A friend sent me an e-mail she received from the Iowa Farm Bureau. Excerpt:

Mary Kay Thatcher, AFBF director of public policy, tells Agriculture Online that Farm Bureau doesn't anticipate the massive climate change bill passed by the House last week to pass the Senate this year.

And the New York Times reported Tuesday that opposition from Farm Bureau and other agricultural groups threatens to kill the bill in the Senate. The Times reports that groups such as AFBF wield greater clout in the Senate, because members there must be protective of an entire state, rather than a small congressional district.

Here are the links to the Agriculture Online piece and the New York Times article.

The American Farm Bureau Federation lobbied members of the U.S. House to vote for Collin Peterson's lousy amendments to the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act but against the bill intended to address climate change.

I have my own problems with the ACES bill, especially the deals made to appease the coal industry and Peterson's colleagues on the House Agriculture Committee. That said, the objections big agribusiness and their Congressional allies have raised against the cap-and-trade approach are off-base and short-sighted.

It wouldn't surprise me if Farm Bureau's vote-counter is correct and the Senate rejects the Waxman-Markey bill for the wrong reasons. Frankly, that might be better than letting senators like Claire McCaskill make this flawed bill even worse.

Senator Chuck Grassley has been holding town-hall meetings around the state this week, and the Iowa Democratic Party highlighted a fun clip from his June 30 meeting in Waukon. A constituent wanted to know why his health insurance policy was so much more expensive than Grassley's, despite having less generous coverage.

The senator advised the questioner to "go work for John Deere" if he wanted a better insurance policy. (Not too practical, since Deere has laid off workers in Dubuque, Ottumwa and the Quad Cities this year.) As Grassley tried to move on to the next question, the man continued to press for details about Grassley's own coverage, and the senator advised him to go talk to the people at the Farm Services Administration about health insurance.

But the questioner followed up again: "How come I can't have the same thing you have?"

To which Grassley replied, "You can. Go work for the federal government."

Since there aren't too many federal government jobs in the Waukon area, I have a better idea: why doesn't Grassley support a real public health insurance option for all Americans?

It's a relief to close the book on the 2008 elections now that Al Franken will finally be able to take up the Senate seat he won last November.

Talking Points Memo posted their Top 10 moments from the mostly infuriating, sometimes comical Franken-Coleman saga.

We can laugh at Coleman's pretzel logic during the legal proceedings, but unfortunately, his gamesmanship deprived Minnesota of full representation in the Senate for half a year. In all likelihood Franken will be stuck with less-than-stellar committee assignments. Also, the delay did lasting damage to Franken's seniority. Had he been sworn in on time, he would have outranked several fellow Senate Democrats, which could become important one or two terms down the road.

Nevertheless, I have high hopes for Senator Franken and look forward to his work in Washington.

P.S.- I still don't understand why so many Minnesotans voted for Dean Barkley.

P.P.S.- Rush Limbaugh is still a big fat idiot.

June 29 was exactly 120 days since the federal government released highway funds to the states as part of the economic stimulus bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Smart Growth America marked the occasion by releasing a review on how wisely states are spending the transportation money.

The 120-day mark is significant because it is the point by which states and territories are required to have obligated 50 percent of the flexible money granted them for transportation projects by the federal government. The money is meant to stimulate the economy, but also -- in the language of the Act -- "to invest in transportation, environmental protection, and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic benefits."

Smart Growth America explains why a "fix-it first" approach to road funds makes economic sense:

While adding new roads or road capacity is often necessary, repair projects have been shown to provide greater benefits in the long run. Road and bridge repairs produce more jobs because more of the budget is typically devoted to salaries instead of equipment and land acquisition. Yet states continue to spend large amounts of money on new roads, though they cannot afford to maintain what they already have.

Iowa received about $358 million in federal highway stimulus funds, and I've been concerned that Iowa would spend too much money this year on new road construction, which adds to future maintenance costs, instead of fixing the roads and bridges that need repair. I was pleased to read in Smart Growth America's report (pdf file) that our state's allocations compare favorably with those in many other states:

Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Vermont committed to making their existing networks safer and more effective for their residents. Each of these states put 100% of the stimulus money they chose to spend on roads towards maintenance work.

Nevada, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Oklahoma all spent over 90% of their stimulus road budgets on repair as well.

That's welcome news, because Table 1 in Smart Growth America's report (p.16) shows that a large number of roads and bridges in most states need repair. For instance, 59 percent of Iowa's roads were not in "good" condition in 2007, and roads in "poor" condition imposed an estimated $383 in extra costs per Iowa driver. Furthermore, the same table shows that Iowa had 241 structurally deficient state and interstate bridges in 2008. These maintenance projects should take priority over wish lists for new roads.

Unfortunately, Ohio, Florida, Arkansas, Kansas and Kentucky all devoted less than half of their stimulus road money to maintenance. Kentucky deserves dishonorable mention for allocating 88 percent of the flexible transportation stimulus money to new road construction, even though the state cannot afford to maintain its current roads and bridges.

