The Iowa House and Senate are starting what is likely to be the final week of the 2016 legislative session today (Monday). Final decisions must be made on the next state budget, while advocates continue to lobby for expanded state investment in water quality measures and an expanded medical marijuana law.

House Republicans and Senate Democrats must resolve their dispute over the G-O-P aim to “defund” Planned Parenthood. Republican Representative Dave Heaton of Mount Pleasant says this has been a fight in the legislature in each of the past five years. “I am not going to predict the outcome,” Heaton says. “I can’t.” Republican House Speaker Linda Upmeyer of Clear Lake sees a clear path to resolving the final “sticking points” in the budget.

“We’ll continue to work our way through that and get those issues resolved, but we will resolve them,” Upmeyer says. “We always do.” Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey says farmers need “significantly” more state grant money to install conservation measures in their fields, but Northey doesn’t expect major action from this year’s legislature. “It will be a lost opportunity,” Northey says. According to Northey, the threat of federal regulation and a Des Moines Water Works lawsuit challenging the way three northwest Iowa counties manage farm chemical run-off has “gotten people’s attention.”

“We’ve seen so much engagement by farmers and groups and cities and other organizations out there that are engaging in water quality,” Northey says, “sense there’s a momentum to make these kinds of improvements that the legislature is sensing that some dollars could do some good.” More than 20-million dollars is already set aside in the legislature’s current budget plan for water quality measures. House Republicans voted last week to redirect currently-collected state taxes on water usage and casinos to water improvement projects. Northey, who is a Republican, favors that plan because it doesn’t raise new taxes. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs says the House G-O-P plan “isn’t much of a solution.”

“The House plan pits water quality against every other priority in state government because it produces no new revenue and, in fact, steals existing revenue that comes to the state,” Gronstal says, “which makes it hard to fund education.” There are a handful of other issues that may be resolved before lawmakers adjourn for the year. Gronstal says that includes legislation to establish new state oversight of private boarding schools.

“I think it would be horrible to leave a situation where people can establish facilities to allegedly take care of kinds and where really bad things go on,” Gronstal says. The Midwest Academy in Keokuk and Montrose was closed in January after allegations of sex abuse surfaced. A group of advocates continue to press lawmakers to set up a state-sanctioned production and distribution network for medical marijuana. They want Iowans with a variety of illnesses and conditions to be able to use it.

Republican House Speaker Linda Upmeyer of Clear Lake says there are “many ideas” but no consensus on the issue. “There are people with interests in that and there have been discussions, so we’ll see how it goes,” Upmeyer says. Upmeyer believes the state should wait for the federal government to act and set a uniform national policy for medical marijuana.

(Radio Iowa)