We Iowans love to talk about the weather! Not Governor Reynolds. She didn’t mention the recent off-the-charts weather disaster in her rosy Condition of the State address recently.
On Dec. 15, Iowans once again experienced a set of events that no one alive has ever witnessed before. A record temperature of 74 degrees. The first ever December derecho (remember the Aug. 10, 2020, Iowa derecho? 140 mph winds, 7 million trees down, and 554,000 without power!) recorded in U.S. history, which spawned 61 Iowa tornados, a single day all-time record. Of those, 22 were EF-2 rated with 111-135 mph winds. It was one of the worst Iowa thunderstorms in any season. Fifty rural counties were declared disasters.
Gov. Reynolds has become a wiz at pumping out extreme weather disaster proclamations. She does it all the time. Republican leaders want you to disbelieve what you keep seeing with your very own eyes. That’s because they don’t believe in alleged climate change extreme weather disasters. Their policy priorities will guarantee stronger, more damaging, costly storms and more rural disaster proclamations.
In 2018, Gov. Reynolds and Republicans gutted Iowa’s 30-year-old energy saving programs that reduced carbon pollution and lessen the conditions that spawn extreme weather events. These popular programs have helped businesses, homeowners and farmers save energy and millions on our collective energy bills. Rural communities benefitted with jobs and lower utility bills. After just two years, a 2020 study by Clean Jobs Midwest found that Iowa lost 3,100 energy efficiency jobs as a result of this legislation.
In 2021, Republicans blocked the extension of the highly successful, carbon-reducing Iowa Solar Tax Credit incentive that over the past 10 years has resulted in the creation of more than 1,000 permanent jobs and 7,224 installed solar projects on homes, businesses and farms in every Iowa county. The failure to extend this credit for residential projects is bad news for the 100 Iowa small businesses in the solar energy supply chain. It also broke a promise to 1,409 homeowners that installed solar systems thinking they would get the tax credit that Republicans have now denied.
In the last five years, Gov. Reynolds also ended funding to three Iowa university research centers, including the ISU Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, ISU Iowa Energy Center and UI Center for Global, and Regional Environmental Research, which were all working to make Iowa more sustainable.
Iowa farmers and agriculture are in the bullseye of these strengthening weather disasters. Our ability to feed ourselves in the next few decades is threatened.
There is nothing fiscally responsible or conservative about destroying our ability to safely live here.
