet full of people “who have key philosophical differences with the missions of the agencies they have been tapped to run.”

But arguably, the scariest news of the week was the political reaction to the Central Intelligence Agency assessment that it is “quite clear” Russia intervened in the U.S. elections with the goal of electing Trump.

Despite what one retired CIA officer described as a “blazing 10-alarm fire,” only four Republican senators have taken up the call for a bipartisan investigation of Russian interference in U.S. elections. For his part, Trump dismissed the CIA’s findings as “ridiculous,” while members of his transition team discredited the agency and leaked news that Trump will appoint a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin as secretary of state.

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The Waterloo Police Department will face no pressure from Trump's administration

The city of Waterloo has agreed to pay $2.75 million this year to settle a wrongful death case and four other lawsuits over excessive uses of force by police. Other officers’ actions toward African-Americans led to an acquittal in a murder trial and will likely inspire more lawsuits. The series of scandals nearly cost Police Chief Dan Trelka his job in September.

After ignoring experts’ advice for many months, Trelka insists he is trying to improve relationships between his department and the African-American community in Waterloo.

Let’s all hope he is sincere, because under Donald Trump’s administration, police misconduct and especially excessive force against black people will face a lot less scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice and its Civil Rights Division.

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Branstad urged Army Corps to give last green light for Bakken pipeline

Governor Terry Branstad denied in September that he’s a friend to Big Oil interests seeking to build the Dakota Access (Bakken) pipeline across four states, including Iowa.

But in a move his office did not announce last week, Branstad joined North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple and South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard to urge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers not to delay approval of the final federal easement needed to complete the pipeline.

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Branstad talks big on family incomes but opposes concrete steps to raise them

Since the day he launched his 2010 campaign for governor, Terry Branstad has been promising to raise Iowa family incomes by 25 percent. That aspiration is still highlighted on the front page of the governor’s website.

Family incomes haven’t increased in any significant way, according to a September 2015 report by the Iowa Fiscal Partnership: “Median household income was $53,712 in 2014 — compared with $53,031 the year before. It was also statistically unchanged from 2007 ($53,994 in 2014 dollars) and from 2000 ($52,483 in 2014 dollars).” U.S. Census Bureau data indicate that as of July 2015, the median family income in Iowa was $52,716.

Despite the lack of progress toward one of his central goals, Branstad has opposed various policies that would raise incomes, especially toward the lower end of the scale.

Most recently, he moved last week to block a new U.S. Department of Labor rule, which would make at least 120,000 Iowans eligible to earn overtime pay.

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Have the Waterloo Police implemented any recommended reforms?

A series of disturbing incidents involving Waterloo police officers came to light this summer through legal settlements, a pending lawsuit, and a criminal trial. The common thread was white police officers using excessive force or offensive language toward African-Americans in Waterloo, the Iowa city with the largest proportion of black residents.

Waterloo Police Chief Dan Trelka announced an investigation into one officer, who laughed at the scene of an 18-year-old’s fatal shooting, called the victim a “dead mother f—-er” and said “we just need a semi-apocalyptic event to get rid of 90 percent of them.”

But Trelka has also accused the media of making too much of the scandals, telling local radio host Bob Bruce last month that negative news coverage obscures great progress being made in the department. Trelka acknowledged “we needed to adjust,” adding that “we have adjusted with changes in policy and training.”

Last year, external reviewers suggested at least ten reforms for the Waterloo Police Department. I have been unable to find evidence that Trelka and his staff acted on any of those recommendations.

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Weekend open thread: 9/11 memories

Fifteen years later, images of the burning and collapsing World Trade Center towers are fresh in the minds of just about everyone old enough to remember 9/11. All topics are welcome in this thread, including any reflections on that horrific day.

Many people casually refer to “3,000 Americans” killed on 9/11, but hundreds of the victims were from other countries. Last year, the Brilliant Maps website posted a map created by reddit user thepenaltytick, showing all countries that lost at least one citizen. Most of the globe is covered.

The United Kingdom lost 67 citizens (some tourists, others working in the U.S.), making 9/11 the deadliest terror attack in that country’s history.

I was living in London fifteen years ago. Having watched the BBC’s uneventful news over lunch, I turned off the tv to get back to work on my dissertation. Around 2:00 pm, which would have been 9:00 am in New York, someone called and told me to turn the tv back on. I was glued to the BBC for the rest of the day and night. Watching the people trapped on the roof of the World Trade Center, I couldn’t understand why none of the helicopters could get close enough to rescue them before the towers collapsed. I could not believe a plane was able to crash into the Pentagon.

In Britain, as in the U.S., there was a tremendous public outpouring of grief after the attacks. British people are normally reserved with strangers, but many approached me after hearing my American accent in a shop or a train station, just to say how very sorry they were about what had happened in my country. UPDATE: Added below photos a reader sent, showing piles of flowers and gifts and notes left outside the U.S. embassy in London in September 2001.

I didn’t lose any friends on 9/11, and only one of my acquaintances lost a loved one that day; his father was on one of the planes that hit the towers. Even without experiencing a personal bereavement, I felt enraged, especially when reading newspaper profiles of the victims. During the Jewish high holidays in late September 2001, the last thing I felt like doing was reflecting on the past and forgiving wrongs from the past year. At that time, I heard a BBC radio segment featuring the UK’s Chief Rabbi, David Sacks. He reminded listeners that the Bible (he meant the Hebrew Scriptures or “Old Testament”) tells us once to love our neighbors, but tells us approximately 30 times to love the stranger. That’s because it is easier to love our neighbor, who is probably a lot like ourselves, than it is to love a stranger. It’s the only quote I remember from what must have been dozens of radio commentaries by Sacks I heard during my years abroad.

