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.
The Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa Poll writeup breaks some big news: Iowans like renewable energy.
This is such big news that the Register sat on the results for over a month. The poll was conducted Sept. 8-10 — before the economic crisis started making front page news every day, and before the price of gasoline (and the price of corn, for that matter) dropped significantly.
Two of three Iowans say ethanol has been good for the state, although a majority believe wind power should be the state’s new priority, according to an Iowa Poll.
Even solar comes in ahead of ethanol.
Asked which form of energy state government should encourage, 58 percent of Iowans said wind, 19 percent said solar and 16 percent said ethanol.
Ethanol, of course, has become a relatively mainstream energy source in Iowa. That Iowans think the government should put more of its resources into wind does not mean that they doubt the importance of other sources of energy. The Iowa Poll confirms this fact:
What is interesting, though, is that supporters of wind energy include a majority of Iowans who also say that the recent expansion of ethanol production has been a good thing for the state.
In a separate question, the poll asked whether “the recent expansion of ethanol production in Iowa has been overall a good thing or a bad thing for the people of Iowa.”
Sixty-seven percent said good, and 19 percent said bad.
So when you don’t force Iowans to choose between different forms of energy, but instead you ask about each one separately, it seems Iowans like all forms of renewable energy. Did we need a month-old poll to tell us that?
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