A second plan for clean water

Another elected leader from Cedar Rapids is floating a plan to pay for cleaning up our water.

Last month, you may recall, Mayor Ron Corbett's Engage Iowa think tank proposed raising the state sales tax by a penny. Three-eighths of that cent would fill the constitutional Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust fund with upward of $170 million annually, including an $80 million slice to curtail agricultural runoff carrying nitrates and other pollutants. The rest of the penny would be used to buy-down income tax rates, dramatically lowering Iowa's top brackets.

This week, state Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, shared his own 'secret plan” during an editorial board meeting with local Democratic lawmakers.

Hogg would raise the sales tax by three-eighths of a cent, also filling the trust fund approved by voters in 2010. In exchange for that injection of funding, including new spending on clean water, Hogg asks the Des Moines Water Works to drop its high-profile lawsuit against officials in three rural counties over nitrate pollution in the Raccoon River. Also, Hogg's plan calls on the state to help the water works pay for infrastructure needed to clean drinking water.

'If you want to solve our water problems … You've got to invest in clean water. And that is the mechanism to do it,” said Hogg, who also is running for U.S. Senate. 'And if that doesn't happen, that lawsuit proceeds and Iowa cedes its power over clean water to the federal courts and the federal government.

'This may be news to a couple people here,” Hogg said.

That included Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, chair of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, where all tax plans must pass to survive.

'It's a Hail Mary proposal,” Bolkcom said.

'Really, there aren't enough details there yet,” said Water Works CEO Bill Stowe. 'That's not to say we wouldn't be interested.” Stowe said he likes 'the direction” Hogg is heading.

Bolkcom didn't reject Hogg's plan. But he did make it clear he flatly opposes any plan, such as Corbett's, that fills the trust fund while also flattening income taxes.

'We're not going to conserve soil and clean up our water without more money. The pie has to be bigger,” Bolkcom said. He also insists farmers must have 'skin in the game” since the sales would be paid mostly by urbanites.

Republicans who run the House likely won't support a trust fund tax boost without a tax cut trade-off, although Hogg argues many Republicans also want the lawsuit to go away, fearing federal intervention. He may be right. A fair number of Democrats want the trust fund filled, but they also oppose the voluntary system of farm pollution limits it would help fund. They want strict regulation.

I seriously doubt 2016 will be a session where skillful horse-trading leads to a breakthrough. Adjourning before July may be lawmakers' biggest accomplishment.

But the issue of clean water isn't going away. Neither are voluntary standards, which still have powerful political support, nor the pressing need for more money to help farmers and landowners meet them. The trust fund, at this point, is the only game in town for finding new environmental dollars. It's not perfect. But it's realistic. The sooner lawmakers get to work on forging a deal they can accept, the sooner we get to work on saving our water and soil.

l Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com.