Letters: Don’t give Summit water permits for carbon pipeline

Sales tax has grown more onerous

In his May 12 guest essay “Here's the tax cut Iowa actually needs: Lower the sales tax,” state Rep. Sami Scheetz explained that Iowa's sales tax is regressive. Low-income Iowans pay a larger percentage of their income as sales taxes than higher-income Iowans.

Sheetz could have added that Iowa's sales tax rate went from 3% in 1981 to 6% in 2020. Local options boost it to 7% in most counties. Inflation since 1981 and 2020 would have hiked sales taxes Iowans pay, even without the 133% rate hike.

John Otte, Urbandale

We motorcycle riders need to wear helmets

When I took ‏my first motorcycle test in Minnesota in 1974, helmets were the law. I was taught to take 20 minutes to check my boots, pants, jacket, gloves and helmet for current weather conditions. Body armor.

Please, my fellow motorcycle family: It's not when you have you first wipe-out, but how severe. If you choose not to wear a helmet, you need to consider donating your organs.

Ride on.

Karen Thompson Kinkel, Des Moines

Why not spend public dollars to help nursing homes?

The lack of nurses and neglectful care in Iowa nursing homes is a crisis developing over many years, exacerbated by deep cuts in nursing home inspections. Recruiting skilled staff requires wage increases and more funds for training, but Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements are insufficient to raise wages, and increases in public support are opposed by political leaders who oppose tax-and-spend policies.

If the governor and state legislators are willing to give millions of dollars to businesses to create jobs, why not nursing homes to create skilled nursing jobs, subject to rigorous inspections to enforce standards of care? Why is spending our tax dollars on other businesses a good thing but not services to support our seniors who die in nursing homes?  Iowa state government should be dedicated to helping aged Iowans live out safe and dignified lives.

Tim Urban, Des Moines

Don’t give Summit water permits for carbon pipeline

I am opposed to Iowa Department of Natural Resources issuing water permits to Summit Carbon Solutions for the purpose of carbon capture and sequestration.

My opposition is based around two main factors:

1. The amount of water Summit is expected to use in the carbon capture and sequestration process. Estimates are 1 billion gallons a year. Much of Iowa has been dealing with drought for several years, and aquifers have been drawn down significantly. Examples include Storm Lake needing to shut down the water park during the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa and Osceola’s dire water situation that has resulted in water restrictions to the point of relying on bottled water.

2. The quality of the water that will be discharged by Summit and its impact on Iowa’s waterways. The DNR has reported 721 water body segments in Iowa that already don’t meet water quality standards for recreation. There are significant chemical impacts on our waterways, including the recent spill of over 2600,000 gallons of fertilizer into the East Nishnabotna River that will impact the drinking water of communities downstream, as well as the much-publicized issues Des Moines Water Works has with producing safe water.

Iowa is the only state with an increasing cancer rate. I was diagnosed with bladder cancer in January 2023. My urologist informed me that the leading cause was smoking. As I have never smoked, he also said Iowa’s water contamination is most likely a new factor.

I wonder how many other Iowans are developing cancers from their drinking water or recreation activities and aren’t even aware.

Clean water is so vital to our survival. Please prioritize clean water by denying water permits to Summit Carbon Solutions.

Rich Gradoville, Johnston

Nursing home standards are necessary and achievable

I am responding to the May 13 story on the new federal staffing rules in nursing homes.

Nursing home administrators repeat the lie that homes will have to close if they are regulated. We hear this whenever the media uncovers death or neglect in facilities.

The reason nursing homes are not staffed properly is that most of them are for-profit and are used as investments by private equity, real estate investments trusts and other investors. Peer-reviewed studies show that nursing home corporations put their profits into “related parties,” such as pharmacies created by the corporations, to make it appear that the nursing home is losing money.

ProPublica shows the American Health Care Association generates millions of dollars for members and administration. The association’s president made $2,323,224. Association dues in 2022 totaled over $23 million. The Iowa Health Care Association president received salary and benefits over $730,000. These funds should go to the nursing staff whom the lobbyists claim they can’t afford.

Facts on the nursing home industry are located at Long Term Care Community Coalition at www.nursinghome411.org. Readers will see that the Biden administration’s staffing rules are long overdue.

Brigit Barnes, Des Moines

Iowa ought to try banning plastic bags

On a Saturday morning before Mother's Day, California shoppers, whether at Trader Joe's or another grocery store, are filling the bags they brought with them. They are returning to a pre-pandemic habit: bringing their shopping bags.

People learn easily that this is a good idea. It was proposed in several Iowa communities and immediately negated by the Republican-controlled Legislature. Better to be uniformly destructive.

