Gazette Daily News Briefing, March 29
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for Tuesday, March 28.
We'll have a good example of bipolar Iowa weather in the next few days. According to the National Weather Service there will be a 30 percent chance of snow before 8 a.m. Wednesday in the Cedar Rapids area. Then it will eventually clear and settle in with a high near 39 degrees. On Wednesday night it will be partly cloudy, with a high near 26 degrees.
In two days the weather is predicted to jump 30 degrees to a high in the 70s. So, yes, any snow that falls Wednesday will be melting.
One of the oldest universities west of the Mississippi and the second-oldest in the state — Iowa Wesleyan University — is closing 181 years after opening in 1842.
After spending the last six months scrounging for funds to continue operating, and coming up short, the 20-member board of trustees for the private liberal arts institution on Tuesday voted unanimously to close at the end of this academic year in May due to “a combination of financial challenges.”
Those challenges include increased operating costs “due to inflationary pressures”; enrollment trends; a “significant drop” in philanthropic giving; and Gov. Kim Reynolds’ denial "of a proposal for federal COVID funding.“
During a news conference Tuesday, Iowa Wesleyan President Christine Plunkett said her campus asked Reynolds for $12 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act — or ARPA — funds to help it transition to a sustainable enrollment level of 1,000 students.
In a statement Tuesday about the denial of funding, Reynolds said that the request for funding came in late, and it is her administration’s policy not to use federal funding for a potential ongoing expense.
When the university closes May 31, the United States Department of Agriculture will take ownership of the 60-acre physical campus due to an unpaid loan by Iowa Wesleyan.
A bill that would have required more voluntary landowner participation before eminent domain could be used to build a carbon capture pipeline will not be advanced ahead of an Iowa legislative deadline this week, a key state lawmaker said Tuesday.
The bill — House File 565 — would require 90 percent of impacted landowners to voluntarily allow a pipeline to be constructed on their land before the pipeline company could use eminent domain to force agreements with other impacted landowners. It will not advance in the Iowa Senate, said Iowa Sen. Michael Bousselot, a Republican from Ankeny to whom the legislation was assigned in the Senate.
Bousselot said Tuesday he has not scheduled a subcommittee hearing on the bill — the first step in the legislative process — because there is not sufficient time to get the bill passed out of the Senate’s committee on commerce before Friday’s funnel deadline.
The most likely result is that the proposed eminent domain requirements will not pass the Iowa Legislature in 2023.
Three pipeline companies are seeking permits to build carbon dioxide pipelines in the state: Navigator CO2 Ventures, Summit Carbon Solutions and Wolf Carbon Solutions.
Navigator and Summit, the largest projects, are seeking eminent domain authority from the Iowa Utilities Board. Wolf is proposing a smaller pipeline, covering just four Eastern Iowa counties, and has said it will not seek eminent domain authority.
