Iowa Politics Today: Secretary of Agriculture encouraged by cover crop usage, but there could be improvements

A roundup of legislative and Capitol news items of interest for Wednesday, March 15, 2017:

COVER CROPS:

Twenty percent of Iowa farmers used cover crops on their fields in 2015 and 33 percent said they might use them in the future, according to results of an Iowa State University Extension and Outreach poll.

Cover crops are used to protect fields and waterways from erosion during the winter and to add nutrients to the soil.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Bill Northey was encouraged by the findings, 'especially when compared to the number of farmers using cover crops just a few years ago.”

'It also shows the potential for significant growth in acreage of cover crops,” Northey said. It tells him that farmers are trying cover crops on a limited acreage and then expanding the practice as they become more familiar with it.

'We all recognize that we still have a lot of work to do, but the engagement by Iowa farmers and their willingness to make investments to better protect water quality is very encouraging,” he said.

Click the link for more on the poll.

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH GUNS:

Iowa landed near the middle of a 2017 report on U.S. states most dependent on the gun industry that was conducted by the online personal-finance website WalletHub.

WalletHub's analysts say they compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across eight key metrics to determine the states that depend most heavily on the arms and ammunitions industry both directly for jobs and political contributions and indirectly through firearm ownership. The data set ranges from firearms industry jobs per capita to gun sales per 1,000 residents to gun ownership rate.

Iowa ranked 27th in the analysis which found Alaska to be the most dependent and Rhode Island the least dependent on the gun industry. Alaska has the highest gun ownership rate of 61.7 percent - nearly 12 times higher than in Delaware, which has the lowest at 5.2 percent, according to WalletHub.

LEADING ECONOMIC INDICATIONS: The Iowa Leading Indicators Index increased 0.1 percentage points to 106.8 in January, according to officials in the state Department of Revenue. It marked the fifth gain in the last six months and the fourth consecutive monthly gain. Five of the eight index components had positive contributions in January.

The annualized six-month change improved to 3.1 percentage points in January, with positive indicators including the agricultural futures profits index, average weekly unemployment claims (inverted), diesel fuel consumption, Iowa stock market index, national yield spread, new orders index, and residential building permits. Also, Iowa's non-farm employment index continued in the sixth consecutive year of positive growth. GUBERNATORIAL APPOINTEES:

The Iowa Senate voted 49-0 on Wednesday to confirm 28 of Gov. Terry Branstad's appointments to state posts, boards and commissions. Included in the list was Linda Miller, a former state representative from Bettendorf who now directs the Iowa Department on Aging. Miller was appointed by Branstad in December. She chose not to seek re-election in 2016. Senators also approved Ann Lebo as executive director of the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners and Katherine Schmidt as a member of that board, and Camille Valley to the Property Assessment Appeal Board. The other 24 appointees were confirmed via an en bloc vote. Gubernatorial appointees must garner a two-third majority, or at least 34 affirmative votes, to win confirmation. Also, Branstad made two appointments effective Wednesday to the Governor's STEM Advisory Council: Mark Nook, president of the University of Northern Iowa, and Maj. Gen. Timothy Orr, adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard. The positions are unpaid and are not subject to Iowa Senate confirmation.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: 'I'm a Canadian, so I have to talk about the weather. I envy yours,”

Andrew Leslie, parliamentary secretary to the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, speaking to the Iowa Legislature while the outside temperature was 17 degrees.

-Compiled by the Des Moines Bureau