DES MOINES, Iowa, June 26, 2024 – U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development State Director in Iowa Theresa Greenfield today announced that USDA is investing $1,842,725 in 23 projects across the state to lower energy bills, expand access to clean energy, and create jobs for Iowa agricultural producers and rural small business owners with funding through the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). USDA also unveiled the “Rural Energy Resource Guide” to make it easier for rural communities to identify federal funding for clean energy, including programs made possible by President Biden’s historic Inflation Reduction Act.

“The investments we’re announcing today demonstrate how producers and small business are embracing clean energy systems to address the impacts of climate change and save money,” said Director Greenfield. “These investments are at the heart of President Biden and Agriculture Secretary Vilsack’s commitment to create jobs, lower consumer costs, and strengthen Iowa’s rural communities – building the economy from the middle out and the bottom up.”

The REAP project grants are part of a larger nation-wide announcement today.

REAP grants in Iowa

A full list of today’s REAP awards in Iowa may be found here and include these:

-Remington Seeds LLC, owner of a seed processing operation in Belle Plaine, Benton County, received a $553,351 grant to help install a 412 kilowatt solar array. This project is expected to save $97,782 per year. It will replace 570,666 kilowatt hours (82 percent of the business energy usage) per year, enough energy to power 52 homes.

–Dalton Ag Enterprises received a $575,000 grant to help install a 639.5 kilowatt solar array at its farm machinery and equipment manufacturing operation in Lenox in Taylor County. This project will realize $96,972 per year in savings and will replace 764,794 kilowatt hours per year (65 percent of previous use), which is enough electricity to power 70 homes.

-Schumacher Company LC, a farm machinery and equipment manufacturing business, received a $255,600 grant to install a 255.6 kilowatt solar array in Durant in Cedar County. This project will generate 347,249 kilowatt hours per year, saving $54,581 per year. This is enough electricity to power 32 homes.

w/Kate Olson.

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(Iowa News Service) – Farm advocates claim price gouging on meat and poultry in California is spreading across the country, including in Iowa, which is the nation’s largest hog producer.
California passed a law banning the use of gestation crates for raising hogs, and producers said it increased production costs which are rippling across the country to Iowa. Iowa has similar regulations on gestation crates. The agriculture advocacy group Farm Action has issued a report which shows in addition to blaming the California law, corporate meat producers also continue to use supply chain disruptions as an excuse to price-gouge.

Joe Maxwell, chief strategy officer for Farm Action, offered as evidence a 20% hike in California pork prices.  “It’s just a part of their doing business now,” Maxwell pointed out. “They find excuses in the markets to gouge that consumer. And one thing we want to be very clear on is that the consumer knows it’s not the farmer. The farmer’s getting squeezed just as much as is the consumer.”

Iowa is the nation’s leading hog producer, but still lost $32 per hog in 2023, a number experts said could grow this year. They blamed increased demand but have also come under scrutiny for trying to meet demand by raising hogs in large confinements, which are known to cause environmental damage.  Farm Action is the same group which, not long after the official end of the pandemic, asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate egg prices, which had tripled in some cases. The group researched U.S. Department of Agriculture data and said the numbers did not justify the price hike. Producers said other factors are driving up prices, including inflation and animal illness.

Maxwell added corporate food producers have positioned themselves to have outsize control over the market. “They’ve got that control over the farmer, not unlike oil companies have over oil fields,” Maxwell argued. “They now have that control because there are very few buyers of farmers’ commodities, so they have that control over the farmer, the producer.”

Iowa produces almost 50 million hogs a year. It costs nearly $4 billion a year just to feed them.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig says dairy exhibitors will be required to submit additional tests before their dairy cattle can be transported to a show to help minimize the potential spread of Avian Influenza. The Department’s order for fairs and exhibitions will go into effect on July 1st. The order will require dairy exhibitors participating in Iowa fairs or exhibitions to complete testing for Bird Flu within seven days of moving to the exhibition.

