Several environmental groups are mobilizing against $5 million in proposed state funding to rebuild the Lake Delhi dam on the Maquoketa River in Delaware County.

With Rick Perry dropping out of the race to endorse Newt Gingrich this morning, four Republican presidential candidates remained for tonight’s CNN debate in South Carolina. Any comments about the debate or about Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul or Rick Santorum are welcome in this thread. I’ll update with my thoughts later–so far I’m most encouraged to hear some statements by the candidates against the Stop Online Piracy Act.

UPDATE: Missed the first part of the live broadcast, but finished watching the replay on CNN and added some comments after the jump.

The Republican Party of Iowa will not declare Rick Santorum the winner of the Iowa caucuses, even though he leads Mitt Romney by a few dozen votes according to the certified results, and led Romney unofficially in the eight precincts where results could not be certified. A narrow margin of victory with a clear winner would have been great for the Iowa GOP, as it would show multiple paths to winning the caucuses. A disputed result that produces no official winner is a public relations nightmare.

UPDATE: Iowa GOP Chair Matt Strawn now admits Santorum won the caucuses. The episode still makes the party look bad, for reasons I discuss below.

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is running its first television commercial in Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. Follow me after the jump for the video and annotated transcript.

President Barack Obama announced today that his administration is rejecting the application for the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would take oil sands from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast of the U.S. In a statement I’ve posted after the jump, the president blamed Congressional Republicans, who attached a “rushed and arbitrary deadline” for the Keystone decision to the temporary payroll tax cut extension bill in December.

Obama’s decision takes the pipeline off the table for now. House Republicans may look for ways to override the administration’s decision, but the Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely to approve such legislation this year. However, all bets are off after the 2012 elections. TransCanada may resubmit its application after finding a different route through Nebraska.  

By this summer, I predict that “Keystone” will be a household word in the U.S., as Republicans and corporate-funded groups blame Obama’s decision for rising gasoline prices and continued high unemployment. Environmental groups that have opposed the pipeline have a huge public education task on their hands.

UPDATE: I’ve added Representative Steve King’s reaction after the jump.

Republican State Senator Merlin Bartz confirmed this week that he will run for re-election in the new Iowa Senate district 26. His race against Democratic incumbent Mary Jo Wilhelm is probably a must-win for Senate Democrats in order to preserve their majority. After the jump I’ve posted a district map. Bleeding Heartland previewed the Bartz/Wilhelm matchup here.

Bartz has given Iowa progressives plenty of reasons to want him gone, from encouraging county recorders to ignore a Supreme Court ruling to trying to block the most significant water quality regulations of the last decade. Bartz’s record is so bad that even learning he “has performed for over 35 years in north and northeast Iowa with various dance bands” didn’t give me any sympathy for the guy. Democrats who live within striking distance of Worth, Mitchell, Floyd, Howard, Chickasaw, Cerro Gordo, or Winneshiek counties have a golden volunteer opportunity here.

P.S. to the Des Moines Register’s editorial staff: that last link was to William Petroski’s blog post. I liked the dance band detail. When you read something interesting on a blog, it won’t kill you to link to it. I mention this because your January 15 comment on Bartz’s crusade against “obsolete” laws reads a lot like Bleeding Heartland’s post from January 10.  

Wikipedia, Reddit and many other websites are dark today to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), now pending in the U.S. House and Senate. Momentum appears to have shifted against this legislation in its current form, but a modified bill might still pose a threat to freedom of information. I sought comment on this legislation from all members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation.

UPDATE: Added Representative Bruce Braley’s statement opposing SOPA below, along with a comment from Representative Steve King’s office.

LATER UPDATE: A statement from Representative Leonard Boswell is now below as well.

THURSDAY UPDATE: Added a YouTube video about SOPA, released by Braley’s re-election campaign.

A new report underscores how badly Iowa lawmakers screwed up when they missed the chance in 2010 to enact reasonable regulations on “legalized usury,” more commonly known as payday lending.

Last week the Des Moines-based Child & Family Policy Center released “Iowa Kids Count 2010: Trends in the Well-Being of Iowa Children.” Highlights from the report are after the jump. While several indicators showed improvement in children’s health between 2000 and 2010, the economic circumstances of Iowa children and families deteriorated significantly.

Jon Huntsman’s exit from the presidential race leaves five Republican candidates taking the stage tonight for a Fox News debate, co-sponsored by the Wall Street Journal and the South Carolina GOP.

