Iowa holds a unique place in American politics. Far from the corridors of power in Washington D.C. or the wealthy streets of New York City, this modestly populated farming state of just under 4 million people has been the nation’s first gauge in presidential elections for over fifty years. It’s a curious focal point where the first significant decisions about who might lead the country are made.

Despite the Republican Party’s stronghold in Iowa, the state stands out in another, perhaps paradoxical way: its commitment to renewable energy.

In 2022, Iowa led the nation in wind turbine energy, with around two-thirds of its electricity coming from renewable sources, primarily wind.

This presents an intriguing contrast as we head into Monday’s caucus. Iowa, a state that vigorously champions renewable energy, is governed by a party whose rhetoric often downplays or even dismisses climate change. This was evident in a recent GOP primary debate in Des Moines, where both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley scoffed at the idea of human-made climate change. Both expressed desires to dismantle President Joe Biden’s green policies, with Gov. DeSantis questioning why the U.S. should act while countries like India and China lag behind in environmental efforts.

So, how does this dichotomy resonate within Iowa itself?

To get a clearer picture, Reckon turned to Cody Smith, a senior policy advocate at the Iowa Environmental Council. Based in Des Moines, this coalition is dedicated to ensuring a just and healthy environment, as well as a sustainable future for all Iowans.

Reckon:

Iowa is a state leader in wind energy, but it’s also a solidly red state. Sort of a paradox. How do Republicans at all levels of politics, including presidential candidates, reconcile those dueling messages?

Cody Smith:

I would start off by saying that Iowans are independent thinkers and we have had the responsibility of being first in the nation in the presidential nominating contests for decades now. And that’s part of the culture here.

I think that independent thinking allows Iowans of all parties and all political affiliations to be able to recognize that wind energy is good for our economy, it’s good for our farmers, and it’s good for our rural communities. Just in 2021, Iowa wind turbines generated about $57 million in state and local taxes. It also paid $67 million in land lease payments to landowners hosting the projects. What that shows us is wind energy is a winning investment for Iowa’s communities, whether or not you believe in climate change.

It certainly seems possible to believe in renewable energy and reject climate change at the same time, even though those ideas typically exist as polar opposites of the current energy narrative. How does that play out in Iowa?

It’s possible to believe in both, but I would argue that most Iowans recognize that climate change is impacting the state. We’ve seen flooding in 2019 and 2008, where we had some deaths and disastrous floods. In 2020, we saw a major derecho that had a massive impact on our electrical system.

And wind energy has performed well throughout all of those disasters. I think it’s possible to walk that line. The messaging itself is interesting. There have been comments from leading candidates about wind energy having negative impacts on health and other things. I think Iowans are able to see through that and recognize that wind energy is playing an important role in our communities, funding schools, helping improve roads, and other important local services that we see, including fire and EMS.

A recent poll noted that 75% of Iowans said they would back a candidate who recognized climate change as the greatest threat to humanity. What does that tell us about Iowa voters?

Iowans are no strangers to the impacts of climate change, as I mentioned. We’ve had an increasing amount of natural disasters, whether it’s flooding or even heat waves this summer. These are things that we have hardly seen in the state, and they seem to be happening every other year or sometimes even multiple times in one year.

I think anybody, particularly farmers, whose livelihood relies on the natural resources of Iowa, is experiencing those changes every year. They’re living through unprecedented heatwaves, floods, and the impact that has had on our economic activities, whether it’s farming and agriculture, or our manufacturing sector.

As we move forward throughout the next several years, I think it’s going to continue to rise as an issue in the minds of Iowans.

Despite anti-climate change and renewable energy rhetoric seemingly louder than ever, there also seems to be this growing acceptance of renewable energy throughout the country. For example, GOP-led Texas leads the nation in many different types of renewable energy production. How has that creeping and almost silent acceptance of renewable energy in red states happened?

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Iowans, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, know that renewable energy just makes sense. It’s common sense that investing in renewable generation is the cheapest for customers of our electric utilities, as well as being good for the environment. And whether or not climate change is a motivating factor for Iowans in their decision-making processes, everybody wants clean water and they want clean air.