This week, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein called for a new investigation of the 9/11 events. Stein is headlining a rally at the state capitol in Des Moines today from 3 pm to 5:30. To any readers who attend: feel free to write about the speakers or crowd atmosphere in a comment or a guest post for Bleeding Heartland later. MSNBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald analyzed Stein’s campaign strategy a few weeks ago, arguing she “seems unsure how to speak to anyone this side of Noam Chomsky” and has “misread” the Bernie Sanders playbook while attempting to appeal to Sanders supporters.

Big news on Friday: in a move without precedent, the Obama administration ordered that construction of the Dakota Access (Bakken) pipeline “will not go forward at this time” on Army Corps land bordering or under a North Dakota lake on Standing Rock Sioux tribal land. Gavin Aronsen wrote up the story for Iowa Informer. The federal action will not affect Bakken pipeline construction in Iowa. Though the project will probably be completed in all four states eventually, James MacPherson reported for the Associated Press that the government’s intervention “may forever change the way all energy infrastructure projects [affecting tribal land] are reviewed in the future.”

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Title IX and the Rio Olympics

Tom Witosky covered sports, politics and business for many years as an investigative reporter at the Des Moines Register. -promoted by desmoinesdem

-30-

Back when newspaper reporters typed their stories onto paper, the notation -30- at the bottom of the final page indicated the end of a story.

When the U.S. Men’s Olympic basketball team on Sunday defeated Serbia, 96-66, the 30-point drubbing fittingly symbolized the end of one of the best Olympic efforts ever by U.S. male and female athletes. Medal totals told the story: U.S. teams earned 121 medals (45 gold, 37 silver and 38 bronze) outpacing China’s second place finish with 70 medals.

But what’s more interesting is how the dominance of U.S. female athletes, likely the most superior women’s team ever fielded by the United States Olympic Committee, played such a huge role in that success.

In many ways, the U.S. success provides another metaphor for the progress that has been made in this country’s striving for a better union. Like the breaking of the racial barrier in Major League Baseball by Jackie Robinson, and the breaking of the sexual-orientation barrier by a variety of athletes, the success of the U.S. women illustrates vividly that commitment to equality and diversity does pay despite long-term, deep-seated resistance from those who disagree.

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An Iowa mom's perfect care package for Mylan CEO Heather Bresch

Outrage has been building for several days over news that the Mylan corporation jacked up wholesale prices for EpiPens from $56.64 to $317.82 between 2007 and 2015. Mylan is the sole suppler of devices patients can use to inject epinephrine in case of life-threatening allergic reactions. Manufacturing costs for EpiPens have not increased, and the active ingredient is a “generic drug that has been in use for decades.” Adding to the scandal, the annual total compensation for Mylan CEO Heather Bresch has increased from $2,453,456 to $18,931,068 since 2007. The company exploited a loophole called “inversion” two years ago to reduce its tax bill.

Yesterday Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called on Mylan to reduce the price of EpiPens. Members of Congress including Iowa’s Senator Chuck Grassley have asked the company to explain the pricing changes and asked the Food and Drug Administration “to answer questions about its approval process and other steps for alternatives to the EpiPen.” Michael Hiltzik reported for the Los Angeles Times that another device used to self-inject epinephrine “was taken off the market last year because of manufacturing defects,” and a similar product from a generics company “hasn’t yet won approval from the Food and Drug Administration.” Another generic product is available at a lower cost but works differently, “in ways that can lead to critical errors if users aren’t properly trained,” and it “can’t be substituted when filling a prescription” for an EpiPen.

Mylan promised today to offer more assistance for people who need to buy EpiPens. But as Andrew Pollack reported for the New York Times, the extra discounts are “not lowering the list price of EpiPen, just making it easier for consumers to pay for it. So insurance companies, federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and school districts that stock the products could still pay the same price.” Bresch sounded shameless this morning during a CNBC interview, justifying the price increase because of higher marketing and distribution costs and other improvements to the product. “No one is more frustrated than I am,” she claimed.

My friend Colleen Kinney, a Des Moines mother of a child with severe food allergy, is mailing Bresch a care package today. She gave me permission to publish this photo of the cookies she baked and will send along with a note: “Heather Bresch, Please provide explanation for epipen price hike. Enjoy these treats. If my son ate these, he would die without Mylan’s epi-pen.”

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Bakken pipeline received final federal permit; land use lawsuit pending

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has granted the Texas-based Dakota Access company a federal permit to build the Bakken pipeline across Iowa.

Although opponents plan various forms of direct action, the best remaining chance for stopping the pipeline is a lawsuit challenging the Iowa Utilities Board’s authority to use eminent domain for a project with no legitimate public purpose.

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House GOP quashes vote on Steve King's latest wacky idea

The U.S. House Rules Committee decided tonight against allowing a vote on Representative Steve King’s proposal to block the U.S. Treasury Department from using federal funds to redesign any currency. In April, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew announced plans to redesign the $20 bill, with a picture of Harriet Tubman on the front and an image of President Andrew Jackson on the back.

The innovation didn’t sit well with King. As Zach Carter first reported for the Huffington Post, King offered his amendment to the appropriations bill covering the Treasury Department. Matthew Nussbaum reported this evening for Politico,

“It’s not about Harriet Tubman, it’s about keeping the picture on the $20,” King said Tuesday evening, pulling a $20 bill from his pocket and pointing at President Andrew Jackson. “Y’know? Why would you want to change that? I am a conservative, I like to keep what we have.”

The conservative gadfly said it is “racist” and “sexist” to say a woman or person of color should be added to currency. “Here’s what’s really happening, this is liberal activism on the part of the president, that’s trying to identify people by categories and he’s divided us on the lines of groups. … This is a divisive proposal on the part of the president and mine’s unifying. It says just don’t change anything.”

Has anyone seen a better example of white male privilege lately? U.S. paper currency has featured white men on all denominations for generations. Yet it’s “racist” and “sexist” to put an African-American woman on one bill and several white women on another–even though both redesigned bills would retain images of white men on one side.