Secretary Naig says in a statement the state wants to strike a balance between allowing our 4-H, FFA, and dairy exhibitors the opportunity to show their animals, while also requiring additional testing to protect livestock and minimize the potential spread of the virus.

(Radio Iowa) – The top Republican in the Iowa House says the legislature must update the state’s eminent domain laws in response to the Iowa Utilities Board decision to approve the route for the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline. The board’s decision gives the company authority to force unwilling property owners to let the pipeline on their land. House Speaker Pat Grassley says landowner rights are one of the highest priorities for House Republicans and that’s why they passed two different bills on the topic — bills that died in the Republican-led Iowa Senate.

Grassley says House Republicans will seek feedback from Iowans on changes in the use of eminent domain in projects like the carbon pipeline. Two dozen other House Republicans — and seven Republicans who are state senators — have signed a joint statement, calling the Iowa Utilities Board decision a dark day for anyone who owns property in Iowa. The group says the board has crossed a line and the state’s proud tradition of clean government is being sullied.

Supporters of the pipeline say it will help Iowa-produced ethanol compete in low carbon fuel markets around the globe. In a written statement, Monte Shaw of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association said despite the overheated rhetoric of a few, the overwhelming majority of impacted landowners support this project. According to Summit’s C-E-O, 75 percent of Iowa landowners along the pipeline route have signed contracts to let the pipeline pass through their property.

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Here is the list of lawmakers who signed on to the statement: Senator Kevin Alons, Senator Jeff Taylor, Senator Dennis Guth, Senator David Rowley, Senator Sandy Salmon, Senator Cherielynn Westrich, Senator Lynn Evans, Representative Steven Bradley, Representative Ken Carlson, Representative Mark Cisneros, Representative Zach Dieken, Representative Dean Fisher, Representative Thomas Gerhold, Representative Cindy Golding, Representative Helena Hayes, Representative Steven Holt, Representative Thomas Jeneary, Representative Bradley Sherman, Representative Jeff Shipley, Representative Luana Stoltenberg, Representative Mark Thompson, Representative Anne Osmundson, Representative Brooke Boden, Representative Henry Stone, Representative Heather Hora, Representative Skyler Wheeler, Representative Eddie Andrews, Representative Dan Gehlbach, Representative Bob Henderson, Representative Bobby Kaufman, and Representative Charles Thomson.

(Radio Iowa) – Landowners who have refused to grant property easements for the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline say they’re outraged state regulators have given the project a green light — and considering their legal options. The Iowa Utilities Board announced today (Tuesday) that the project would get a construction permit if regulators in the Dakotas approve the pipeline route in their states. Jess Mazour of the Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter has been working with a coalition of landowners for the past three years.

“The Iowa Utilities Board voted 3-0 against Iowans and impacted landowners in favor of a dangerous and unpopular project that violates private property rights and the fact that IUB related this decision when a large portion of Summit’s route is underwater is shameful and callous,” Mazour said. “Iowa landowners are currently losing their homes and now get word they may be losing their farms.”

Sherri Webb and her siblings inherited Shelby County land from their grandmother. During the Iowa Utilities Board hearings last fall, she testified against the use of eminent domain to seize her family’s land for the project.  “I hope that the Iowa landowners now understand that absolutely none of their land is safe from being taken,” Webb said. “Will we give up? No. We will appeal and we will never give up.” Attorney Brian Jorde says the first step is a formal request that asks the Utilities Board to reconsider its decision, then a lawsuit could be filed in Iowa district court after that.

“They were handpicked, the three members of the IUB, to do this job,” Jorde says. “…Obviously disappointing, but I invite people to be more disappointed in Iowa’s politicians than Summit.” Jorde says Iowa politicians rolled out the red carpet for the pipeline developer. Governor Reynolds appointed two of the three members of the Iowa Utilities Board after it began reviewing Summit’s construction permit.

