(Radio Iowa) – With the forecast calling for highs climbing into the 80s this week, the warmer weather is inspiring many Iowa boaters to hit the state’s lakes and rivers. Iowa Department of Natural Resources conservation officer Nate Carr says, before taking the boat off the trailer, check over your supply of life jackets. “They need to be the appropriate size for your passengers and in good working condition, so not old and faded and torn as they can get sometimes,” Carr says. “Make sure you go through those and make sure they’re all for however many passengers are on your boat, that’s how many life jackets you need to have.”

Along with a fire extinguisher and a horn, Carr says life jackets are a must-have safety items on a boat. “Anytime your boat is underway, any child under the age of 13 must be wearing their life jacket,” Carr says. “Also, regarding life jackets, anybody driving a jet ski, or riding on a jet ski for that matter, is required to be wearing their life jacket at all times, regardless of age.” Life jackets are also required for anyone being pulled behind a boat, including skiers and inner-tubers. Carr says the agency has officers on the waters, too, watching for signs of drunken boaters. “The same rules apply on the water that apply on the road, you cannot be operating while over a .08 or under the influence of any other kind of substance,” Carr says. “So make sure you have a designated driver, even on a boat.”

National Safe Boating Week is May 17th through the 23rd. Find more boater safety information at the Iowa DNR website.

(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – State representatives in Iowa approved a budget from the Senate on Tuesday that would increase funding for agriculture and natural resources departments by $682,000 compared to the current fiscal year. The budget for the upcoming 2025-26 fiscal year prioritizes funding to prevent the spread of foreign animal disease, supports state park maintenance and continues the Choose Iowa program, along with operations for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Senate File 646 would appropriate $46.6 million from the general fund and appropriate an additional $99.4 million from other funds for fiscal year 2026. The bill would put $1.8 million into the Choose Iowa fund for use on promotion, dairy innovation and value-added grants for Choose Iowa participants, which is on par with 2025 expected figures for the program. Choose Iowa is a network of producers selling Iowa-grown goods and has nearly 300 members across the state. The bill also ends the Choose Iowa pilot purchasing program and creates the Choose Iowa Food Purchasing Program, with an appropriation of $200,000 to help food banks purchase locally produced foods.

The pilot program previously had two divisions, one that helped local food banks and another that helped Iowa schools purchase from local growers. Local farmers and food-security advocates hoped the program would have substantial funding this year following the cancellation of funding from a similar federal program. Rep. J.D. Scholten, D-Sioux City, proposed an amendment to expand the purchasing program to include schools, but the House did not adopt the amendment. Scholten said the amendment would have made “sure that (Iowa) kids are properly fed.”

The appropriations bill would also eliminate the Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Fund in favor of creating an Iowa Animal Disease Prevention fund, which fulfills requests from Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig and other stakeholders for increased funds to protect against the threat of foreign animal diseases. Those funds would go toward animal disease equipment, vaccine research and updates to state technology to track an outbreak.

The bill also appropriates $200,000 to the Iowa Geological Survey to research and map the state’s aquifers. The bill allocates $12 million from the Environment First Fund, in lieu of a standing $20 million appropriation from the general fund, to extend the Resources Enhancement and Protection, or REAP, program through 2028. This program funds county conservation, city parks and open spaces, historic preservation, conservation education, soil and water enhancement, and other projects related to natural resources.

The bill also has a special general fund appropriation for state park maintenance, floodplain management and forestry health management. The budget bill faced some pushback from Democrats in both the House and Senate who said it did not adequately prioritize local food, water quality and conservation efforts.

The bill advanced from both chambers, and with no adopted amendments in the House it now goes to the governor for final approval.

(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – A long-running dispute between insurance commissioners in Iowa and Pennsylvania has escalated, with Iowa regulators arguing that hundreds of elderly Iowans are now being put at risk due to a company’s willful violation of a court order. In 2022, Iowa Insurance Commissioner Douglas Ommen sought an injunction against the financially struggling Senior Health Insurance Company of Pennsylvania, or SHIP, arguing the company intended to “coerce vulnerable Iowans” into paying confiscatory rate increases of 400% or more, even while imposing “draconian” cuts to policyholders’ benefits. At the time, Ommen said SHIP, which had sold long-term care insurance policies to more than 880 Iowans, was financially insolvent with a $1.3 billion funding shortfall.

