May 21, 2012

You are here: Home / 2009 / April / Archives for 7th

Sen. Grassley renews campaign against idling gov’t vehicles

April 7, 2009 By

You might heard the phrase "Idle hands are the Devil’s tools." Apparently an idling vehicle is also sinful. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is sending a letter to President Obama, asking for a mandate that all federal vehicles be shut off when they’re in park and aren’t going to be used for a while.

Grassley says, "I wrote the same letter to President Bush last summer after getting fed up with seeing countless Towncars and SUVs owned by the government, idling outside of government office buildings day after day." Grassley chuckled in a conference call when a reporter suggested it might be okay if those government vehicles were fueled with corn-based ethanol, but said it would still be wasteful.

"I know gas prices have fallen from last year’s highs, but the wasteful and careless practice of idling federal vehicles is still very prevalent today," Grassley says. "Seeing idling administration vehicles burning taxpayers’ dollars on Capitol Hill burns me up as well as burning up the gas."

Grassley tried to encourage his staff members to carpool last year when gas prices were at four-dollars a gallon and higher, but had no success. Still, he says he and his wife carpool daily as they only have one car in Washington.

Grassley hopes President Obama will take his letter seriously. "The president of the United States campaigned very hard on this issue of conservation and this is a perfect example of wasteful spending and wasteful use of energy," Grassley says. "From the president on down as opposed to Senator Grassley on down, I think we can accomplish something."

Grassley has posted a video to YouTube , slamming the practice of idling government vehicles. In the video, Grassley even does an interview with his mechanic in New Hartford about how much gas it wastes, in addition to polluting the air.

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation Tagged With: ,

Study: Iowa is #2 in happiness

April 7, 2009 By

Happiness is…living in Iowa, according to the lastest study.

Iowa ranks as the nation’s second-happiest state behind only Nebraska, according to the personal finance website MainStreet-dot-com.

It placed Iowa number-two in the U-S for happiest places to live based on factors like foreclosure rates, unemployment and debt to income ratios.

The rest of the top five are: Kansas, Hawaii and Louisiana. And the saddest states are: Oregon, Florida, California, Nevada and Rhode Island.

Filed Under: Human Interest

Two die as car & pickup collide in Ringgold County

April 7, 2009 By

Two people from Blockton were killed and a third person was injured in a head-on crash Monday evening in southern Iowa’s Ringgold County.

The Iowa State Patrol says 56-year-old Patrcia Ann Davis and a passenger in her car, 71-year-old Howard Jay Davis, died when their Ford escort collided at the crest of a hill with a Chevy Blazer driven by 33-year-old Jonathan Jay Chumbley, of Mount Ayr. None of the crash victims were wearing their seatbelts.

The accident happened on 270th Street in the southern part of the county at around 5:35 PM Monday.

 

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Motorists advised to watch for construction zones

April 7, 2009 By

More bright orange cones and signs will be popping up on Iowa roadways soon. The Iowa Department of Public Safety is reminding motorists to pay attention and slow down in construction zones. Spokesperson Jessica Lown says between 2003 and 2007, there were more than 3,700 crashes in work zones across the state. Those crashes involved over 7,000 vehicles, resulting in 27 fatalities and more than 1,700 injuries.

Many accidents are blamed on distracted drivers, who are tuning the radio or texting on a cell phone. Lown says there’s less room for error in a construction zone. "If you’re not paying attention and you start to swerve a little bit…you might have two lanes on a regular area of the road, but it you’re in a work zone, you may only have one," Lown said.

An Iowa motorist was killed last week in a work zone while driving along Interstate 29 in Mills County. The driver, for an unknown reason, lost control and struck a milling machine. Lown says speeding in a work zone is not only dangerous – it can be costly if you’re pulled over by a cop. "The fines double and sometimes, in certain cases, quadruple in construction zones," Lown said.

This week, across the country, is designated as Work Zone Awareness Week.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Missouri man dies in SW Iowa crash

April 7, 2009 By

The Mills County Sheriff has released the name of the person killed in a crash early Sunday in western Iowa. Authorities say 44-year-old Darin Fuhrman, of Mound City, Missouri, died when he lost control of the 1992 Lexus he was driving, at the intersection of 196th Street and Brohard Avenue, south of Council Bluffs.

Fuhrman was not wearing a seatbelt and was partially ejected from the car as it rolled into the north ditch. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The accident happened Sunday at around 1:20 AM.

 

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Corn growers hopeful for good prices in upcoming season

April 7, 2009 By

Farmers will take to the fields to begin planting the new corn crop in a few weeks in the wake of a year that saw prices jump way up and then come back down. Iowa Corn Growers Association president, Gary Edwards of Anamosa, doesn’t expect five-dollar a bushel prices this year.

Edwards says he still sees a good chance of the price staying above four-dollars a bushel. He says that could be wrong, but the experts he’s talked too have said they expect commodity prices to remain relatively strong. He thinks markets are going to be "stable to pretty strong in this coming year."

Julius Schaaf, of Randolph, is optimistic prices will stay strong. Schaaf doesn’t expect a run up in prices again this year, because he says a lot of outside investors in the commodities market got burned. "And it didn’t matter whether it was oil, or coal or copper or aluminum or gold…every commodity that got driven up by wild speculation, and those guys got taught a lesson, Schaaf says.

Schaaf says a couple of factors back his confidence in the future. He says farming is a strong production base as the world needs food, and the ethanol production policies are still in place.

Bruce Rohwer of Paulina says while corn prices did jump up, things evened out over the year. Rohwer says he talked with a local elevator and the average of sales came in at just over four dollars a bushel for the entire year, which he says shows not all farmers captured the high prices in July.

All three made their comments in a conference call with the media set up by the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

Filed Under: Agriculture Tagged With:

Bill would aid makers of Templeton Rye, Clearheart Vodka

April 7, 2009 By

Iowa’s fledgling distilled spirits industry would get a boost from a bill state lawmakers are considering. If the bill becomes law, distilleries like the one in western Iowa that makes Templeton Rye and the makers of Clearheart Vodka in Cedar Rapids would be able to sell a small amount of their product to tourists who stop by the distillery.

Senator Matt McCoy says Iowa’s breweries and wineries are able to sell the products they make on site, so distilleries should, too. "For example, Templeton Rye could bottle their product right there at their location and put the product out on the shelves and sell it to people who are touring the company and want to buy some of the distilled spirits," McCoy says.

McCoy, who’s a Democrat from Des Moines, says without the change, all that Iowa-made whiskey and vodka has to go through the state beverage control warehouse instead. "The bill would essentially allow distillers to sell their products without going through a third party warehouse system," McCoy says. "This is a small niche market and you support this homegrown industry."

The Iowa Travel Federation and the Iowa Department of Economic Development support the bill, but officials at the liquor control warehouse and others involved in the state’s wholesale liquor system oppose it.

 

Filed Under: Business, Human Interest, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , , ,
Newer Posts »