Sensitivity to racial injustice has never been King’s strong suit, so of course he would call it “unifying” to keep the seventh president’s place on the $20. Never mind Jackson’s legacy of brutal Indian removal policies, not to mention direct involvement in the slave trade and attempts to limit postal delivery of abolitionist materials. In case King forgot, the Republican Party grew out of the anti-slavery movement.

With Donald Trump damaging the GOP brand among non-white Americans, House leaders needed unflattering national news coverage and an eventual floor vote on King’s amendment like a hole in the head. So the Rules Committee determined the proposal to be out of order. King can go back to fighting “bloodthirsty vegan brigades” and other imagined threats to American civilization.

UPDATE: Added below fantastic comments by King’s Democratic challenger, Kim Weaver.

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Prairie Meadows IRS problem: Business decisions could end tax exemption

Tom Witosky retired from the Des Moines Register in 2012 after 33 years of award-winning reporting on politics, sports and business. He is the co-author of Equal Before the Law: How Iowa Led Americans to Marriage Equality published by University of Iowa Press. -promoted by desmoinesdem

If it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck — even if it looks like a horse and a slot machine.

That adage appears to be the bottom line for U.S. Internal Revenue Service officials, who, after close to 20 years of allowing Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino to operate as a non-profit under U.S. Chapter 501(c)(4), now want a share of the $2.2 billion largesse the so-called “racino” generates annually.

Here is a piece of advice about the ongoing controversy: Nothing is going to change for several years unless there is a settlement that won’t change much of anything.

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Details on President Obama's executive orders on guns, with Iowa reaction

In an emotional White House address, President Barack Obama announced today new executive actions aimed at reducing gun violence, including suicides as well as homicides and other crimes.

• Background Checks: Require all gun sellers — including online and at gun shows — to have a license and perform background checks. Have the FBI overhaul the existing background-check system.
• Enforcement: Improve the use of America’s existing gun laws, and add 200 new agents to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
• Mental Health: Remove barriers that can keep states from reporting and sharing information about people barred from owning guns for mental health reasons, and spend $500 million to increase access to mental health care.
• Technology: Push for research in gun safety technology, such as “smart guns” that can only be fired by authorized users. The research would be done by the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security. The White House notes the federal government is “the single largest purchaser of firearms in the country.”

I enclose below more details on steps the president ordered as well as Iowa political reaction. I will update this post as needed, since some of the Iowans in Congress neither released statements on this issue nor responded to my requests for comment.

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Our Latest Ethanol Non-issue

Dave Swenson

The EPA finally announced the amount of ethanol that will be blended with the nation’s fuel supply in 2015 and the amount to be blended in 2016 (see this summary in Bleeding Heartland). Depending on where your headline writers live, this was reported as a win for ethanol or a disappointment to the biofuels industry. Here in Iowa, the Des Moines Register told us that Iowa’s ethanol producers, notwithstanding a boost in ethanol mandate levels from earlier EPA proposals this year, found it necessary to “criticize new EPA fuel standard.”

A reasonable person might wonder, what’s up? What’s up, is the ethanol industry has an insatiable demand for public support of ethanol consumption, and it views any erosions in that support as an unforgiveable betrayal.

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Iowa officials disappointed by EPA's final Renewable Fuel Standard

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Iowa politicians from both parties may disagree on hundreds of policy issues, but they have long been united in supporting the biofuels industry. Iowa’s elected officials expressed outrage in late 2013, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed reducing the Renewable Fuel Standard, a “federal program that requires transportation fuel sold in the United States to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels.” Governor Terry Branstad and then-Representative Bruce Braley were among those who urged the EPA not to reduce the amount of ethanol required. Political pressure eventually delayed the EPA’s action on adjusting the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Yesterday the EPA released the final version of the RFS. More details, background and supporting documents on the rule are available here. The final standards for 2014 and 2015 “reflect the actual amount of domestic biofuel used in those years, and standards for 2016 (and 2017 for biodiesel) […] represent significant growth over historical levels.” They rule also sets higher goals than those the EPA proposed earlier this year. Christopher Doering reported for the Des Moines Register,

Janet McCabe, the acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said in an interview the ethanol quotas follow Congress’ intent to promote the increased use of renewable fuels. She said slower-than-expected growth in the nascent cellulosic ethanol industry and lower gasoline demand made the 2007 figures from Congress no longer achievable.

These numbers will “really drive the volumes significantly beyond where they have been in the last couple of years, which is what Congress intended, and that’s substantial growth, achievable growth,” McCabe said. “The industry is going to really have to push to achieve these, but it provides the signal they’ve been asking for. I think when people look at the numbers they will see that this really is very good for the industry.”

Nevertheless, Iowa politicians expressed strong disapproval yesterday of the EPA’s final rule. I’ve enclosed below statements from the governor’s office and several members of Congress and will update this post as needed.

Once you venture outside political circles, you can find Iowa voices questioning the consensus about federal policy on biofuels. At a January 2014 hearing organized by Branstad, Francis Thicke was the only speaker “to talk about the ‘other side’ of ethanol,” arguing that it is “disingenuous to frame the debate on the Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS) as a struggle between farmers and Big Oil.” Bleeding Heartland user black desert nomad also defended the EPA’s planned update to the RFS. Whereas elected officials tend to cite Renewable Fuels Association statistics as gospel, Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson has questioned industry claims regarding biofuels production and job creation.

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Weekend open thread: Lousy deal-making edition

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

In what the Des Moines Register’s editors described as a “new low in the out-of-control race to keep or attract employers,” a state board unanimously approved $4.75 million in financial assistance to Kraft Heinz, which plans to replace a large factory in Davenport with a new facility on the northwest side of town. Although at least 900 people are expected to lose their jobs in the downsizing, the city of Davenport will put up $10 million in tax-increment financing to support the project. The Iowa Department of Transportation and the city are expected to commit $5.8 million for road work around the new factory site too. Never one to shy away from handing state funds to large corporations, Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham has let all downsizing companies know that the state of Iowa’s wallet is open: “‘Will I take this deal any day? You bet,’ Durham said Thursday morning. ‘This is a future play.’” Durham also told reporters she “expects the state to do more of these kinds of deals in the future, as more massive companies merge.”

Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson characterized the Kraft Heinz incentive package as “bizarre,” adding, “The idea of providing public assistance for a company that has billions of dollars of annual sales cannot make sense to anybody.” The Register’s editors noted, “the company could get $20.75 million in state and local assistance,” which “works out to nearly $43,700 for every job Kraft Heinz agrees to keep”–and roughly 200 of the jobs the company promised to save will pay less than $37,000 a year.”

Speaking of lousy deals, Iowa’s plan to privatize Medicaid looks worse and worse. A post in progress will discuss this policy in more detail; for now I enclose below excerpts from several stories by Jason Clayworth for the Des Moines Register. In recent weeks, Clayworth has exposed damning facts, including:

Some claims made in bidding documents from the four private insurers chosen to manage Medicaid in Iowa “contain unverifiable data, misleading statements or half-truths.”

No data support the government’s estimate that privatizing Medicaid would save $51 million from the state budget during the first six months of the program.

The insurers selected to manage Medicaid “have each been held accountable in other states for serious service and administrative errors, including some that wrongly delayed or denied medical services to poor residents […].”

Iowa’s Medicaid director Mikki Stier “had improper communications with an insurance company consultant and former lawmaker during a critical review period that ended with the for-profit company being selected” as a managed care provider for Medicaid.

A November 6 letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to Stier enumerated “significant concerns” about the transition to managed care; excerpts from that letter are at the end of this post. Federal officials and Iowa Senate Democrats have scheduled “listening sessions” around the state to focus on Medicaid privatization. Click through for meeting details, as well as a list of state and federal officials to contact with concerns. Only the feds can stop this train by denying the necessary waivers. Branstad administration officials have been unmoved by any of the Register’s revelations or by the risks to vulnerable Iowans, which many speakers raised during Legislative Oversight Committee hearings on November 3.

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How the Iowans voted on the short-term funding that prevented a government shutdown

On the last day of the 2015 fiscal year, both houses of Congress passed a “clean” continuing resolution to fund the federal government through December 11. Conservative Republicans failed to add language ending all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The White House has said President Barack Obama would veto any continuing resolution that did not include funds for the health care provider.

Senate leaders gave up this fight for the time being after a September 24 cloture motion on a short-term spending bill that excluded Planned Parenthood fell well short of the 60 votes needed. Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst both supported that bill, but it only gained 47 votes in favor.

Yesterday the U.S. Senate advanced a short-term continuing resolution without special language about Planned Parenthood. This time the cloture motion passed easily by 77 votes to 19 (roll call), with Grassley and Ernst both voting in favor. Today’s vote on the continuing resolution itself was 78 to 20; again Grassley and Ernst supported the measure. In a conference call with Iowa reporters today, Grassley indicated that a partial government shutdown, as occurred in October 2013, would be costly: “We shouldn’t do anything silly to add to the bad fiscal situation the federal government is in.”

Of the senators who are running for president, Bernie Sanders voted for the continuing resolution. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz voted against it; Cruz fought a lonely battle yesterday “to add a one-year ban on federal funding for Planned Parenthood” to the resolution. Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham were on the campaign trail and missed these important votes.

Later this afternoon, the House approved the continuing resolution by 277 to 151 (roll call). All the Democrats present voted yes, including Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02). Iowa’s House Republicans split with David Young (IA-03) joining 90 other GOP members in support of the resolution. Rod Blum (IA-01) and Steve King (IA-04) were among the 151 no votes. Earlier today, King had submitted four amendments to the continuing resolution in the House Rules Committee. In a statement I’ve enclosed in full below, King said his amendments would “restore Article I authority” to Congress by defunding Planned Parenthood, the Iran nuclear deal, President Obama’s executive orders on deferring deportations for some immigrants brought to this country illegally, and the 2010 health care reform law. However, King did not manage to get his amendments added to the continuing resolution.

I’ve enclosed political reaction to today’s votes after the jump and will update this post as needed with comments from other members of the Iowa delegation. Blum is spinning his vote against the resolution as a stand against “back room deals” and kicking the can down the road, as opposed to a vote for shutting down the government.

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No comment from most Iowans in Congress as EPA expands farm worker pesticide protections

On Monday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the final version of “stronger protections for the nation’s two million agricultural workers and their families working on farms, forests, nurseries, and greenhouses. These revisions to the 1992 Agricultural Worker Protection Standard will afford farmworkers similar health protections that are already afforded to workers in other industries.” Under the old rules, exposure to chemicals incurred “an estimated $10 million to $15 million in annual health costs” among farm workers The new rules do not cover “persons working with livestock” and exempt “farm owners and their immediate family with an expanded definition of family.” I’ve enclosed after the jump a fact sheet summarizing key changes, a short summary of the public health case for the rule, and a graphic that shows the old and new rules side by side. Click here for the EPA’s press release on the changes and here for a more detailed five-page chart.

Fruit and vegetable farming isn’t a huge industry in Iowa like it is in states with longer growing seasons, such as California or Florida. Still, Iowa farms have been producing more of what some call “specialty crops” as more consumers here seek out local food. Moreover, expanding fruit and vegetable production in Iowa has potential to create jobs and increase local incomes, according to this 2010 paper by Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson. So I sought comment from the Iowans in Congress on the new regulations. At this writing, I have not heard back from the offices of House Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), David Young (IA-03), or Steve King (IA-04). I also haven’t received a comment from Senator Chuck Grassley. Senator Joni Ernst’s communications director sent the following:

Senator Ernst believes that once again the Obama Administration is overstepping its bounds, expanding onerous regulations that fail to consider the full impact on stakeholders, like Iowa’s agriculture industry. The EPA is continuing to act as an unchecked federal agency, adding burdensome new rules and costs. In addition, the EPA completely ignores the safety progress that has already been made under existing guidelines for our youth.

