Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Fighting climate change should be done by international agreements and not with legislation currently being weighed in the U.S. Senate, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley told reporters Tuesday.
“Otherwise we’re going to lose all of our manufacturing — or manufacturing jobs — to China because it’ll be cheaper for our manufacturing to go over there than to pay the stiff fees on energy that they’ll have to pay here,” Grassley said.
U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.COM)
Last month, the U.S. House passed legislation that would reduce emissions by imposing a national limit, or cap, on greenhouse gases. It would then allow polluters to buy and sell their emissions credits. If a polluter emitted less than its allotment, it could sell the excess.
Opponents of the bill, which includes Grassley, say it will hike up energy costs at a time when citizens can hardly afford it.
“Every time a consumer in Iowa turns on their light switch, they’re going to be paying a tax that they don’t pay today,” he said.
But an equal concern, Grassley said, is that a provision in the House version of the bill that imposes import duties designed to stave off job loss in the manufacturing sector would likely violate international trade agreements.
“So in order to cover their rear end, they needed to put this import duties in so that they can have an excuse that they really aren’t doing anything that hurts American manufacturing when in fact they are,” he said.
On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee, of which Grassley is the ranking Republican, will hold a hearing on the international trade issues raised by the cap-and-trade bill.
Grassley has suggested several times that the U.S. wait for an international climate agreement before taking domestic action. A meeting scheduled for the end of the year will attempt to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, an international commitment for the reduction of greenhouse gases that is set to expire in 2012.
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