What's New
The Iowa House and Senate overwhelmingly passed the Water Land and Wildlife Campaign bill, which will allow Iowans to vote to establish a trust fund for environmental and outdoor recreation work.
Environment Iowa will continue to work on this campaign until it passes at the ballot box in November 2010.
Brief Summary
This Fund would dedicate 3/8ths of one cent in the next sales tax increase to environment and outdoor recreation. It will amount to 3 to 4 extra cents on a 12 pack of beer, $1.88 more for a $500 computer, or about $3.75 on a $1,000 big screen TV.
This Fund would dramatically improve Iowa’s ability to:
• Clean up urban and agricultural pollutants in waterways like the Des Moines, Racoon, and Iowa rivers so that they will again teem with life and no longer pollute downstream, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
•Keep the best soil on earth where it belongs – on the earth, not in our streams and lakes where it smothers fish and other aquatic life.
•Restore parks, biking, hiking and water trails at the state, county and local level.
•Protect habitat for a diverse array of species such as river otters, peregrine falcons, red fox, great blue herons and trout.
• Improve the overall quality of our natural amenities, which would attract new employers and employees to the state, bring in the creative class, reverse the brain drain, and help address the upcoming shortfall of 150,000 workers.
Iowans know funding for our environment will help Iowa's quality of life and economic future.