Iowa politicians tend to be hostile to any new regulation affecting farms or other agricultural facilities. Most of Iowa’s federal representatives opposed the U.S. Department of Labor’s efforts in 2011 to update protections for children on working farms. Every Iowan in Congress except for Senator Tom Harkin welcomed the department’s decision to withdraw that rule in April 2012.

A spokesperson for Governor Terry Branstad said they don’t have a reaction to the new farm worker safety rule yet but will evaluate it “in its entirety.” I can’t think of a time Branstad supported any regulation of farming practices, so I assume he will not be favorably disposed toward the new EPA rule. But if he’s serious about making Iowa the “healthiest state,” reducing unnecessary exposure to pesticides would be a worthy goal to embrace.

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Is the Promise of Natural Gas Waning?

(The former leader of the Iowa Energy Office and founder of the non-profit Unfolding Energy challenges some assumptions about natural gas as a "bridge" between coal-fired power plants and renewable energy production. - promoted by desmoinesdem)

The final Clean Power Plan released on August underplays the role of natural gas in reducing carbon emissions in comparison to the draft Clean Power Plan rules released in 2014. According to the America’s Natural Gas Alliance President Martin Durbin, initial indications from the final Clean Power Plan rues indicate that the White House discounted gas’s ability to reduce GHG emissions quickly and reliably while contributing to growth and helping consumers.

For the last few years, natural gas was considered to be a bridge between carbon-intensive fuels such as coal and the clean energy of the future. Given that natural gas releases 50% fewer greenhouse gas emissions compared to coal, it was certainly a great substitute. However, the recent growth in the renewable energy industry is quickly proving that we may not need this bridge fuel after all.  Here is why.  

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Iowa won't have to repay HAVA funds used for voter fraud investigations

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has determined that spending $240,000 on criminal investigations of voter fraud in Iowa was an “allowable, allocable and reasonable” use of federal Help America Vote Act funds, Ryan Foley reported for the Associated Press today. I enclose the commission’s two-page memorandum of August 13 after the jump (hat tip to Foley). A spokesman for the commission told the AP “he wasn’t aware of other states using HAVA funding for similar investigations.”

Former Secretary of State Matt Schultz made battling voter fraud a major theme of his four years in office. The full-time investigator, pulled from other work at the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations, turned up a few examples of improper registration and voting but no evidence of any large-scale voter fraud problem. Democratic State Senator Tom Courtney was among the leading critics of Schultz’s use of HAVA funds for that purpose. In October 2012, he requested state and federal audits of the matter. Deputy State Auditor Warren Jenkins announced in December 2013 that his office’s review could not determine whether criminal investigations were a proper or improper use of HAVA funds. He advised the Secretary of State’s Office to “have a plan in place” in case Iowa needed to repay the money to the federal government later.

The commission’s ruling is a lucky break for Schultz, who was elected Madison County attorney last November after losing the GOP primary in the third Congressional district. He’s keeping busy now as state chair for Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. When Schultz seeks higher office again, he can claim he was vindicated in using federal funds to investigate fraud.

For those wondering why it took federal officials so long to consider Iowa’s use of HAVA money: because Senate Republicans refused to confirm President Barack Obama’s nominees, the Election Assistance Commission didn’t have the necessary quorum to take any official actions from 2010 until January of this year, when three new commissioners were sworn in. Senators had confirmed them during the December 2014 lame-duck session of Congress as part of a large bloc of nominees approved by unanimous consent.

UPDATE: Added below a statement from Courtney urging Secretary of State Paul Pate “to formally pledge not to use federal funds for any future voter purge effort” and to make clear “that Iowa is no longer one of the states where election officials use tax dollars to suppress voter turnout.”

SECOND UPDATE: Schultz told the AP, “This was always about improving the administration of elections.” Rita Bettis, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, called it “truly troublesome for our national democracy” that Schultz’s “model of voter intimidation can now be exported to other states ahead of the 2016 General Election.”

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What the Clean Power Plan will mean for Iowa

Yesterday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the final version of its Clean Power Plan for existing power plants, the “first-ever national standards to limit carbon pollution from power plants.” The final rule differs from the EPA’s original proposal last June in several respects. An EPA fact sheet spells out the key changes to the Iowa targets:

The goals are much closer together than at proposal. Compared to proposal, the highest (least stringent) goals got tighter, and the lowest (most stringent) goals got looser.

o Iowa’s 2030 goal is 1,283 pounds per megawatt-hour. That’s on the high end of this range, meaning Iowa has one of the least stringent state goals, compared to other state goals in the final Clean Power Plan.

o Iowa’s step 1 interim goal of 1,638 pounds per megawatt-hour reflects changes EPA made to provide a smoother glide path and less of a “cliff” at the beginning of the program.

You can read the final Clean Power Plan and related documents here. The EPA has posted a good summary of current climate change research here. After the jump I’ve enclosed excerpts from a White House list of benefits from the plan, the EPA’s two-page fact sheet about Iowa, and a graphic showing how much power plants contribute to U.S. carbon emissions relative to other major sources.

Renewable energy resources should make it easy for Iowa to meet the carbon emissions targets. I’ve also enclosed below excerpts from Donnelle Eller’s report for the Des Moines Register and Alisa Meggett’s commentary for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. The facts about wind and solar power’s potential belie scary rhetoric from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and various groups funded by fossil fuels interests about how the Clean Power Plan will affect businesses and consumers.

Reducing carbon emissions will incur massive collateral health benefits. The Physicians for Social Responsibility report Coal’s Assault on Human Health is still the best one-stop shop on why coal combustion causes so many premature deaths and chronic health problems. On the editorial page of today’s Des Moines Register, Dr. Yogesh Shah, associate dean of global health at Des Moines University, outlined the “human health effects of climate change,” which “are real and already being felt in Iowa.” Scroll to the end of this post to read excerpts, or better yet, click through to read his whole piece.  

