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.
State Rep. Ralph Watts (R-Adel), an outspoken critic of climate change science, has been reappointed to the Iowa Climate Change Advisory Council.
The council was authorized in 2007, and the four non-voting members from the legislature serve two-year terms, appointed by the head of each party’s caucus in each chamber. They, along with 23 voting members appointed by Gov. Chet Culver, are responsible for issuing recommendations to help Iowa combat the challenges of climate change.
Watts’s position on the council is noteworthy because he has been an outspoken critic of measures to combat climate change for years. During the 2008 legislative session, for instance, he helped to distribute a book to every member of the legislature that claimed that global warming was natural and irreversible, denying evidence that humans have an impact on climate change. Last February, Watts signed on to a letter written by the American Environmental Coalition, a conservative group founded by evangelicals that calls global warming a “hoax.”
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