I will update this post later with highlights. I don’t expect Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry or Rick Santorum to do any real damage to Mitt Romney. Any comments about this debate or the GOP primary campaign are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: I missed part of the debate, but some thoughts are after the jump.

Last year, Governor Terry Branstad made only a brief appearance and declined to give a speech at the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day event in Des Moines. He wasn’t dumb enough to make that mistake twice.  

Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital is under increasing scrutiny as opponents try desperately to stop him from winning next Saturday’s GOP primary in South Carolina. Some of the anti-Romney narratives can’t stand up to the same level of scrutiny. I’ve posted some links on the “Bain way” and other factors in the Republican presidential race after the jump.  

Although the 60 Republicans and 40 Democrats in the Iowa House haven’t changed since last year, I thought it was worth updating this post, because some committee assignments have changed, and House Democrats reshuffled their ranking members somewhat.

Majority and minority leadership teams are after the jump, along with all members of standing House committees. All 100 House districts are on the ballot every two years, so I’ve noted the new district numbers for state representatives seeking re-election in 2012, as well as which House members have said they will retire after this year’s legislative session.

Iowa’s well-documented problems with roads in disrepair and deficient bridges have prompted many calls for raising the gasoline tax in recent years. I’ve been skeptical that a divided state legislature would agree to raise an unpopular tax during an election year-session following redistricting. However, key lawmakers continue to insist that a gas tax hike is on the table. Arguments for why this proposal will and won’t pass are after the jump.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a new database yesterday showing 2010 greenhouse gas emissions for large facilities across the country. After the jump I’ve posted the top 10 emitters in Iowa.

Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner Chris Godfrey filed suit against the state, Governor Terry Branstad, and several other officials yesterday over attempts to remove Godfrey from office and cut his pay between December 2010 and July 2011. The lawsuit also accuses several state employees of defaming Godfrey by publicly claiming that his poor job performance motivated attempts to replace him.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that laws banning workplace discrimination do not apply to many employees of religious organizations. Conservatives are hailing the ruling as a victory for religious freedom. It also appears to undermine one of their arguments against marriage equality and civil rights protections for LGBT Americans.

Republican Amy Sinclair and Democrat Dick Schrad have launched campaigns in the new Iowa Senate district 14, an open seat in south-central Iowa. Former Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley lives in this district but decided not to seek a fourth term.

Follow me after the jump for a district map and background on the two declared candidates.

Polls just closed in New Hampshire, so here’s a thread for talking about the results as they come in. PBS will be updating vote totals here.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread. It’s hard for me to see any of the other Republicans stopping Mitt Romney, especially with Rick Perry helping to splinter the conservative vote ahead of the South Carolina primary on January 21. Nor can I see any path for Jon Huntsman, even if he finishes a strong second or third tonight. I’m highly amused by Newt Gingrich’s strident rhetoric against Bain-style vulture capitalism.

UPDATE: With two-thirds of the vote in, Romney is the clear winner by a double-digit margin (38 percent to 24 percent for Ron Paul and 17 percent for Huntsman, with Gingrich and Santorum at 10 percent). Right now Perry trails “other.”

SECOND UPDATE: With 95 percent of precincts reporting, Romney has 39 percent, Paul 23 percent, Huntsman 17 percent, Gingrich and Santorum 9 percent each, and Perry 1 percent.

As Bleeding Heartland user albert pointed out in the comments, President Barack Obama received only about 82 percent of more than 50,000 votes cast in the Democratic primary. Nearly 10 percent of Democratic primary voters wrote in candidates. Of the 13 other named candidates on the Democratic ballot, two received more than 1 percent of the vote: Ed Cowan, who ran on a platform of “major change,”, and Vermin Supreme, a performance artist running on a joke platform.

Governor Terry Branstad delivers his “Condition of the State” address to the Iowa House and Senate this morning. Iowa Public Television will livestream the speech here, and I’ll update this post later with highlights. The governor’s commercial property tax reform plan will be a centerpiece of the address. As part of that plan, Branstad indicated yesterday that he will seek unprecedented limits on local government taxing authority in Iowa.

UPDATE: A few details from the governor’s proposed budget are now below, along with some reaction from Democratic lawmakers. Branstad is asking for a significant spending increase in the 2013 fiscal year.