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Five ways cleaning up coal-fired power plants will save Iowans' lives

The best news in Iowa this week came out of a federal courtroom in Cedar Rapids. As Ryan Foley reported for the Associated Press, “Iowa’s second-largest power company agreed Wednesday to drastically cut pollution at several coal-fired power plants under a Clean Air Act settlement that’s expected to make the air safer and easier to breathe around the state.” You can read the full consent decree here and the complaint filed against the Alliant Energy subsidiary Interstate Power and Light here.

Huge credit for the victory goes to the Sierra Club Iowa chapter. Foley reports that this federal government enforcement action “started in 2011 when the Sierra Club filed a notice accusing the company [Interstate Power and Light] of violating the Clean Air Act.” The Sierra Club advocates for a range of policies to reduce air pollution and Iowa’s reliance on coal to generate electricity.

I enclose below highlights from Foley’s article and five reasons the changes at the affected power plants will save Iowans’ lives.

The agreement U.S. officials reached with Interstate Power and Light is also an encouraging sign that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision against the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule on mercury emissions is at most a temporary setback for clean air. In some communities, the court’s ruling won’t even slow down efforts to convert coal-fired plants to other fuel sources.

If only Governor Terry Branstad, who has often spoken of his desire to make Iowa the “healthiest state,” could recognize the benefits of burning less coal. Although Branstad was happy to bask in the reflected glory of new pollution controls at one of the affected Interstate Power and Light power plants, he welcomed the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the mercury rule, which the governor’s office characterized as a “misguided” EPA regulation.  

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Branstad insists on keeping administrative law judges "at-will," easier to fire

Not for the first time and probably not for the last time, Governor Terry Branstad dropped a lot of line-item vetoes late in the afternoon before a holiday weekend. Early news reports are understandably focusing on the vetoes of one-time funding for K-12 education and state universities, as well as language that would have kept mental health institutions in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant open. Bleeding Heartland has a post in progress about the fallout from those actions and others, including Branstad’s decision to strike language that would have expanded child care assistance.

Democratic State Representative Sharon Steckman called attention to several other line-item vetoes that flew below the radar yesterday. One of them seems particularly important, as it could put the State of Iowa at odds with U.S. Department of Labor demands to “strengthen Iowa’s compliance with Federal law” and keep administrative law judges “free from actual or perceived intimidation.”

JULY 6 UPDATE: The vetoed language pertained to administrative law judges working for the Public Employment Relations Board, not Iowa Workforce Development; see further details below.

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Iowa Congressional voting catch-up thread: Defense, trade, Medicare, chemicals, and power plants

While Congress is on recess until after July 4, it’s time to catch up on an unusually busy few weeks in June for U.S. House members. Bleeding Heartland previously covered how Iowa’s representatives voted on the failed and successful attempts to pass trade promotion authority, repeal of country-of-origin labeling requirements for meat, a bill to eliminate a tax on medical devices, and the Intelligence Authorization Act.

Follow me after the jump to find out how Democrat Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Republicans Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) voted on the latest defense budget bill, more trade-related policies, and legislation dealing with chemical safety, Medicare cost controls, and regulations of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Iowa’s representatives also voted last week on a matter relating to the growing national controversy over Confederate symbols.

Something you don’t see often when looking through Congressional roll calls: three of Iowa’s four House members crossed party lines more than once during the floor debate on the defense budget.

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Which woman should be on the $10 bill?

The U.S. Treasury Department announced yesterday, “Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has decided that the new $10 note should feature a woman who was a champion for our inclusive democracy […].”

Many people shared my immediate reaction: why not dump President Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill instead? Binyamin Appelbaum put it most succinctly: “Hard choices: Should we get rid of the hard-working immigrant on the $10 bill or the homicidal racist on the $20 bill? Hmmmmm”. Alexandra Petri explained in more detail why Jackson doesn’t deserve the honor of being on our currency. Among other things, he bears responsibility for the Indian Removal Act and the subsequent “Trail of Tears,” one of the most shameful crimes in U.S. history. As Steven Mufson pointed out, Hamilton “was a founding father, co-author of the Federalist Papers, Revolutionary War staff aide to George Washington, first Treasury Secretary and architect of the early American economy.’ Someone already started a White House petition to keep Hamilton on the $10 bill, but the Treasury Department’s FAQ page on “The New 10” don’t indicate that switching the $20 bill is an option.

Currency is primarily redesigned as necessary to address current and potential security threats to currency notes. When recommending a note for redesign, the Advanced Counterfeit Deterrence (ACD) Steering Committee considers these primary goals: that U.S. currency utilizes unique and technologically advanced security features to deter counterfeiting, that it facilitates the public’s use and authentication, provides accessibility and usability, and maintains public confidence. Based on analysis of these criteria, in June 2013, the Committee recommended that the $10 note should be the next note to be redesigned, assuming no other counterfeit threats emerge.

This thread is for any opinions about who belongs on the new currency. My first choice to celebrate women’s contributions to democracy would be Carrie Chapman Catt, a “Key coordinator of the woman suffrage movement and skillful political strategist.” She grew up in Charles City, Iowa, graduated from what later became Iowa State University, then worked in Charles City and Mason City.

Another good choice would be Francis Perkins, the first woman to serve in the president’s cabinet as labor secretary under Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

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Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst opposed Patriot Act revisions (updated)

Two provisions of the Patriot Act and one other legal provision granting surveillance powers expired on Sunday night, as the U.S. Senate failed to pass either a short-term Patriot Act extension or the House-approved USA Freedom Act, which would revise parts of that law. Jamie Dupree wrote a good overview of the key points of contention, including the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection practices. Julian Hattem previews the next likely steps in the Senate and House (assuming the Senate approves an amended version of the USA Freedom Act this week). Carl Hulse analyzed the “lose-lose-lose result” for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who prefers not to curtail NSA surveillance powers but arguably “overplayed his hand.”

