Quotable Quotes for $1000, Alex

---

by John Drury

The last week of the 2005 session of the Iowa legislature is upon us and it seems that instead of trying to get their feet out the door, some are trying to get their feet out of their mouths.

Last week I told you about the egregious remark that Senator Iverson made regarding the minimum wage issue. “The minimum wage really isn’t a huge issue because I don’t know anybody working for that,” said Senator Iverson.

Would you like to meet some, Senator?

Not to be outdone, Senator Mark Zieman, a Republican from Postville, described government workers as “bottom feeders out there with their hand out.” This was during senate debate on the state’s public retirement system. It was later reported that Senator Zieman has received more than $1 million in farm subsidies since 1995. When asked about this, Senator Zieman replied, “I readily admit I got’ em and I admitted at the time that I’m one of those people that’s using the system.”

So then, are you also a bottom feeder, Senator?

In the closing week of the 2005 session, it appears as though the tax credits are flying.

There is an interesting proposal in the House that would extend a tax credit of up to $10,000 if you donate a kidney or bone marrow. “I’m not saying that everybody’s going to rush out and give away a kidney or anything,” said Representative Linda Upmeyer, a Republican from Garner.

I would say that’s probably a safe bet, Linda.

There’s talk of tax breaks for people who donate to private schools as well. Representative Christopher Rants, a Republican from Sioux City, is in support of this saying, “We want to have those schools as a viable alternative so people have some choice of where to send their kids to school.”

Are you under the false impression that you have properly funded public education in this state, Senator?

Let’s not limit the wordplay to state politics, 4th District U.S. Representative Tom Latham was in town again the other day. It’s kind of funny, through the fall campaign you couldn’t find the man, and now it seems like he’s everywhere. Anyway, he spoke to a government class at NIACC yesterday, and offered up these nuggets.

On Terry Schiavo, he said that he has “real reservations about Congress getting involved in situations like this” but that they didn’t vote on whether or not to remove the feeding tube, but “whether the federal court should have jurisdiction and I voted for that.”  

With all due respect sir, you got involved in an unprecedented way and there’s no turning back.

On No Child Left Behind, he said that like many federal programs “the intent is good, but the implementation is not always perfect.”

Well, at least you admit it, Tom.

That’s all I have this week. Now it is up to you to either laugh or cry.

Cityview:  An Earth Day Portrait

---

While the timeliness of this post might not be very good, I found a very good article discussing Iowa's environmental record on a number of topics.  This comes from the Des Moines independent weekly "Cityview", which I found while leaving the grocery store this past weekend.

The Cityview authors found Iowa's environmental record to be a rather mixed bag, leaning toward "poor".  There are some good things that we do in Iowa (bottle returns, recycling, wind power) and some things we do very horribly (water quality, land use, conservation spending).

Since the article will soon vanish (no archives), here are a few snippets I found worthwhile:

Even in the areas in which Iowa is clearly excelling - recycling and renewable energy, for instance - it's generally no thanks to the state's policymakers. While other states, even in the agriculture-saturated Midwest, are making strides in reigning in environmental threats, Iowa lets animal producers run hog wild, condones regulators that blatantly flaunt federal clean water rules, robs environmental funding sources with impunity and apathetically allows the very concept of natural habitat to teeter on the brink of extinction. So, by all means, strike up the jam band. But, when it comes to the decline of Iowa's natural resources, it's time to face the music.
...

"The market is ready, but the utilities are hesitant," Kenyon-Brown says. "So, because we are a state that regulates its utilities, it's up to legislators to decide how much renewable energy is produced. And they have not stepped up."
...

They literally watched as the s__t ran out of the building, down the slope and right into the tile intake.

When Environmental Protection Agency inspectors visited with members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement last month, Kari Carney escorted the federal regulators on a tour of some local factory farms. She showed them firsthand the streams of manure that had been flowing so consistently out of one site that they had created obvious grooves in the landscape. They watched as animal waste drained out of another cracked lagoon and streamed into the ditch on the side of the road. They saw sites that, despite blindingly obvious evidence and repeated complaints, had received no attention from the Department of Natural Resources.

In Iowa, many environmentalists have come to find that, while hog producers get the royal treatment, local citizens and the environment are treated like swine. The hog invasion has been on the march since landmark legislation in 1995 opened the flood gates, Carney says, and, thanks to the continuing trend of favorable laws, Iowa has become the No.1 hog producing state in the nation.
...

It's time to stop gulping back the truth: Iowa's water is foul. And it's not a matter of a handful of renegade corporations surreptitiously discharging chemicals or urban areas overburdening their watershed - although both of those do occur in Iowa. It's the kind of systemic breakdown in which an Ames trailer park discharges sewage into College Creek, visible feces float right through the middle of the ISU campus and, the DNR is up s__t creek without a regulatory paddle because the stream didn't have any defined protection standards. What's wrong with the state's water isn't an easily pinpointed disease cured with one heavy dose of financial medication; it's a chronic condition that requires a regulatory lifestyle change.

...

But even more galling is that Iowa continues to miss the boat on the most basic provisions of water quality protection. Argue all you want about how George W. Bush has attempted to undermine the Clean Water Act; Iowans would be thrilled if the state would follow that federal act in the first place. According to the CWA, every body of water must be protected for aquatic life and recreational uses. But, of nearly 72,000 miles of rivers and streams, Iowa protects only 3 percent of those miles for swimming and 17 percent for aquatic life. States are also required to keep waters from further degradation by showing economic or social need for any increases in pollution. But DNR doesn't do that environmentalists say. The CWA mandates that states set aside their highest quality waters and restrict any additional pollution, no exceptions. But Iowa hasn't bestowed that designation on a single drop of water. In fact, Iowa is so far off base when it comes to the CWA, the EPA has been sending notices of violation for the past seven years and, if the agency doesn't get with the national program in the very near future, environmental groups say they will take the state to court to get the feds to take over the job local regulators are not doing.
...

Flashback to 1937 when the national parks system was just getting off the ground, and Iowa was leading the pack in setting aside land for conservation, Edwards says. But return to reality, he continues, and Iowa has plummeted to nearly dead last in the amount of land under public protection. In fact, even if you combine all the state, county and federal lands, you come up with barely 600,000 acres or a measely 1.7 percent of Iowa's total land area.

"That's smaller than Polk County," Edwards says gravely