The head of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says in January he’ll ask the legislature to rewrite or repeal state laws his the agency is not following.
An audit released this week revealed the agency is not following 16 different state laws. Iowa Department of Natural Resources director Rich Leopold says some of the laws that apply to his agency have been on the books for 30 years and are outdated.
“Once the legislature’s back in town, we’ll be working with them to change pieces of code that need to be changed to more accurately reflect the implementation of the public health protections that we have in place,” Leopold says.
According to Leopold, it’s an administrative issue and he says the public’s health has not been endangered by the laws which haven’t been enforced. “We are taking seriously the initiative necessary to change these items, to bring them up to date to what’s really happening,” Leopold says.
A similar audit review of the operations of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship found that agency has not been implementing eight different state laws. Ag Secretary Bill Northey issued a written statement Thursday afternoon, saying his agency would ask legislators to repeal of some of the “outdated” laws. Other programs which are on the books aren’t operating because of budget constraints.