How Congress will resolve this dispute remains unclear, but we have learned one thing from the last ten days: Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst oppose the current bipartisan compromise on how to revise the Patriot Act. For Ernst, the expiring Patriot Act provisions “are critical to the safety and security of our country”–a view similar to Representative Steve King’s reasons for voting against “data disarmament” when the House considered the USA Freedom Act.

In Grassley’s more nuanced view, Congress should enact “meaningful reform by ending the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records under Section 215” of the Patriot Act, while allowing the government to gather such information in a targeted way. Grassley also objects to how the USA Freedom Act would reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.  

Details on the relevant Senate votes are after the jump, along with statements from Grassley and Ernst. I’ve also noted which Republican senators who are running for president supported either the USA Freedom Act or a short-term Patriot Act extension.

UPDATE: Grassley and Ernst split on June 2 as the Senate passed the USA Freedom Act. Details on their votes are below, along with their explanations. While Iowa’s two Republican senators have voted differently on a handful of amendments or motions related to consideration of other bills, today’s votes represent their first major policy disagreement since Ernst was sworn in.

Scroll to the end of this post for details on how the GOP presidential candidates voted today.

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Iowans must vote to protect net neutrality, and to keep it working for everyone

(Bleeding Heartland welcomes guest posts on federal or state policies. - promoted by desmoinesdem)

The FCC’s landmark decision in February to protect net neutrality was widely heralded as a victory for most Internet users. The Federal Communications Commission even committed to making America’s broadband networks fast, fair, and open. However, as more information became available, it became clear that the FCC’s decision to reclassify the Internet as a depression-era utility would make it anything but fair.

Title II was developed for old communication devices, like telephone networks in the 1930s. This regulatory classification is more than 80 years old, and was never intended for the fast-moving, innovative world of Internet and app infrastructure. Title II will re-classify the Internet as a utility, and increase state and local fees for Internet access. Infrastructure issues, when left to Congress to update, become a part of a slower-moving, bureaucratic structure. Upgrades to the Internet happen much faster than upgrades to roads and bridges; it does not make sense to regulate them the same way.

Instead of making sure that the Internet remained open for all, the FCC’s decision ensured that low-income and underserved Americans will pay higher rates, making the Internet less accessible. Dozens of groups have spoken out about how Title II regulation will be harmful for small businesses, particularly those owned by minority groups. When chambers of commerce and unions agree that something is harmful, it is generally a good sign that it is time to re-think.

Representatives Blum, Loebsack, Young, and King should follow the lead of the diverse coalition that has spoken out against Title II regulation – including the Communications Workers of America, the NAACP, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Black Chamber of Commerce, the United State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Urban League, the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, and dozens more – to draft bipartisan legislation that protects all Internet users from high fees and keeps the Internet truly open.  

The disconnect in the Des Moines Register's coverage of Congress

An important Congressional vote went unreported in the Des Moines Register this week, despite two lead editorials in the paper within the past month urging Congress to act on that very issue.

The disconnect provides a good example of a problem I flagged in this post about the Des Moines Register’s political coverage. Ever since the Register closed its Washington bureau, Iowans are less likely to know what our representatives in Congress are doing on our behalf.  

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Steve King, Rod Blum vote against Patriot Act revision for opposite reasons

Yesterday the U.S. House approved the USA Freedom Act, which revises some provisions of the 2001 Patriot Act and extends them until December 2019. The Patriot Act is set to expire on June 1 without Congressional action. The main changes in the bill concern bulk data collection and domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency. Groups advocating for civil liberties are seeking more changes to the USA Freedom Act following a recent federal appeals court ruling, which “determined that the NSA’s telephone records program went far beyond what Congress authorized when it passed Section 215 of the Patriot Act in 2001.”

Proponents argue that the USA Freedom Act strikes a reasonable compromise between security and privacy. The overwhelming majority of House members agreed, as the bill passed by 338 votes to 88 (roll call). Representative David Young (IA-03) was among the 196 Republicans who voted yes, while Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) was among the 142 Democratic supporters.

Forty-one Democrats and 47 Republicans, including Iowa’s Steve King (IA-04) and Rod Blum (IA-01), opposed the USA Freedom Act. In a statement I’ve enclosed in full below, King warned that the bill amounted to “data disarmament,” with too little weight given to “the investigative value” of information gathered through bulk collection techniques, or how to protect “the vital data we need for national security.”

In a Twitter post yesterday, Blum said he voted against the bill “because it continues the violation of the 4th Amendment rights of American citizens.” In a Facebook post, Blum added, ” Protecting your constitutional right to privacy is one of my top priorities, and I will continue to stand strong for the Fourth Amendment in Congress. I think America can be secure WITHOUT sacrificing our civil liberties.” I am seeking a more extensive comment and will update this post if I receive one. Blum has long aligned himself with the Iowa GOP’s “Liberty” wing.

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House seeks to block EPA water rule: How the Iowans voted

The U.S. House voted today by 261 votes to 155 to prevent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from implementing the “waters of the United States” rule. The EPA released the final version of that rule last month. The American Farm Bureau Federation and other agribusiness groups have long bashed the proposed regulation as a threat to farmers. Last summer, Kyle Rabin wrote a clear and concise “debunking” of the Farm Bureau’s deceptive hyperbole.

Today’s votes to pass the “Regulatory Integrity Protection Act” came from 24 Democrats and all the Republicans present, including Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04). Meanwhile, Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) voted with most of the House Democrats against the bill–a pleasant surprise, since he voted for last year’s version of the same legislation.

I’ve been accused of being hostile to Loebsack, in part because Bleeding Heartland has called attention to a few bad votes for Republican bills seeking to rein in the EPA. Some of those bills were merely silly, while others posed a real threat to public health if enacted. I appreciate that since last November’s election, Loebsack has voted against several House GOP efforts to target the EPA. More like that, please.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. I haven’t seen any official statement from the Iowans in Congress about today’s vote, but I’ll update this post as needed.