Smart Growth America also evaluated the proportion of stimulus funds each state has allocated to alternate forms of transportation:

The District of Columbia committed 41.5% of its funding toward public transportation and non-motorized projects, including facilities to make walking and biking safer and more convenient. Only 6 other states spent over 10% of their budgets on these types of projects: Delaware, Massachusetts, Oregon, Iowa, Colorado, and Hawaii.

Spending 0.0% towards improving transportation options for their residents? An incredible fourteen states: Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Four more states -- Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Nevada -- allocated under 1%.

Table 2 on pages 23 and 24 of the report contains more details on the types of projects funded in all 50 states. Table 4 on page 28 shows state rankings. For instance, Iowa ranks 16th for proportion of road money spent on maintenance and 5th for proportion of stimulus funds spent on transit or other "non-motorized" transportation.

Smart Growth America's report is essential reading for state bloggers and anyone interested in transportation policy or the implementation of the stimulus bill. Residents of Washington state, California and Minnesota will want to read the brief case studies on how much public input influenced the allocation of transportation stimulus funds in those states.

Nearly eight months after a plurality of Minnesota voters chose Al Franken, the state may finally be close to getting full representation in the U.S. Senate:

[Minnesota Governor Tim] Pawlenty told CNN that he would abide by whatever ruling the Minnesota Supreme Court makes in the contest, where Democrat Al Franken appears to have an upper hand.

"I'm prepared to sign [the certification] as soon as they give the green light," Pawlenty said. "I'm not going to defy an order of the Minnesota Supreme Court. That would be a dereliction of my duty."

It's not clear when the state Supreme Court will issue a ruling. Rumors on June 18 that a decision was imminent proved false.

Whenever the decision comes down, it is almost certain to be in favor of Al Franken. Expect howling from the same people who agreed with the U.S. Supreme Court on December 12, 2000, that certifying the winner quickly was more important than counting all the votes cast.

Sore loser Norm Coleman may file suit in federal court, but Pawlenty indicated on CNN that he would sign a certificate without waiting for Coleman to exhaust the federal appeals process.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued reports on Friday detailing the problems with the "health care status quo" across the country. You can find the reports at HealthReform.gov. They include statistics and supporting footnotes on figures like the percent increase in family health insurance premiums since 2000 and the percentage of uninsured residents in each state.

A couple of points jumped out at me in the report for Iowa:

*     Choice of health insurance is limited in Iowa. Wellmark BC and BS alone constitutes 71 percent of the health insurance market share in Iowa, with the top two insurance providers accounting for 80 percent.11

Iowa is not unusual in this regard. Most insurance markets in the United States are dominated by one or two companies. My family's Wellmark premiums went up 10 percent this year alone. Speaking of which, the annual salary of Wellmark's CEO has "nearly doubled" in the past five years to about $2.5 million.

*     Choice is even more limited for people with pre-existing conditions. In Iowa, premiums can vary, within limits, based on demographic factors and health status, and coverage can exclude pre-existing conditions or even be denied completely.

I know a family in Des Moines who were unable to purchase health insurance at any price because the mother has a thyroid condition. They are now covered through the father's employer, but if he loses his job they will have no health insurance options.

Two more reasons why we cannot settle for health care reform without a public option, or with a fake public option. I was glad to see several House Democratic caucuses affirm that they will fight any health care bill lacking "a real and robust public option that lives up to our criteria".

If you haven't done so already, please add your name to the petition at StandWithDrDean.com.

The vote on HR 2454, the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), was delayed this afternoon so that Republican leader John Boehner could spend an hour or so reading a super-long proposed amendment to the bill. But I saw on Twitter that the final tally was 219 votes in favor of the bill (211 Democrats and 8 Republicans). 212 House members voted against the bill, and three did not vote.

I'll update soon with more details about the roll call. If most of the Democrats who voted against the bill were Blue Dogs, why did we make so many compromises to appease them?

I wasn't watching the proceedings on C-SPAN, but according to Populista, Steny Hoyer of all people gave "the best speech of the debate by far," prompting long applause.

UPDATE: Here is the roll call. Kate Sheppard of Grist listed the 8 Republicans who voted for the bill: "Bono Mack (Calif), Castle (Del.), LoBiondo (NJ), McHugh (NY), Reichert (Wash.), Smith (NJ), Lance (NJ), Kirk (Ill.)." Populista says, "3 D's voted against #ACES for being too weak. 41 D's voted against it beacuse they thought it was TOO STRONG."

SECOND UPDATE: CQ Politics lists the 52 House members who didn't vote with the majority of their party members on Waxman-Markey. Most represent districts that voted for the other party's presidential nominee last year.

Meanwhile, Senator Claire McCaskill is already planning to make a bill that doesn't do enough do even less: "I hope we can fix cap and trade so it doesn't unfairly punish businesses and families in coal dependent states like Missouri."

My own Congressman Leonard Boswell has made the same bogus argument, though he did end up voting for the bill yesterday. I'm sorry that midwestern utility companies have not been more farsighted in getting away from coal, but they shouldn't now be allowed to wreck this bill. If these utilities invest more in energy-efficiency measures and generation from renewable sources, their ratepayers will not see significant rate hikes and may save money.

All week I've been trying to decide what to write about the upcoming vote on HR 2454, the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). The U.S. House is scheduled to vote today, so I better not delay any longer.

Some arguments for and against the bill are after the jump.