Iowa needs ‘water summit’ after November election, legislative leaders say

DES MOINES - Leaders of the split-control Iowa Legislature agreed Wednesday that regardless of election results in November, lawmakers should convene a 'water summit” to find common ground on addressing water quality issues in the 2017 session.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, both hope to come back in January with their respective party in control of both the House and Senate.

It's not for a lack of ideas on how to address water-quality issues, but 'everybody's talking past each other,” Gronstal said.

'What we have, unfortunately, we have a House Republican plan, a governor's plan (and) I had a plan where we could scoop money out of the ending balance that over 10 years would produce about a half a billion dollars,” he said during taping of Iowa Public Television's 'Iowa Press” that will be aired this weekend.

'So far, everybody's talking unilaterally,” he said. 'It requires people to sit down at the table and work through some of these issues.”

Upmeyer agreed it would be helpful 'to sit down and figure it out because there are multiple ways to get there.”

That was clear from their conversation, which can be seen at 7:30 p.m. Friday and noon Sunday on IPTV, 8:30 a.m. Saturday on IPTV World and online at www.IPTV.org.

Upmeyer said she prefers the House Republican plan to use revenue from a water metering tax and the state infrastructure fund, because those are stable sources of funding.

'As the senator said many times, you can tell what people's priorities are by where they use their money,” Upmeyer said. 'This is a place that we believe is a priority, and we should use our money.”

Democrats have called that a 'shell game” of moving state money from one pot into another.

Gronstal defended his plan to use part of the ending balance, because it would make more money available faster than Gov. Terry Branstad's plan. The governor wanted to extend a 1-cent school infrastructure sales tax for 20 years and use the increase in revenues over and above $10 million a year for water quality. It received little support in the Legislature.

The ending balance isn't a reliable source of funding, Upmeyer said, and added that it's not the Legislature's job 'to collect enough taxes to sort of backdoor fund things out of the ending balance. I'd rather fund them on the front end.”

His plan follows the practice of Iowa farmers who 'when they have a good year and good income, they invest in their operation,” Gronstal said.

Neither legislative leader, nor the governor, has ruled out increasing the state sales tax by three-eighths of a cent. In 2010, 63 percent of voters approved the creation of the Iowa Water and Land Legacy Trust Fund to provide reliable funding for clean water and watershed protection, conservation practices and wildlife habitat. Under the plan, the next time the sales tax is increased, three-eighths of a cent will go into that fund.