News from the State House
by State Representative Patti Ruff
Last week was our final week of the 2015 session. We are now in overtime. As someone who prides herself on being punctual and meeting deadlines, this is the third year that the Legislature has not met the end of session deadline nor the school funding deadline. It is extremely frustrating beyond belief.
With my level of frustration, I thought I would focus on some good things that happened for our towns, companies, and our state as a whole. The House passed out HF 656 dealing with renewable chemical production tax credits. It’s available for local industrial facilities producing food and fuel products from corn, soybeans, and other renewable products. It’s also available for byproducts that can be refined into higher value building block chemicals that can be processed into products such as plastics, paints, textiles and pharmaceuticals. The Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) proposed incentivizing the production of these building block chemicals from the biomass feedstock that results from some industrial production.
Currently, co-products being produced are being underutilized. Under HF 656, IEDA will incentivize industries to turn these byproducts into building block chemicals. In order to incentivize production of high value building block chemicals, IEDA proposed utilizing $15 million of their $170 million dollar tax credit cap for the renewable chemical production tax credit.
In order to be eligible for the tax credit, a business must be physically located in the state and operated for profit. Additionally, the business must have been organized, expanded or located in the state on or after the effective date of the legislation.
This bill passed the House and is on its way to the Senate.
The IEDA awarded several local towns with Community Development Block Grants. These awards are conditioned on the IEDA receiving a final grant award from the United States Department of Housing and urban Development (HUD). The following communities receiving the CDBG grants are: Lansing up to $208,650; Monona up to $500,000; Postville up to $500,000; and Marquette up to $235,440.
The IEDA also has again awarded Norplex-Micarta with a grant for the Targeted Industries Internship program to hire one intern for the summer. This is a great program that Norplex has used in the past.
The governor signed a bill last week that will provide additional protections from protestors at funerals, including military funerals. The bill will expand the offense of disorderly conduct in proximity to a funeral. The bill will require protestors to be twice as far away from funerals as current law.
Protestors are restricted from making loud and raucous noises that cause distress to those attending the funeral. In addition, direct abusive epithets or threatening gestures are prohibited. These protections extend to the funeral, memorial service, funeral procession, or burial.
A first offense is a simple misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to 30 days in jail. The penalties increase with each offense until a 3rd or subsequent offense, which results in a class “D” felony. A class “D” felony can carry up to a five year prison sentence.
It is May and I am heading back to Des Moines. I guess all good things do not come to an end?