The injunction, which was later granted, barred SHIP from offering any rates, riders or policy documents to any Iowa policyholders that had not been previously authorized and approved by the Iowa insurance commissioner. In January 2025, SHIP informed the Iowa insurance commissioner the company had filed a request with the commonwealth court of Pennsylvania to begin implementing a court-approved “rehabilitation plan” for the company, allowing SHIP to contact Iowa policyholders and to offer, or in some cases force, changes to their policies. The Iowa commissioner then informed SHIP that even if the Pennsylvania court granted the request and the company followed through, it would be in clear violation of the injunction issued in Iowa. Under that scenario, the commissioner warned, he would authorize the Iowa attorney general to seek sanctions against SHIP.

According to newly filed court papers in the case, SHIP “did not back down” and now intends to “unilaterally modify all Iowa SHIP policies” between May 31 and Oct. 28. According to the Iowa commissioner, there are now 501 SHIP policyholders in Iowa who in April were the target of a mass mailing informing them of potential modifications to their policies. The Iowa commissioner alleges it never authorized SHIP to contact any Iowa policyholders and that the Iowa court has never modified its injunction barring such contact.

In pursuing a contempt-of-court finding against SHIP, the Iowa commissioner is arguing that SHIP’s conduct is “beyond the pale” and that SHIP, has “no intention of respecting the laws or court orders of any jurisdiction outside of Pennsylvania. Their contact with Iowa policyholders was not a fluke, or an accident, or a one-off violation; it was a deliberate plan months in the making, with the full knowledge that it would violate the temporary injunction.”

The Iowa commissioner not only seeks a finding of contempt, it is also requesting a civil penalty of $500 for each of 503 acts on contempt. The company has yet to file a response to that request.

(Radio Iowa) – The latest report from the Iowa Department of Transportation doesn’t show any slow downs in rail shipments due to tariffs on foreign goods. The D-O-T’s Stuart Anderson gave an update to the Transportation Commission Tuesday.  “You’ve probably seen some headlines about volume coming into some of the west ports is starting to decline. That is not apparent at least through March, and we do have some April data as well that shows the intermodal traffic is still high on the rail system,” Anderson says. Anderson says the shipment of one of Iowa’s key exports also doesn’t appear to be impacted.

“April 2025 grain shipments were the best month of grain shipments in April since 2021,” he says, “so some strong export shipments at least happening right now.” Anderson says air travel in Iowa continues to be strong. “The March number is again at the peak in recent years. It actually is pretty spot on with the March of 2024 count data. So there’s still a lot of demand that our commercial service airports,” he says.

Anderson says travel is down a little this year on the state’s roadways, but he says that may be due to lower numbers with the winter weather in February, and they may come back up with the summer travel season.

(Pella, Iowa) – Two people were injured Tuesday afternoon near Pella, in a crash that involved three vehicles, including a school bus carrying members of the Pella girls’ soccer team. According to the Iowa State Patrol, the three vehicles, a 2010 VW Jetta, a 2001 Lincoln Navigator SUV, and a 2023 International bus were traveling west on Highway 163 west of Pella, at around 4-p.m. Tuesday, when the SUV slowed in the left lane to make a left turn. The VW failed to slow down, and ran into the rear of the SUV, causing the Lincoln to roll-over and hit the side of the bus, which was traveling in an adjacent lane.

A rear-seat passenger in the SUV, 65-year-old Rickey Maples, of Knoxville, was injured and flown by LifeFlight helicopter to a hospital in Des Moines. A front seat passenger in the SUV, 24-year-old Dante Dobbins, of Pleasantville, was transported to the Pella Hospital by Pella EMS. No one on the bus was hurt, and none of the drivers of the vehicles were injured.

The Patrol identified the drivers as: 21-yuear-old Breyton Schwenker, of Newton (VW); 56-year-old Betty Maples, of Pleasantville (SUV); and 59-year-old Gregory Dickenson, of Pella (the driver of the bus).

The girls’ varsity soccer game was cancelled Tuesday evening, as a result of the crash.

(Radio Iowa) – The Democratic presidential candidate who won the 2020 Iowa Caucuses says he’s not running for anything, but Pete Buttigieg is offering advice for how the party should respond to the Trump presidency. Buttigieg spoke in Cedar Rapids yesterday (Tuesday). “Anyone can come to Iowa just before an election’s coming up,” Buttigieg said and the crowd laughed. “I wanted to make sure I had a chance to talk with the people I got to know five or six years ago and people I’m seeing for the very first time.”

Buttigieg, a former officer in the Navy, spoke at forum hosted by the VoteVets Action Fund and answered questions from the crowd for about an hour. Buttigieg says Democrats have to talk about what they’re for rather than focusing on what Trump policies they oppose. “We are being tested on nothing less than whether the United States of America is, in fact, the freedom loving people that we know ourselves to be.