Wally Taylor, an attorney for the Sierra Club Iowa chapter, says regulators ignored evidence showing the project had no direct benefit to the public, but is designed to profit Summit and the ethanol plants it chooses to link to the pipeline.  “It isn’t like a train or an airplane where any passenger that buys a ticket can get on,” Taylor says.

The Iowa Utilibites Board decision stipulates that Summit must get approval from North Dakota for its pipeline route and underground storage location AND from South Dakota regulators for the route in that state. The approval process in South Dakota could stretch into 2026.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Utilities Board has unanimously approved the proposed route for the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline, but the company must meet other requirements before construction may begin. All three members of the Iowa Utilities Board agree the public benefits of the project outweigh the private and public costs. That clears the way for Summit to — eventually — use eminent domain authority to force landowners who’ve resisted the project to let the pipeline through their property. The board’s order includes some major caveats before Summit would get to start construction, however.

Summit must get approval from South and North Dakota regulators for its pipeline route in those states, plus approval in North Dakota for the underground site where carbon is to be shipped and stored. In addition, Summit cannot connect the pipeline to ethanol plants in Minnesota and Nebraska until officials in those states OK those moves. The Iowa Utilities Board order requires Summit to get 100 million dollars worth of liability insurance to cover any damages related to construction, operation and maintenance of the pipeline.

Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline route runs 688 miles, through 29 Iowa counties. According to a news release from the company, 75 percent of landowners along the route have signed voluntary easements and the Iowa Utilities Board decision is a significant milestone for the project.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Supreme Court has upheld a four-point-seven-five million dollar verdict for a northeast Iowa dairy farm. The award was for the operators of Vagts Dairy in West Union who sued Northern Natural Gas Company claiming stray electrical current from a pipeline corrosion prevention system made their cows sick. In one year they lost 17 percent of the cows.

The gas company appealed saying jury instructions were in error and the award too much. The Supreme Court ruled the jury instructions on what constitutes a nuisance were proper and the jury’s finding that stray voltage was definitely offensive, seriously annoying, and interfered with the Vagts’ normal use of land supported the dollar award.

(Radio Iowa) – A Republican lawmaker is calling on the University of Iowa to examine its use of animals in medical research, consider alternatives and release a public report. State Representative Taylor Collins of Mediapolis says he finds one experiment particularly grotesque — beagles with a fatal infection were euthanized, then blood and tissue samples from the dogs were studied.

“These are really concerning research practices that are occurring at the University of Iowa and we’re simply asking for a review of these practices because we shouldn’t be simply only looking at dollar signs when we’re conducting research,” Collins says. “We also need to be thinking about the ethical use of these animals.”

University of Iowa officials say the 25 dogs were infected with the disease when the owners of the beagles donated the animals for the research a decade ago and no dogs have been used in the university’s research since 2019. A written statement from university says faculty have an unwavering commitment to the health and well being of research animals and strongly support development of non-animal alternatives for research.

“As usual we have received no commitments to make any improvements, conduct any kind of review or even admit any wrongdoing ever occurred. The only thing we have gotten back is a boilerplate FAQ to simply answer questions about the study,” Collins says. “The university and the Board of Regents can’t just continue to ignore issues that legislators bring to their attention. They either need to address this or we’ll do it for them like many other things.”

Collins led efforts in the legislature this year to cut the budgets for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs at Iowa, Iowa State and the University of Northern Iowa. Collins says two years ago the legislature passed a law that requires university researchers to set up adoption programs for dogs and cats that are retired from research.  “We’ve sounded the alarm bell on it before,” Collins says, “but as usual the university has become increasingly out of touch with everyday Iowans and the legislature when it comes to research.”

The Iowa director of the Humane Society has raised the same concerns as Collins and the group has started an online petition calling for changes in animal testing practices at the University of Iowa. Officials at the University of Iowa say for the past 30 years the university has been accredited by an international nonprofit that promotes the humane treatment of animals in science.