Letters to the Editor: The ultimate use for green energy

In keeping with his plan for green energy, I am wondering if Joe has authorized using “organic” fertilizer on the lawn of the White House? No doubt Joe, Kamala and their Democrat colleagues in Washington generate more than enough “fertilizer” for this purpose, so they never would have to worry about supply chain issues!

Brad Strader, Storm Lake

Miss September

The calendar tells us that Laura Loomer is not the “October surprise.” Maybe we should just call her “Miss September?”

Jim Walters, Iowa City

Not in our best interest

The Fifth Judicial Court of McPherson County, Spink County, Edmunds County, South Dakota has offered Iowans a temporary reprieve by refusing to allow private industry to use public domain to claim land for the CO2 pipeline. We need to make this a permanent reprieve by pressuring Kim Reynolds and her hand-picked Iowa Utilities Commission to rescind all permits granted to Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC. The court in South Dakota ruled that the pipeline is not carrying a commodity and that the only entity likely to profit from the project is Summit Carbon Solutions. The CO2 will be stored underground in North Dakota and there is, as of now, no market for it. The only people who will benefit from this misuse of taxpayer dollars funded by misguided government policy are people that are producing more corn than the world needs, people turning it into ethanol for a rapidly disappearing market, and, of course, the people that are building the pipeline itself.

About 57% of Iowa’s corn goes for ethanol, and all of the ground used in the production of this corn is ground that could be used to produce other grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, textiles or timber. Diversifying our agricultural output will, if done right, reduce the need for the nitrogen-based fertilizers that are currently dumped from our tiled fields directly into our drinking water.

Gov. Reynolds and — to be honest most of her political contemporaries, regardless of party affiliation — openly and brazenly pander to the corn lobby, but this pandering is not in the best interest of most of their constituents. Overproduction of corn results in polluted water and high rates of cancer. Iowans have said over and over again that they want clean water. It is time to hold our leaders accountable for changing this broken system, and a carbon capture pipeline will not do it.

As taxpayers we need to hold our leaders accountable for how our tax dollars are spent, and in this case, our tax dollars would be better spent helping our farmers transition to operations that do not threaten our drinking water. To do this, farmers will have to diversify their operations and learn how to develop and access new markets for what they are producing. It is these efforts that our tax dollars should be supporting. Please write to Kim Reynolds and your legislators and tell them to nix the carbon capture pipeline because the building of this pipeline is not in our collective best interest.

Jan McGinnis, Iowa CCI member, Marshalltown