The Phony Estate Tax Farm Confiscation Ploy

(Thanks for this post on an important and timely issue. Iowa's three Republicans in the U.S. House all voted for the estate tax repeal that passed today; Democratic Representative Dave Loebsack voted against it. - promoted by desmoinesdem)

Dave Swenson

Senator John Thune, from my home state of South Dakota, has a degree in business and an MBA.  He knows little of tax math, incidence, or outcomes from what I can tell. Like many mouthpieces on many topics, he doesn’t let facts get in the way of a heartfelt story, though.  And the best story the GOP has spun over the last decade or so is the tale of woe and intrigue associated with the dreaded federal estate tax, which they’ve disingenuously rebranded as the “death tax.”

Thune co-sponsored the just-passed House bill to eliminate the federal estate tax and at that time said:

For too long the federal government has forced grieving families to pay a tax on their loved one’s life savings that has been built from income already taxed when originally earned. Currently more than 70 percent of family businesses do not survive to the second generation, and 90 percent of family businesses do not survive to the third generation.

Without citing one example, Thune intimated that the federal estate tax was destroying or would destroy businesses and was terrorizing grieving survivors.

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U.S. Department of Labor wants Branstad administration to clean up Teresa Wahlert's mess

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration has given Iowa Workforce Development Director Beth Townsend a list of tasks to “strengthen Iowa’s compliance with Federal law” and address various concerns about the actions of Teresa Wahlert, Townsend’s predecessor.

It’s another sign that while Wahlert may not be Governor Terry Branstad’s worst appointee during his current administration, she’s a solid contender.

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Grassley, Ernst vote to confirm new Defense Secretary

Catching up on news from last week, the U.S. Senate confirmed Ashton Carter as secretary of defense by 93 votes to 5 (roll call) on February 12. Only five Republicans opposed the nomination, which is rare for President Barack Obama’s administration. Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst both supported Carter, and I’ve enclosed their statements after the jump. Grassley emphasized that he will “continue to press for clean, accurate audits at the Defense Department,” while Ernst praised Carter’s “strong support and dedication to our service members and their families.” Ernst serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which unanimously forwarded Carter’s nomination earlier in the week. Kristina Wong reported for The Hill, “Republicans on the committee were particularly pleased that Carter said he would consider recommending that Obama modify his Afghanistan troop drawdown schedule, if necessary, and that he was inclined to arm Ukraine against Russian aggression.”

I’ve also enclosed below Carter’s official bio, summarizing his extensive Pentagon experience.

On February 9, Grassley and Ernst joined their colleagues in unanimously confirming Michael Botticelli as director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Grassley’s statement on the country’s new “drug czar” is after the jump too. He praised Botticelli for recognizing “the dangers of smoking marijuana.” In recent testimony before a U.S. House committee, Botticelli said “The [Obama] Administration continues to oppose attempts to legalize marijuana and other drugs.”

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House votes for more business input on federal regulations: How the Iowans voted

The U.S. House approved two more anti-regulation bills this week. On February 4, all the Republicans present and nine Democrats passed the “Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act of 2015” by 250 votes to 173 (roll call). The following day, nineteen Democrats joined the whole GOP caucus to approve the “Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act of 2015” by 260 votes to 163 (roll call).

Iowa Republicans Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) voted for both bills. Democrat Dave Loebsack (IA-02) opposed them both; he also voted against last year’s version of the unfunded mandates bill.

The bill claiming to deal with unfunded mandates “would further require agencies to consult with private sector entities impacted by the proposed rules,” Cristina Marcos reported. The bill approved on Thursday “would require federal agencies to calculate the direct, as well as indirect, costs of proposed rules.”

I haven’t seen any public comment on these votes from the Iowans in Congress, but after the jump I enclose open letters from leaders of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, an alliance of more than 150 “consumer, small business, labor, scientific, research, good government, faith, community, health, environmental, and public interest groups.” They urged House members to reject the Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act, because it “neither improves nor streamlines the regulatory process” and “would rob the American people of many critical upgrades to public health and safety standards, especially those that ensure clean air and water, safe food and consumer products, safe workplaces, and a stable, prosperous economy.” The same coalition opposed the Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act, because it “would increase unnecessary and lengthy regulatory delays, increase undue influence by regulated industries and encourage convoluted court challenges.”

Votes like this fly under the radar as media pursue more news stories that interest the “core demographic.” That’s unfortunate, because this kind of non-glamorous policy-making could affect millions of people. Few Iowans will learn that under the guise of “cutting red tape,” our state’s Republicans in Congress would jeopardize rules that are meant to protect the public interest. Loebsack deserves credit for standing up against these bad bills. Major corporations and industries already have too much influence over government rules.  

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House approves gas pipeline bill: How the Iowans voted

Continuing the Republican push to make fossil fuels projects a priority for this Congress, yesterday the U.S. House approved the “Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act” by by 253 votes to 169 (roll call). Cristina Marcos reported for The Hill,

Under the measure, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) would be ordered to approve or deny a [natural gas] pipeline application within 12 months.  Agencies responsible for issuing licenses or permits must act within 90 days after FERC issues a final environmental review, though the deadline could be extended by 30 days if the agency demonstrates it can’t finish in time.

But if the agency doesn’t make a decision by then, a pipeline would automatically be approved.

Republicans said the legislation would put pressure on agencies to avoid unnecessary delays for natural gas pipelines. […]

The White House issued a veto threat against the measure, saying it would “create conflicts” with current requirements and force agencies to make rushed decisions or deny applications entirely because they don’t have enough information by the established deadlines.

All the Republicans present supported this bill, including Iowans Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04). They were joined by fourteen House Democrats, but Dave Loebsack (IA-02) stuck with the majority of his caucus in opposing this bill. Loebsack also voted against a similar bill that the House approved in 2013. I haven’t seen any public comment on yesterday’s vote, but I will update this post as needed.

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