At mid-term, a time to assess progress in the legislature

Our supporters across Iowa consistently tell us that timely, accurate information about activity in Iowa’s legislature is one of the Council’s services they value most.

The Council provides a free weekly summary of current environmental legislation, the Legislative News Bulletin, via e-mail, which this year has reported information on more than 70 bills so far.  By reviewing that publication closely, many of the Council’s members and supporters have provided us valuable feedback to refine and focus our positions on issues.

The Council and our members devote considerable resources to monitoring and speaking out on environmental legislation.  Through our action alert system, you can speak out yourself by offering your thoughts on legislation to your elected officials when important decisions are being made.

We consider all the bills we track to be important, but below, we have summarized information about some of the bills of greatest concern to our members.

Bills related to spending on environmental programs

The Council is working to ensure Iowa’s investments in natural resources produce the results for clean water and a healthy environment that Iowans want.

SSB1245: Proposed Agriculture & Natural Resources Budget

The Senate’s proposed budget for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources contains significant advances for natural resource protection:

The proposal would

• provide necessary funding for additional livestock inspectors, restoring past cuts to the Department of Natural Resources’ inspections staff while helping protect Iowa’s waters from harmful manure spills. The Council believes more inspections are needed to protect Iowa’s waters from harmful manure spills and to fulfill Iowa’s responsibilities under the federal Clean Water Act.
• Provide full funding for Iowa’s Resource Enhancement and Protection Program to support projects that enhance Iowans’ quality of life all across the state. As a member of the Iowa REAP Alliance, the Council strongly supports the REAP Program.

The bill also includes additional funding for conservation action on Iowa farms following the release of Iowa’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy by Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey and other state officials late last year. The Council and partners support additional funding to increase soil and water conservation on Iowa’s farms, yet have consistently called for more accountability and transparency, establishment of timelines and deadlines, and clearer goals in this pollution reduction effort.

HF92 (House)/SF268 (Senate): Legislation to increase the sales tax to fund conservation

Legislation has been introduced this year to raise Iowa’s sales tax by 3/8 of a cent to provide Iowa’s Natural Resource and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund more than $120 million annually to support clean water and natural resource conservation. Sponsors of this legislation are Rep. Chuck Isenhart (D-Dubuque) and Sen. Dick Dearden (D-Des Moines). The Iowa’s Water and Land Legacy coalition, of which the Council is a member, has additional information about this effort on its website.

More to come soon

Legislation to provide funding for public access and enjoyment of Iowa’s rivers as well as the state’s public lake restoration program has not yet been introduced. Appropriations bills that discuss these programs’ budgets are expected soon.

Environmental roll-back bills

These bills risk weakening existing environmental protections in Iowa. For two of them, beneficial amendments have reduced the Council’s concerns.

HF512 (House)/SF418 (Senate): Potential rollback of livestock manure storage standards

Manure spills can wreak havoc on aquatic ecosystems. According to the Council’s analysis, illegal manure spills killed more than 1.2 million fish in Iowa in the last ten years.

In the legislature, SF418/HF512 would allow certain livestock facilities to reclassify themselves as “small operations” by idling livestock production in one or more buildings. Once reclassified, an operation would be exempt from paying annual compliance fees and submitting regular manure management plans.

The House version of this bill passed the full House by a vote of 83-16 on April 1. Before passage, the House rejected a beneficial amendment by Rep. Chuck Isenhart (D-Dubuque) that would have would have barred livestock producers from storing manure in idled buildings “from a location outside the confinement feeding operation.”

The Council is concerned the bill would permit unregulated manure storage in supposedly idle buildings, which could raise the risk of a harmful spill. Several of the Council’s concerns could be addressed through an amendment to this bill that would limit manure storage in the idle building to “emergencies only” and require notification of the DNR when such actions take place. After House passage, that amendment would need to come from the Senate.

HF311: Reducing public notification for certain environmental permits, including for livestock facilities

HF311 would have eliminated a requirement that DNR provide public notice for certain stormwater permits in two local newspapers, but an amendment has reduced that risk. The public notifications in question are important because they are the only way for members of a local community to find out about potential development projects—including development of certain new animal feeding operations—that will disturb more than one acre of land and potentially have other environmental impacts. Rep. Jason Schultz (R-Schleswig) offered an amendment in the House that recognized the need for public notification by keeping the requirement but reducing it to publication in one local paper. The House also removed the potentially harmful automatic approval of DNR permits in the event application is not acted upon within 90 days. The Senate sub-committee appears to be supportive of the maintenance of a public notice requirement, and the Council is continuing to monitor the bill.