Katherine B. Fromm, Ames and Escondido, California

A cease-fire is not a solution

A May 10 story reported on protesters calling for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. Completely eliminating Hamas by destroying Rafah is not possible, and therefore bombing Rafah is not a proper moral imperative.

However, Israel must not allow Hamas to “win” this war. Israel could unilaterally end major bombings but could continue limited defensive and narrowly targeted actions while ensuring that adequate aid gets to Gazans. If Hamas continues to bomb Israel, what’s new? (Hamas has sent more than 30,000 bombs into Israel in the last 20 years.) If Hamas benefits somewhat, that’s better than letting the Gazan population starve.

During this phase, rebuilding could begin, but Israeli forces could remain in Gaza so that Hamas could not regroup there. In my view, a permanent cease-fire is a naïve demand that would solve nothing in the long run.

Kathleen Ferguson, West Des Moines

Low spending more important than helping poor

Gov. Kim Reynolds says that life is important. In fact, after signing Senate File 2251 to expand postpartum care for Medicaid recipients into law, she said it “set new families on a path to prosperity and opportunity.”

Helping vulnerable people without other means to reduce maternal mortality and providing babies with better health care at the outset is without a doubt important and worthy. So, why then, would you construct legislation that would exclude each month approximately 1,300 mothers and 400 infants, who would otherwise qualify for that supporting assistance? Apparently, for a higher priority. That priority was to keep the expenses budget neutral. This is a state with enormous budget surpluses. Even if our state was strapped for money the welfare of mothers and children should be deemed a higher priority than “budget neutral.”

This is consistent with Republican legislators putting minority, vulnerable, disadvantaged, and powerless into a lower class of citizenry in this state. Wealth, it seems, in their view, is achieved by keeping others down, not by helping them up. Remember the governor turned down $29 million from the federal government to help feed school-aged children over the summer? That was a budget positive to help those families and children who are food insecure, and the answer was still “no.”

Phillip Thien, Des Moines

Iowa needs to spend on its shortcomings

The Iowa Legislature is proud that our state has billion-dollar-plus surpluses. But is this from good management, or is it trying to keep spending low by ignoring real problems?

For instance, of all the states, Iowa has the second highest cancer rate. And especially concerning, it is the only state where cancer rates are rising.

Of the 50 states, Iowa has the highest percentage in the country of deficient bridges.

Of the 50 states, Iowa ranks last in the number of psychiatric beds for the seriously mentally ill.

Of the 50 states, Iowa is second only to Illinois for the amount of pollution it sends to the Gulf of Mexico. That pollution has joined with discharges from other states to travel down the Mississippi where it has created a dead zone in the Gulf that currently measures 8000 square miles.

On top of these sad rankings on important issues, are you aware that not too many years ago, college families paid 30% of university tuition fees while the state provided 70%, and today that ratio is reversed ?

Or that recent budget cuts and reorganizations have reduced the Iowa State Patrol to a force that at times has only five officers on duty to police the whole state?

Does this sound like a state that has no good uses for use for any of that surplus?

Jerry Parks, Burlington

Ensure that you remain an active voter

Make sure you are still registered to vote!

Currently, if you miss even one even-numbered November general election by not voting, your status is marked inactive. If you are inactive for two more general elections after having inactive status, then you will be removed from the voter list.

Be aware of your voter status. If you are inactive and then vote, that activates you on the voter log. Make sure that you bring current identification. Be aware of election laws that can change.

David Goodman, Fairfield

Deportation in an inane solution

On May 9, the Register printed a letter advocating that Iowa’s law enforcers send immigrants to Florida or Texas. I’m sure the editors pass over many letters before picking the one to print. This one should have been rejected for its inanity.

Stopping a brown-skinned person who police think could be “illegal” is a violation of that person’s civil rights. No wonder law enforcers are scratching their collective head over the recent Texas-style law Denison state Rep. Steve Holt rammed through, and Gov. Kim Reynolds signed.

For those who can remember, the feds (not local cops) organized a raid on a Postville meat packing plant over a decade ago. That “roundup” kneecapped Postville, separated fathers from families, and left a state of chaos that made the news in London and probably Beijing.

Since 1980, the U.S. has had a refugee law on the books. It may need updating in a comprehensive bill, but right now a migrant can touch U.S. soil and claim asylum and request a hearing. Needless to say, the border crossings are a congested mess. Processing a claim takes forever, and yet these poor souls (all God’s children) can’t go back where assuredly they’ll be killed. Talk about a Hobson’s Choice!

Ironies of ironies, Holt’s Denison is 50% Latino, folks who have restored prosperity to the area. Even Cronks Cafe is Mexican-owned. And (little known fact), the recent wave of migration has been accommodated into the U.S. economy and accounts for nearly all the rapid recovery from the COVID-19 economic crisis.

Gerald Ott, Ankeny

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Don’t give Summit water permits for carbon pipeline