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Our region is attracting attention from renewable energy developers and opposition from suspicious neighbors. Cherokee County is trying to assemble an ordinance governing solar arrays and battery storage in the face of a request to develop such a facility on a couple hundred acres near Aurelia, combined with livestock grazing. The fire departments are eager to develop safety plans and training.
In Pocahontas County, some locals oppose a solar farm south of Fonda on roughly 850 acres, developed by a Japanese energy investment firm. The board of supervisors is holding a hearing and shaping an ordinance that would allow the development.
People are concerned about safety. Battery technology is evolving in leaps and bounds. Lithium ion batteries are being replaced by a next generation involving sodium. Solar technology develops alongside it. Neither is more harmful to public health than burning coal or natural gas. It is better for your lungs to live near a wind turbine than a hoghouse. The wind turbine might make you more money to boot. It finances the Pocahontas schools. This new solar farm near Fonda would bring in $175,000 per year in tax revenue, at least.
The Cherokee project is proposed by the local Smith brothers who want to put hooves on the ground next to solar panels. It sounds like a win-win. The batteries allow them to market power to the grid when it is needed.
People preach free markets until they want to control them. We recall when farmers wanted no regulation, all of unincorporated Buena Vista County was declared an Ag Area. Anything goes. Except for solar, that would eat up prime farmland that is needed to produce ethanol from corn for energy. Nearly half of Iowa’s corn goes to the still. A quarter of our land is devoted to ethanol. We beg the government to get rid of it, and the carbon dioxide, for us because we don’t know what else to do with our land. Heaven forbid that you would graze livestock on grass and take a royalty from the power company.
Windmills destroy the view. Solar panels are ugly. Somehow, massive sow complexes and henhouses enhance the horizon. President Trump thinks turbines kill geese, but they seem to thrive on Storm Lake at the center of a huge wind complex. Anhydrous ammonia tanks are considered perfectly safe. You are fine with lithium ion in your pocket against your privates but not out in the field near Aurelia. Somebody wants you to think that wind or solar is dangerous and bad.
Fact is, we all have the lights on. We need the juice. Cellphones are our lifelines. We are addicted to AI. Crypto is taken as currency. Would you rather have the revenue in Pocahontas County or would you rather send it to a coal-fired power plant near Sioux City? The power will be produced by somebody. We need more and more of it if we want to keep our rates low.
There was a day when conservatives believed that the market should determine highest and best use for a resource such as farmland. If markets want corn, then the land will be planted in corn. If the markets want hogs, we build confinements. If markets bid land into electricity, so be it. That is how conservatives used to think. The government is there to protect ratepayers from gouging, not to pick winners and losers.
We need more distributive power projects like the Smiths propose near Aurelia: locally owned renewable energy paired with livestock. Pocahontas County is wise to accommodate new investment in energy production. Northwest Iowa should be known for a safe and predictable operating environment where investment in new technology is welcome. The Iowa Utilities Board must protect ratepayers from shifting power consumption costs from data centers to residential consumers. So far, it has. Iowa enjoys relatively low rates. That will only remain true so long as we encourage new supply to be built, because demand is relentlessly rising. There will be plenty of corn for ethanol and those hogs owned by the Chinese no matter how many solar panels we lay down.
Education benefits from competition among public schools and private schools. No better example can be seen but in Storm Lake with a solid public school system, a pre-K-12 Catholic school, a community college satellite and a private university. Open enrollment is good, allowing Storm Lake children to attend school in Alta or vice versa. We are not categorically opposed to vouchers to pay for private education. Buena Vista University depends on the Iowa Tuition Grant. Unquestionably, Storm Lake would be much worse off without BVU, a Presbyterian school that would go broke without state and federal aid.
Likewise, St. Mary’s benefits from the more recent voucher program engineered by Gov. Reynolds. That’s good for academic diversity in Storm Lake. It offers another option for families of limited means. St. Mary’s enrollment has not swollen. The vouchers may help save the high school. That is an overall good thing for this community.
Rob Sand, the state auditor and Democratic candidate for governor, estimates that K-12 vouchers this year will cost $258 million. Republicans dispute him, but already Storm Lake has been forced to cut at least $500,000 from its school budget. It will only get worse as the program now allows everyone regardless of income to get school vouchers. That’s where Sand arrives at $258 million.
Two things should happen:
First, the voucher program should be income-limited as the Iowa Tuition Grant is. Only families that qualify for Hawk-I insurance or food stamps should get vouchers. That would take a big whack at that $258 million. It makes absolutely no sense to give money to rich people so their children can attend a private school.
Second, we should undo the flattening of the income tax rates. The wealthy can afford to help our schools more. Huge out-of-state corporations should be taxed for the challenges they present to our schools and for polluting our water. Sand could attract a lot of attention with that idea in Waterloo, Sioux City and Davenport.
Zach Lahn, the Republican candidate for governor, stands by the Reynolds program. The GOP defends the vouchers by saying Sand is inflating the numbers. We know that the rich are getting a free ride to Dowling. It’s a rip-off. Sand can look like a man of reason and moderation by calling for voucher reform. We cannot have great public schools while attempting to eliminate the income tax and subsidizing the wealthy at the same time. Sand wants to attack a $1.3 billion deficit that the Republicans would like to pretend does not exist. We cannot afford more cuts to our public schools.
You would like to think that the United States could come to terms with Iran and end this conflict. Here is the problem: Neither side can be trusted at its word. They lie to each other and their own public. Vice President Vance claims that Iran agreed to give up its nuclear material and allow inspections, Iran says it agreed to nothing of the sort. President Trump, meanwhile, threatens to blow up Iran.
Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. Trump and his crony Netanyahu are the leading sponsors of hegemony alongside Iran, Saudi Arabia and their proxies. Trump cannot breathe without lying. The ayatollahs trade in deceit.
Trump says that the Iran deal will include food purchased from US farmers, by the way. Tell that one to the banker. Again, Iran claims to know nothing about this, or about nuclear arms. How do you structure a lasting agreement enforced by the international community when liars and cheats do the bidding in a Swiss fantasy mediated by Pakistanis?
You can believe it when the ships navigate without encumbrance. Despite all our bombs, Iran controls the Persian Gulf. We got duped by Netanyahu and the Saudis into a war, and are trying to lie our way out of it. Trump wants Iowa to believe that the Iranians will buy our soybeans or something so that we will vote for Ashely Hinson for Senate, who supported this insanity. You cannot trust the deal when you can’t trust the dealer.
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