Condition of the State

The political season kicked off last night with Governor Kim Reynolds’ Condition of the State address to a joint session of the legislature. The press release with the speech arrived in my inbox at 8:27 p.m. and I read it right away. Reading it was more efficient than watching it. I will not rehash the whole thing. The press release is here.

The language in the written version seemed less shrill than in previous years when I heard her deliver the speech. Rep. J.D. Scholten posted the following on Threads last night.

This year’s Condition of the State speech was far less punch down politics and culture war crap, which is good. Energy, hands-free driving and cancer research are the three main things I heard that I’m excited to work on.

Cutting unemployment insurance is tone deaf with all of the layoffs happening in the last year in Iowa, especially with Tyson closing the plant in Perry and John Deere shipping jobs overseas.

Like for Scholten, there are things Reynolds mentioned I’d like to see advanced in a bipartisan manner, coupled with some skepticism.

Addressing mobile device use in our lives seems like a no brainer. If a person uses a telephone at all while driving, it should be hands free. This is a safety concern that falls in the main purpose of government regulation. Likewise, it seems bad that K-12 students spend over six hours per day on smart phones, according to the governor. It is hard to see any legitimate purpose for schoolers keeping their devices with them or turned on while in the classroom. I would think local control of this issue would be the way to go, with school boards setting policy based on factual information about their districts. The state tends to get heavy-handed when they assume control of what should be decided locally. It is an important enough issue to have this discussion.

Cancer sucks. The governor addressed the problem in her speech, “Every case of cancer is a tragedy. And I’m concerned by the data showing that these tragedies disproportionately affect Iowans. Our state has ranked second for new cancer cases two years running, and we’re one of just two states with rising rates.” Getting to the bottom of this statistic is important to the well being of Iowans. As I mentioned, cancer sucks. If we can determine a path to reduce the incidence among Iowans, we should follow it. Studying our high cancer rate is a good use of state resources.

The energy discussion, of keeping Iowa electricity prices low and having capacity and infrastructure to attract businesses to Iowa, is a good one to have. Coal and natural gas should be phased out as sources of energy used to generate electricity. The state should strive for a mix of energy sources. It does seem like the big money behind nuclear power got to the governor. Here is what she said:

For starters, we need to take a serious look at nuclear energy. Its potential is amazing, but the investment is big and the horizon is long. So we need to get started.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be putting together a task force that will make recommendations for how we can move forward. I’ll be bringing together experts to look at issues like permitting, which often takes too long. They’ll also look at workforce challenges, because recruiting nuclear engineers doesn’t happen overnight. And they’ll be talking with stakeholders around the state to make sure we have local buy-in.

I’ll also be proposing a bill and working with legislators to continue to promote an all- of-the-above energy portfolio that ensures the lights are on regardless of whether it’s hot, cold, windy, or cloudy.

As I’ve said repeatedly, using nuclear fission or fusion to generate electricity has substantial associated problems. These problems need to be resolved before we get too far down the path. Likewise, generating nuclear power in Iowa is not as simple as turning on the key at the Duane Arnold Energy Center. If the governor has in mind getting beyond vague platitudes about baseload power and carbon-free electricity, that would be good. At present, I find no logical reason to turn the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant back on. The development of small modular reactors and their wider use seems years away in the United States. I will suspend my skepticism to see if truth will out in the discussion of nuclear power proposed by Governor Reynolds.

While my skepticism of the governor is substantial. These are things that merit consideration by the government we have.