Iowa House passes bill to create state plan for flood protection

The House passed a bill Feb. 25 to create and implement a statewide, 30-year resilience plan to protect state life, property and other assets in the event of a flood or other water-related disaster.

Rep. John Wills, R-Spirit Lake, said the legislation was a “visionary bill” that “redefines” how the state protects itself from “floods, droughts and shifting water supplies.”

“This bill is something that should have been done 30 years ago, but it wasn’t,” Wills said. “The next best time to do it is today.”

House File 2511 would require the Iowa Flood Center to draft the plan and provide periodic updates.

The goal of the state resiliency plan – per the bill text – is to protect Iowa’s “critical” and “regionally significant” assets. These include transportation assets, evacuation routes, critical facilities, natural, cultural and historic resources in an area.

The state resiliency plan would also require a statewide risk assessment and prioritized lists of ongoing and planned resiliency projects in the state. 

Wills said the bill mandates a “proactive” approach to resiliency and breaks the cycle of the state reacting to disasters after the fact.

He emphasized that the bill would prioritize voluntary conservation and compliance strategies and that the resiliency plan was focused on flooding and not water quality.

In a Feb. 4 subcommittee hearing, the bill, then numbered as House File 2158, was supported by environmental groups in the state, some of which noted that flooding events seem to have increased in frequency in the state.

Nick Laning, speaking on behalf of the Iowa Emergency Management Association in the subcommittee hearing, suggested the plan might be better completed by the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, where similar plans are developed and the department is already adept at interactions with federal agencies.

Amber Markham, speaking on behalf of The Nature Conservancy, said the group supported the legislation and specifically was in favor of implementing “natural infrastructure” like wetlands to help curb flooding.

“We believe that every penny spent on pre-disaster mitigation is a dollar saved on post-disaster cleanup,” Markham said.

No group registered against the bill. A companion version of the bill was introduced in the Senate and advanced from a subcommittee, but was not heard in a committee meeting prior to the legislative “funnel” deadline.

On the floor, the bill was amended to change the due date of the report from 2027 to 2028 and to move the final destination of the plan to the state homeland security department. The amendment also specified that risk reduction strategies would be voluntary to protect property rights.

Rep. Monica Kurth, D-Davenport, noted that Iowa has neared the top of the list for states most impacted by natural disasters.

“So I think it’s time that we had a good, solid resilience plan,” Kurth said.

The bill, which Wills said was a “survival manual,” passed unanimously and was sent to the Senate.

Ag-emission protection bill advances

Lawsuits claiming that greenhouse gas emissions from an agricultural operation impacted the climate would be prohibited under a bill passed Feb. 26 by the Iowa House.

Supporters of the bill, which passed with a vote of 66-24, said the bill protects against “frivolous” climate lawsuits, while opponents of the bill worried the language was too broad and would limit Iowans’ abilities to seek damages. 

House File 2527 would limit farmers’ and ranchers’ liability in cases alleging an “actual or potential” effect on the climate caused “wholly or partly” by greenhouse gas emissions.

Rep. Derek Wulf, R-Hudson, introduced the bill and said on the floor that the “ag friendly bill” allows farmers to “continue to do what they do best, and that’s farm and ranch.”

Rep. J.D. Scholten, D-Sioux City, introduced an amendment to the bill to exempt lawsuits related to nuisances or weather-related damages that could be tied to climate change.

Scholten said the amendment clarified some of the “broad language” of the bill. He argued that without the amendment, a neighbor “suffering real tangible harm” like a farmer with damaged drainage, decreased property value or a polluted well, could be unable to seek damages in an Iowa court.

Scholten also took issue with the section of the bill that protects from lawsuits that are “wholly or partly” attributed to greenhouse gas emissions. This language, he argued, could be applied more broadly and allow a defendant to “escape liability entirely” for something like a “straightforward” weather damage claim, especially, as he argued it’s not uncommon for severe weather events to be partly attributed to climate change.

Scholten said his amendment was a means of protecting private property rights, which he said is something “this chamber has spent considerable time and energy” fighting for as it relates to carbon capture pipelines.

“We cannot tell Iowans in one breath that property rights are sacred against the pipeline and in the next breath, take away their right to defend those same properties in court against a neighbor or an insurance company,” Scholten said.

Wulf said the bill’s intent was not to affect nuisance claims, nor to protect bad actors. He urged a no vote on the amendment, which was defeated.

Rep. Megan Srinivas, D-Des Moines, who served on a subcommittee for the bill in its earlier form as House File 693, reiterated Scholten’s concerns on the bill and said it would open up “liability immunity for all bad actors.”

Wulf said the “right for rumination for cow bill” was about protecting farmers and ranchers who have been put “in the crosshairs” by “green new deal policies.”

The House voted in favor of the bill and also adopted an amendment from Wulf that added “petroleum source” to the list of greenhouse gas emissions described in the bill.