Legislative panel approves agency rule changes

DES MOINES - A small group of lawmakers on Tuesday vetted new nutritional standards for school vending machines, specifications for animal feedlots and rules governing operations at the Iowa Economic Development Authority.

The 10-member Administrative Rule Review Committee is a legislative panel that reviews the rules put forth by state agencies before they go into effect.

The panel is made up of five lawmakers from each chamber and is split equally between Republicans and Democrats because of the split in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Although the meetings can sometimes become heated, Tuesday's session was relatively tame as lawmakers considered several non-controversial topics with few questions.

'This is just rules catching up to the code,” said Tim Whipple, the Iowa Economic Development Authority's legislative liaison. He represented the department on a code amendment that made several changes to the rules governing the authority's ability to expend tax credits.

The rules actually go back to a 2013 change that allowed the authority to expend up to $170 million on projects, up from $120 million, but it had never been reflected in the administrative rules.

Whipple said the delay hasn't hampered the development authority's efforts.

'We follow the Code, so when the Code was changed with the 2013 legislation, that's what we followed,” he said. 'This is just making sure the rules match what we have in Code.”

Another rule considered by the committee put nutritional standards for school vending machines and cafeteria offerings in a chart form, which lawmakers thought would be easier for school district officials to follow. The charts include requirements such as snack items sold a la carte should be less than or equal to 200 calories per serving and contain less than 10 percent saturated fats as served.

A rule that requires concentrated animal feeding operations to comply with National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit requirements was briefly discussed, not so much because for the content but to make sure the Environmental Protection Commission was getting the word out.

Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottuma, noted all the informational meetings about the change were held in May.

'This is prime planting time for a lot of the people you're hoping to reach,” he said. 'I just want to make sure we're reaching the people we need to.”

l Comments: (515) 422-9061; michael.wiser@lee.net