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.
Gov. Chet Culver was quick to try to quell criticism over an audit which showed the Department of Natural Resources — under direction of a Culver appointee — is non-compliant with 16 state laws.
Previous audits of the DNR have produced similar findings, even while the department was headed by Republican appointees, Culver spokesman Jim Flansburg said in an e-mail to The Iowa Independent. The Culver staff says the problem stems from insufficient funding to enforce the legislature’s mandates.
“If legislators are truly bothered with such audits, they need to come up with the money to shore up the weak spots in the audit,” Flansburg said.
And Wednesday, Culver himself called media accounts of the audit “overstated and overblown.” The governor said he doesn’t plan to comply with lawmakers’ calls to shakeup leadership at the DNR.
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