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.
Legislation that would ban smoking in most public places across the state was passed by a wide margin in the Iowa House on Tuesday evening after a nearly five-hour debate. The bill now awaits debate in the Senate, where its fate is uncertain.
Gov. Chet Culver had said he would sign the statewide ban if it passes both chambers of the Legislature.
The proposed law, sponsored by a broad coalition of Democratic representatives, would outlaw smoking in all of the state’s restaurants and taverns, most private businesses, events held on public-owned property and on farms that employ private laborers. Casinos and private clubs, such as Veterans of Foreign Wars halls, are exempt. An amendment offered on Monday also exempts private limousine companies, although taxicabs are not exempt.
Sponsors said the legislation was designed to protect non-tobacco users from the dangers of secondhand smoke, but have acknowledged that it will also encourage smokers to quit using cigarettes.
Persons who break the law could be fined $50, according to legislators.
The bill is among the most comprehensive in the United States, according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, a nonprofit organization that advocates for anti-tobacco legislation across the country. A total of 26 states have implanted statewide bans, and laws go into effect in for more states during the next 18 months, the group said.The vote on the smoking ban was quickly scheduled Tuesday afternoon when Democrats in the House realized they had enough votes to approve the comprehensive legislation. Some Republicans expressed surprise that some fellow lawmakers who seemed to clearly oppose the bill ended up supporting it, including State Reps. Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield, and Mike May, R-Spirit Lake.
Representatives passed the legislation Tuesday night by a vote of 56-44, with bipartisan support. The bill was the strongest of several anti-smoking proposals that the Legislature was set to consider this session.
Although the bill was sponsored by a large group of Democrats, eight Republicans sided with the majority party and voted in favor of the measure; eight Democrats voted against it.
“Second hand smoke kills 440 non-smokers in Iowa every year and another 4,000 Iowans die each year from smoking-related illnesses,” said State Rep. Tyler Olson, D-Cedar Rapids. “The bill approved today will save lives and protect 99 percent of Iowans in the work place and public places.”
If enacted, the legislation will ban smoking in bars, restaurants, businesses, some farms, and state-owned outdoor areas where members of the public assemble.
“We know that workers in the hospitality industry, including my sister, have a 50 percent greater chance of dying from lung cancer than the general population,” said Rep. Elesha Gayman, D-Davenport. “These hard-working Iowans do not get to decide if their workplace is smoke free and they should not have to put their health in jeopardy to provide for their families.”
The bill would also ban smoking within 10 feet of the entrance of any building that falls under the ban. And it may ban smoking on the grounds of the Iowa State Fair, though that question remained unsettled when legislators cast their votes.
The statewide ban is one of two anti-smoking bills being considered at the Statehouse. A more lenient bill would allow cities across the state to decide whether to outlaw smoking locally and to what extent.
About one-in-five Iowans smoke cigarettes, state studies show. That number has been on the decline over the last quarter century because of better documentation about the health effects of smoking and efforts to prohibit smoking in more public places.
The smoking-ban bill comes just one year after lawmakers increased the tax on cigarettes by $1 a pack, a move that resulted in the sale of 70 million fewer packs of cigarettes from mid-March 2007 to the end of the year, according to Iowa Department of Revenue records.
A total of 198 million packs were sold in Iowa from March 16 to December 31, 2007, records show. At the same time, tax revenues increased by nearly 150 percent. Michael Lipsman, an economist with the Department of Revenue, said cigarette sales have historically varied month-to-month depending on a variety of factors.
The revenue department statistics show that the biggest drop in sales occurred in April, just one month after the tax was imposed and a period when smokers were still coping with the economic impact of additional dollar tax. During that period, the number of packs of cigarettes sold dropped by 63 percent.
The sale of cigarettes provides an important revenue stream to the state; nearly $160 million was collected during the last fiscal year, and some estimates suggested that the state could collect $300 million in taxes on tobacco products if a smoking ban isn’t implemented.
Cigarettes provide the second-largest pool of funds for state government, trailing only the fuel tax, which generated $423 million in revenues last year.
Iowa was the first state to implement a cigarette tax when the Legislature approved a 2-cent-a-pack tax in 1921. It was the state’s first use tax and was increased 11 times over an 87-year period before the rate was raised from 36 cents to $1.36 last year.
A raft of research has shown that secondhand smoke causes the same problems as direct smoking, including lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and lung ailments such as emphysema, bronchitis and asthma. Specifically studies show that lifelong nonsmokers with partners who smoke in the home have a 20- to 30-percent greater risk of lung cancer than nonsmokers who live with nonsmokers. Nonsmokers exposed to cigarette smoke in the workplace have an increased lung cancer risk of 16 to 19 percent.
A study issued in 2002 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization concluded that nonsmokers are exposed to the same carcinogens as active smokers. Secondhand smoke contains 69 known carcinogens, and well-established cancer-causing agents have been shown by the tobacco companies’ own research to be present at higher concentrations in secondhand smoke than in mainstream smoke.
The Department of Revenue study showed that the number of smoker in Iowa was dropping by about 2 percent annually even before the new tax was implemented. A state-sponsored quit line has also reported a big increase in calls to its smoker cessation hotline since last year’s tax increase was announced.
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