When we think about the communities that are still hosting coal plants across the state, they’re having to deal with pollution impacts at the local level. And that’s regardless of the carbon dioxide or methane emissions that may come from those plants. For example, up in Sioux City, Iowa, Mid-American Energy runs two coal plants. We actually had the nation’s 15th-largest coal plant.

So, we have these challenges where communities are breathing in that toxic air dealing with sulfur dioxide or nitrous oxide and increasing rates of asthma. This is a real issue and people see renewable energy as a clear alternative, not only to clean the pollution of our fossil fuel generation that we still have and operate, but also to be able to have a lower cost option for customers as we move forward into the next several decades.

Looking at the political bureaucracy, how all the levers and mechanisms of government work, how has Iowa managed to pursue so many wind turbine projects?

A number of regulatory frameworks and incentives have led to wind energy being so dominant here in the state of Iowa. Some of them are a little bit more wonky, such as advanced ratemaking, which is a practice that allows our electric utilities to recover the costs and get a guaranteed return on investment for new projects and electricity generation before they’ve even built it.

The idea here is that they can get some regulatory certainty and know the investments that they’re going to make will have a guaranteed return before they build them. That practice has been around in Iowa for about 15 to 20 years. And that has really allowed the risk to be removed from wind energy generation as we kind of tested it out and continued to grow. There’s some question about whether or not that’s still necessary, given the proven reliability and cost-effectiveness of wind energy.

I would also mention that both the state and federal governments have had production tax credits and investment tax credits for wind energy and solar energy. The state’s credits have since expired, but the federal government’s investment and production tax credits for wind energy and solar energy have continued to drive the marketplace and make it more cost-effective, even without those tax credits in place. Wind energy is still the most cost-effective electricity source generator.

You brought up something interesting that is a major issue nationwide. Coal ash disposal has become one of the greatest threats to the environment and communities in recent years. How is Iowa dealing with its coal ash?

Recent research has demonstrated that about 99% of coal plants are more expensive to operate than renewables. We have to think about how we regulate our utilities and how we set up our policies to make sure that the decisions they make are cost-effective for customers and good for reliability.

When it comes to coal ash, we have seen some of our utilities in the state, for example, Mid-American Energy, propose dumping their coal ash deposits directly into the Missouri River. Here at the Iowa Environmental Council, we pushed back on that, and they eventually abandoned the application to the state.

But Iowans were ready to jump up and push back against that because they recognized even if people value coal for reliability — or maybe they have generational jobs where workers, their fathers and grandfathers have worked at the same plant — nobody wants to have that coal ash or the pollutants associated with coal-fired electricity dumped directly into our state’s rivers.

Iowans, again, are demonstrating that we are independent thinkers who evaluate things as they come through.

It gets difficult during the caucus season because things that happen here are directed by the national conversation as much as they inform it. It can be hard to really see what Iowans believe and how we influenced this process.

What does the future look like for renewable energy in Iowa?

I don’t want to sugarcoat everything and say there aren’t challenges. It’s not necessarily helpful to the industry or to the cost for Iowa’s electricity and electric customers when candidates degrade wind energy and then spread false narratives about the impacts on health. For example, some claim wind turbines can cause cancer. That’s not helpful.

In recent years, we’ve seen a growth in opposition from local residents for both wind and solar. And that’s going to become increasingly challenging as the opposition continues to get organized. There’s research that demonstrates that this increase in organization from the opposition is also being funded by the fossil fuel industry. That’s not unique to Iowa.

Five years ago, somebody might show up and complain that a wind turbine is too close to their home or farm, or they just don’t like the way that it looks. Those are valuable, verifiable and objective concerns that can be mitigated by responsible citing and zoning.

But over the last five years, as this issue has become more politicized, we’ve definitely seen an influx of resources on the opposition side to push back and spin false narratives about the health impact, the reliability, and the overall success of wind energy in the state of Iowa. It’s a growing concern. But we’re hopeful that, looking forward, Iowans will continue to exercise independent judgment and see the truth for what it is.