Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver has traveled to Washington state today in hopes of rekindling Microsoft’s interest in developing a $500 million data center in West Des Moines. While giving kudos to Culver for going the extra mile, Rich Miller, a data center analyst and blogger, said the trip is unlikely to change the company’s decision to halt construction.
Will Culver’s visit change Microsoft’s plans? That’s not likely. Microsoft’s decision was part of a much broader cost-cutting initiative in which several thousand jobs were eliminated. The company presumably still has plenty of capacity in its San Antonio data center, which opened last fall.
Culver probably knows this. But the trip is a political no-brainer for the governor, who will be seen as going the extra mile to advocate for the local project and the jobs it would create.
If plans had gone forward, the data center planned just off I-35 would have created between 50 to 75 high-paying jobs. The Iowa Department of Transporation had approved a state grant of $4.3 million to cover a portion of the costs for local road improvements, and West Des Moines was also on board with matching funds.
Microsoft formally announced in January, after months of speculation, that it was postponing construction on the Iowa facility.
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