SF272: Eliminating a needed protection for Iowa wetlands

Restored wetland in Iowa. (Photo: Lynn Betts/NRCS)

Historically, Iowa had as many as 4-6 million acres of wetlands, more than 90% of which have been drained. Because Iowa’s remaining acres are so critical for habitat, filtering water, and holding back floods, the Council supports Iowa leadership for protecting what remains. Iowa law currently contains a wetland permitting program which includes protections for isolated wetlands that are not otherwise protected by the Clean Water Act and “Swampbuster” portions of the Farm Bill. The Council sees maintaining this state permit program as a way of keeping these wetlands from falling through the cracks between other programs; similar state-based protections exist in other states. The Iowa Senate’s version of the bill (SF272) originally proposed to eliminate the state permit program until the bill was amended by Sen. Chris Brase (D-Muscatine). The Council will continue to monitor the bill.

Advancing clean energy in Iowa

The following bills advance Iowa’s transition toward cleaner sources of energy, such as wind and solar.

SF372: Ensuring Iowa farmers and land owners receive a fair price for electricity they generate

An Iowa wind energy incentive (feed-in tariff) bill that recently passed the Iowa Senate Agriculture Committee has received national attention as a way to ensure Iowa farmers and rural landowners who install a wind turbine receive a fair price from utilities for electricity they generate. The bill faces stiff opposition from utilities, but the Council supports this policy as a way to continue to expand and diversify wind energy’s role in Iowa.

SSB1175/SSB1136/SF414: Tax incentives, grants and loans for wind and solar

Three bills are pending that would improve tax incentive programs and establish new grant and loan programs for wind and solar. Last year, the Iowa Legislature created a tax credit program for solar power in Iowa that could support a dramatic expansion of solar energy in Iowa. The Iowa Department of Revenue reported in January that in 2012, 64 solar projects have been granted the credit, including 50 projects by individuals and 14 by Iowa businesses. SSB 1175 would ensure that unused credits are reserved for future years and would allow businesses to install multiple projects and receive multiple credits in a single year. Both SSB 1136 and SF 414 provide incentives for wind projects in Iowa’s Small Wind Innovation Zones, which are local communities that adopt wind-friendly policies that the Council helped develop. SSB 1136 also extends Iowa’s wind energy tax incentives while SF 414 primarily establishes new grant and loan programs for wind and solar.

Want more legislative information?

The Iowa Environmental Council tracks dozens of environmental bills, and provides a weekly Legislative News Bulletin that summarizes our positions.  You can sign up to receive this e-mail on the Council’s website.

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Let’s celebrate Iowa’s wetlands on World Wetlands Day

Today is World Wetlands Day, a day when we can celebrate the fantastic ecosystem services provided free of charge, 24/7 by wetlands, the great unsung heroes of our landscape.

Restored wetland in Iowa. (Photo: Lynn Betts/NRCS)

The story of Iowa’s wetlands is not all dragonflies and lillypads (that is, it’s not all happy).  At one time, Iowa had between 4 and 6 million acres of wetlands, but over time, 90% of more of them have been drained.  Many wetlands were drained to make way for agricultural production, but historically some were also drained based on the misconception that wetlands were related to disease and many other reasons.

But we’re learning more and more about wetlands, and today we know they’re something to celebrate.  To support that idea, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources created a wetland action plan in 2010 to  set out ways the state can protect and enhance its wetland resources.

Today, we wanted to focus on one part of the Wetlands Action Plan for Iowa, which talks about the benefits wetlands provide.  (We encourage you to download your own copy of the action plan and read the full version on pp. 10-16.)

• Intrinsic value:  “Every wetland has its own unique look and its own unique assemblage of plants and animals.  Wetlands are part of our natural landscape and thus, a part of Iowa’s heritage.”
• Flood mitigation:  “The role of wetland areas in floodplains was–and could be again–substantial.  Their ability to capture, store, and slow the release of excess waters is critical to curbing the effects of flooding, though not a cure-all for the immediate effects of extreme flash flood events.”
• Water quality treatment:  “Wetlands naturally treat much of the pollution from agricultural run-off, a benefit many communities need.”
• Wildlife and Natural Places-Related Recreation:  “Wetland areas provide year-round critical habitat for many types of wildlife, even during the harshest winter season…. Acre for acre, they are probably the most dynamic areas we have ecologically.”
• Carbon sequestration to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions:  “Like forests and prairie, wetlands’ natural functioning also extends to the sequestration of excess carbon emissions via plant absorption.”
• Control of pests and invasive species:  “Diverse wetlands actually help prevent overpopulation of pest and invasive species…while strong native plants leave less room for invasive plants to  take root.”

And keep your hip-waders ready:  Sharing information about the value of wetlands is a significant priority for the Iowa Environmental Council all this year; this is the first of many blog posts to come on the topic.