Whacking our way, slowly, toward cleaner water

As your Iowa Legislature prepares to reconvene next week, it's high time to play a rousing game of water quality whack-a-mole.

More specifically, it's whack-a-water-quality-funding-plan.

At issue is the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund, created by a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2010. The next time lawmakers raise the state sales tax, the fund gets three-eights of a cent, or roughly $180 million annually. A big chunk would go for efforts to clean up and protect waterways.

Raising the sales tax, however, has been a tough sell.

Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, who has a policy think tank and gubernatorial ambitions, proposes raising the sales tax by a penny, with three-eigths going into the trust fund. Corbett would use the rest of the penny to flatten income tax rates, sweetening the deal for his fellow Republicans.

Something for everyone? Whack!

'It's a massive tax cut for the richest people in this state,” said Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, chair of the Ways and Means Committee where all tax bills must pass. He supports filling the fund, but not if it means having to accept a large tax cut as a trade-off.

So Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, is floating a deal that would fill the fund in exchange for the Des Moines Water Works dropping its lawsuit against three rural counties over farm pollutants. The water works also would get state help for upgrading its nitrate removal system. So water quality advocates get dollars and farm interests avoid federal court intervention.

Again, a balanced approach? Whack!

'This is a gift to polluters in the guise of a plan,” said Hogg's rival for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, Tom Fiegen, in a news release. He accused Hogg of favoring a regressive tax increase in an effort to 'pander” to 'powerful ag polluters.”

It's a sentiment I've been hearing more and more among liberal environmentalists, who want tough regulations on farm runoff.

I've also heard rumblings about a plan capping revenues from a state sales tax penny now being used for school building projects, while using future growth above the cap to fund water quality efforts.

An intriguing use of an existing revenue source? Whack!

'You can write it on the front page of the paper that I'm a fervent hell no,” said Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, summing up the prevailing sentiment I've heard regarding a school tax scoop.

My own state representative, Ken Rizer, R-Cedar Rapids, wonders if the state could lower the sales tax for a day and then raise it, triggering a constitutional provision filling the fund.

Clever? Whack!

Rizer said legal experts he's checked with say, because the constitution says no money goes to the fund until the 'tax rate” is increased, lowering the rate and raising it probably won't pass muster. Rizer says he's not yet convinced his idea is a non-starter.

I still don't think 2016's session will see major progress on water. But not long ago, there were no serious proposals for filling the fund. So, actually, all this whacking is good news. A real debate has started.

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