Pete Buttigieg (file photo)

“Let us meet that test,” Buttigieg said. “…What made America and makes American great is not something that we dust off by saying the word ‘Again.’ What makes America great is its ability to wrestle with its darkest demons and come out stronger and better for it.”

Buttigieg is the third high-profile Democrat to visit Iowa this year. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders spoke to a crowd in Iowa City in February and in march Minnesota Governor Tim Walz held a town hall in Des Moines. Iowa Republican Party chairman Jeff Kaufmann says President Trump is delivering delivering results, while Democrats like Buttigieg offer empty rhetoric.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa House and Senate have agreed to redirect two-and-a-half million dollars that’s sitting unused in the Iowa Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Fund. The fund was created to test for the contagious diseases which were a threat to cattle and other livestock in the past, but have largely been eliminated in the United States. Representative Norlin Mommsen, a farmer from DeWitt, says the focus — and the funds — need to shift to other foreign animal diseases.

“Most of the time the only conversation that takes place about eggs is about how you want them cooked, but with the outbreak of Avian influenza the conversation has been more about price and availability,” Mommsen said. “…We tried to address this issue as best we could.” Mommsen is chairman of the House panel that drafts the annual budget for the Iowa Department of Agriculture. It calls for taking 100-thousand dollars from the State Brucellosis Fund and spending it on development of a bird flu vaccine.

“Second we appropriated money to the Vet Diagnostic Lab and third we appropriated money for the equipment that might be necessary in the event of an outbreak,” Mommsen said. “We attempted to take a broad approach to addresing the price of eggs and other potential disease issues that might affect the State of Iowa.” A 450-thousand dollar technology upgrade will help the state ag department better track outbreaks of livestock diseases in Iowa, based on what’s called a premise number that identifies each Iowa barn and pasture where animals are being raised.

There’s 250-thousand dollars in the legislature’s state bduget plan to cover moving into Iowa State University’s expanded Vet Diagnostic Lab. Another 450-thousand dollars is to be spent on state efforts to buy equipment, plan for, and address any foreign animal disease outbreak. The legislation also eliminates the property levy the Iowa Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradiction Fund. It amounts to less than 50 cents per year for the average Iowa homeowner.

(Radio Iowa) – A microbiologist from Brazil is the recipient of the 2025 Des Moines-based World Food Prize. Mariangela Hungria is the 10th woman to be named a World Food Prize Laureate. Mashal Husain — president of the World Food Prize Foundation — says Hungria changed the way fertilizer is used in Brazilians soybean fields. “Thanks to her work, over 40 million hectares of Brazilian farmland now benefit from this technology,” she said. “This achievement has saved Brazilian farmers an estimated $250 billion each year in input costs, mitigated greenhouse gas emissions and improved soil health.”

Hungria’s work has expanded to other crops and other continents. “Proving that the smallest organisms can create the most profound transformations,” Husain said, “…reshaping the very ground we stand on.” Each World Food Prize Laureate received a half a MILLION dollar award. The announcement of each year’s laureate is typically made in Washington, D.C., but the ceremony was held last (Tuesday) night at World Food Prize headquarters in Des Moines. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds addressed the crowd.

“Hosting this event in Iowa is more than a homecoming,” Reynolds said. “It’s also a powerful reminder of what this prize represents and where this story began.”

The World Food Prize was the dream of Iowa native Norman Borlaug, a Cresco, Iowa native who won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his research that improved wheat yields in the developing world. Hungria is the 56th World Food Prize Laureate. She is scheduled to be in Des Moines this fall for the annual World Food Prize Symposium.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Senate has confirmed one of the members of the Iowa Utilities Commission to another term. Josh Byrnes, a former member of the Iowa House, has served on the commission since 2020. On a 45-to-one vote, Senators confirmed Byrnes to serve as state utility regulator for six more years. Senator Mike Klemish, a Republican from Spillville, says Byrnes is doing good work.

“He’s very dedicated. He digs in. He’s not afraid to tackle and solve complex issues.” The governor also nominated Commission chairman Erik Helland to another term, but senators have not considered his nomination. Several Republicans in the House have been highly critical of the way Helland handled the commission’s review of the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline project.

Iowa Utilities Commissioner Joshua Byrnes (Iowa Utilities Commission photo)

Legislators spent much of yesterday (Tuesday) discussing state spending plans and it’s possible the 2025 legislative session could conclude this week.