IMO ...yes.
Let's look at the actual legislation from the previous post that caused MEC to freak out. Most times, When powerful interests don't like certain legislative efforts, they use their influence to make sure bills never make it out of committee. That way lobbyists who register their declarations on bills, can declare they are undecided on an issue, even though they may be working quietly to kill a bill before it passes out of a committee. In this case, however, The CBED wind energy bill had a lot of support, cause who doesn't like rural economic development?! Back in 2003, I think, Legislators had mainly given control of wind energy in Iowa to the utilities. A number of elected officials were starting to think they wanted locally owned wind projects in Iowa as well. That was why this legislative effort had 31 out of 50 state senators as cosponsors, including then Senate leader Mike Gronstal. This bill sailed out of committee and was quickly scheduled for a senate floor vote.
Now lobbyists had to actually declare what they thought of the legislation.
Let's look at some of the declarations.
Alliant energy was predictably against this . Iowa Utilities Board stayed undecided, even though they regulate this area. Maybe they didn't want to anger the utilities, because something like this might happen. If I remember correctly, Ms Conrad was married to a MidAmerican employee, which always struck me as a potential conflict when relaying IUB positions to legislators.
Iowa Farm Bureau couldn't decide if they liked the idea of farmer owned wind projects. Farmers weren't getting a fair price for selling electricity from wind projects . This bill was a step in the right direction to address that,. School administrators evidently didn't see potential for more property tax money. Maybe farmers would accurately report their wind projects valuations to county assessors.
MidAmerican hated this bill so much they created the questionable handout in the last post to pass out to legislators.
The rural electric coops opposed it, though I'm guessing some of their members might have liked it. Yes, I'm an REC member, though I wasn't back in 2007. Iowa Utility Association took the "none shall Pass " position.
The counties understood they might get more property taxes as a result.
The steel workers liked it. Jobs you know.
State IBEW opposed their steel worker brothers and sisters. In fact, IBEW members showed up at a Democrat controlled committee meeting to voices concerns, before eventually registering against the bill.
and... clipper undecided , and ag business undecided .
So, there were many "on the fence groups", along with hard opposition from the utilities and IBEW.
So, obviously this bill didn't get voted on. Democrat floor leader Gronstal, even though he was a cosponsor, pulled this renewable energy bill, with 30 other cosponsors, from the vote calendar, and reassigned it to a sub committee chaired by Iowa climate change hawk, Democrat Senator Rob Hogg (also a bill sponsor), who let the bill expire without a hearing.
So there you have it ,another example of the immense influence the utility lobby wields at the Iowa legislature. I suppose this will piss off some people that I know in Des Moines, but I think besides serving as another example of too much influence by powerful utility lobby interests, it should also serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks that the energy policy world will be right again if Democrats regain control of the state legislature. In this case, the Democrat controlled legislature and governors office couldn't pass a rural economic development bill that would have built renewable energy.
I don't really get partisan on the blog, so this is strictly about how, IMO, utility power needs reined in. Doubters might need some additional examples , like the identical bills prepared in the Democrat Senate, and Republican house for MidAmerican's planned nuclear plant a few years back. The Fukushima melt down happened while the bill was under consideration. otherwise, I'm confident that MEC would have built a nuclear plant that IMO would have stood an excellent chance of being an unneeded stranded asset for the utilities rate payers to pay off. I've heard some whoppers about the year 2000 utility deregulation bill as well. From my view point, the utility lobby usually gets what it wants, regardless of which party is in control of the state house.
This is a monopoly problem, and Iowan's are facing monopoly problems in a number of areas, as Austin Frerick has been pointing out.
More to come ...
