Iowans will lose access to home energy audits, insulation rebates, and light bulb discounts under new five-year efficiency plans proposed by utilities. The plans, filed with the Iowa Utilities Board before a Monday, July 9, deadline, are the first since a new state law capped the amount of money that utilities spend on the programs. The result is a huge step back for energy efficiency in the state, according to clean energy advocates. MidAmerican Energy and Interstate Power & Light, an Alliant Energy subsidiary, emphasized the bill reductions most customers will see under the plans, but critics predicted those cuts will eventually be absorbed by the cost of new investments to meet growing energy use in the state. “These plans are significantly smaller and leave significant energy-efficiency savings on the table, even more than in the past,” said Josh Mandelbaum, an attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center in Des Moines. MidAmerican Energy is proposing to spend $257 million between 2019-2023 on programs estimated to save 898 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and nearly 8.3 million therms of natural gas.
Fighting Identity Theft In Iowa
Podcast: Thinking Regularly About Protecting Identity From Online Thieves
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We talk with Shane Cox, a Simpson College associate professor of accounting, about the ways an average person views cyber security, what that person thinks about identity theft and how to protect personal information. Cox gives us an “average person” look at cyber security. Part of a series.
Fighting Identity Theft In Iowa
Podcast: Insurance Company IT Expert On How Your Personal Information Is Protected
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A Farm Bureau Insurance information technology specialist tells how the company protects your sensitive, personal information.
news literacy
Podcast: Sifting Through Fake News In Pursuit Of Truth
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The biggest concern facing the general public when it tries to determine what news source to trust? “The wide variety of people who produce news, and only some of them our journalists,” David Ryfe, professor and chairman of the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said in this IowaWatch Connection podcast.
authentic storytelling
Vetting News Sources: Experts Weigh In For “Ethical Perspectives On The News”
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Finding the right source for a news story always has been important but the public demands more, especially in the current political climate in the United States.
IowaWatch co-founder Stephen Berry was part of an “Ethical Perspectives on the News” television program that addressed that demand.
Open Arms in Iowa
Open Arms in Iowa Concludes: Different Era For Refugees In Iowa
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The world is smaller, and more fearful about others, an Iowan whose family took in a Vietnamese family in the 1970s says in this conclusion of a five-part serial about that experience some 40 years ago.
Special Report: part of a series
Life Goes On For Vietnamese Iowan But A Lost Love Remains Home
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Vietnamese refugee Phat (Patrick) Nguyen, revealed stories about his life in Vietnam before coming to Iowa and the family’s experience in the Malaysian refugee camp, along with stories about living in the United States. It was a story of friends, a home and hope, but he left one special person behind.
Special Report: part of a series
Transition From Vietnamese Refugees To Iowans On An Intercultural Adventure
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In this installment of a special five-part series Wayne Buck says in an ABC News interview from the 1970s that he thinks the Nguyen family, Vietnamese refugees living in Iowa, soon will be financially independent. Young Jeanne Buck, meanwhile, says her family can say it saved eight lives.
Special Report: part of a series
From Refugee Camp to Iowa, Plus Prepping For A Story 40 Years Later
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The Pulau Bidong camp, where the Nguyen family lived for six months, was only 1 square kilometer in area and housed approximately 18,000 Vietnamese refugees by January 1979. After the Nguyens moved to Iowa that number continued to grow.
Special Report: part of a series
Open Arms In Iowa: How A News Report Brought Back Memories Of Iowa’s Vietnamese Refugee Relief
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Saigon had fallen and Vietnamese refugees needed a new home. Iowa opened its arms in the 1970s. A former IowaWatch reporter’s story rekindled memories for one Iowan whose family took in some of those refugees. This five-part series by Clare McCarthy tells that story.
Accountability
Iowa’s Judicial Branch Flunks Transparency Survey Despite Landmark Reports Availability
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Iowa’s Judicial Branch flunked a recent transparency and accountability study because of barriers to public access to information, a lack of legal requirements for judicial evaluations and issues surrounding potential conflicts of interest. They include limited access judicial officers’ asset disclosures and a lack of restrictions on judges returning to the private sector after the bench.