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Farmers from across Iowa voiced their concern over three proposed carbon capture pipelines. They asked lawmakers to stop the companies from using eminent domain to complete their project.
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A bill requiring teachers to post everything they use in a classroom online before a semester begins, advances. After a committee, it now has something that may let teachers update that information as they teach. Budgets are now starting to pass out of the House. Democrats say the $1 billion surplus should be used to provide more funds to state departments. And the longest debate so far this year is for a bill about unemployment benefits. It reduces the maximum number of weeks for unemployment. Republicans say it’s part of a solution for a workforce shortage, but Democrats strongly disagree.
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The bill makes changes to proposals on school transparency and book challenges, and leaves out a voucher-style scholarship program.
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Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate passed bills Wednesday that would cut the maximum time Iowans can receive unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 16 weeks and require claimants to accept a lower-paying job more quickly. But they disagree on whether there should be a one-week waiting period for benefits.
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House Republicans are proposing a new $12 million workforce scholarship program at Iowa’s three public universities, but they’re not planning a general budget increase for the universities.
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Host Ben Kieffer talks with three Statehouse reporters about the legislative proposals that did and didn't clear the second procedural hurdle of the session, and which could still potentially be resurrected.
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Host Ben Kieffer and IPR's Katarina Sostaric also mark the second funnel week at the Iowa Statehouse.
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The Department of Corrections director lays out the condition of the prisons to a committee that determines its annual budget. The House reduces one budget item, makes it up with money from a previous fiscal year, then allocates 7 million new dollars for fiscal year 2023. The House passes a bill allowing midwifery to be licensed in Iowa, but the bill is derailed in a Senate committee. And a bill changing how Iowa’s four decades old container redemption system operates advances from a subcommittee. It would collect millions of dollars in unclaimed deposits, but when coming to the full committee an entirely different version of the bill advances.
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Iowa lawmakers have reached their second deadline of the year for bills to advance in the legislature. This year, Republican leaders have used procedural moves to keep several major GOP-backed bills eligible for debate.
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House Republican lawmakers are making a last-minute effort to address Iowa landowners’ concerns about the potential use of eminent domain for carbon pipelines. A new proposal that was introduced and advanced Wednesday would prohibit private pipeline companies from seeking eminent domain rights before March 1, 2023.