Making Iowa’s drunken driving law tougher was supposed to yield Iowa about two million dollars, but now the feds have changed their story.The Iowa Legislature this past spring passed a tougher, point-oh-eight blood alcohol level as the standard for judging who’s illegally driving drunk. Federal highway safety officials had said Iowa would be docked two million dollars in highway construction money if the move wasn’t made. Now, Representative Jamie Van Fossen, a Republican from Davenport, says it’s like the feds dangled a carrot in front of Iowa lawmakers to get them to approve the “point-oh-eight” legislation, and then removed the carrot. It seems after Iowa toughened its drunken driving law, the feds said Iowa won’t get as much money as originally promised. Van Fossen says he’s steamed, because toughening the drunk driving law will cost the state more because he believes more people with O-W-I convictions will clog up the courts and create more work for the record-keepers at the D-O-T.
