Stories

As Democrats in the U.S. House race toward a Friday floor vote on the controversial cap-and-trade bill, some interests are distorting information on how the legislation affects consumers, according to the Iowa Policy Project (IPP).

Plans for a coal-fired power plant in Marshalltown have been canceled because of current economic conditions and increasing environmental, legislative and regulatory uncertainty, according to information from Alliant Energy, the company that would have operated the plant.

The exclusive story is no longer the exclusive domain of the traditional media. In many cases, it’s the small, independent media that are breaking stories and driving the news these days.

The Iowa Power Fund Board, run through the Office of Energy Independence, has approved funding for six contracts totaling $5.87 million. The projects are hoped to leverage $6.27 million in private sector investments to the state.
Details of the contracts are as follows:

Former Gov. Tom Vilsack has been tapped to be the nation’s next Secretary of Agriculture, and most observers greeted the selection warmly.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) is demanding Democratic leaders in the Iowa House remove Dolores Mertz as chair of the House Agriculture Committee.
The group points to what it calls Mertz’s ties to the factory farm industry, including the fact that her son owns a 4,000-head hog factory, as motivation for House Speaker Pat Murphy, [...]

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Representatives of environmental groups and labor unions praised Iowa, and specifically Gov. Chet Culver, for its success in attracting green jobs to the state.

Implementation of the new farm bill will ultimately be handed off to the next presidential administration, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer said at a press conference in Iowa Thursday.

Schafer told agriculture reporters at the 2008 Farm Progress Show that the implementation of the new farm bill is “going well,” with the work about two weeks ahead of schedule.

A total of $87.5 million in Emergency Conservation Program funds will be distributed between 34 states that were affected by natural disasters, announced U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer Thursday. Iowa will receive $12,208,500, the largest amount of the 34 states.

Limited harvesting of hay on Conservation Reserve Program acres will now be allowed in most of Iowa’s counties, following an announcement Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.