As the Iowa General Assembly brings this year's session to a close (presumably in the next week or two), we are likely to see the creation of an Iowa Power Fund that disturbs me greatly. Don't misunderstand me, I'm as big a proponent for renewable and alternative fuels as the next guy. However, Chet Culver's little pet project that he campaigned for is possibly going to pass the Iowa Senate and Iowa House without any mechanisms for proper oversight or any real direction for how the money will be doled out or for what purposes. This could end up being a gigantic tax payer funded government slush fund. Remember the last time an Iowa Democratic Governor got a gigantic fund to play around with? Yep, the General Assembly gave Tom Vilsack the Iowa Values Fund and almost since its inception, critics on both sides of the aisle have sent up red flags about how the money is spent, if the results have been suf ficient, and whether there is enough documentation to back up the transactions and results of the projects that were funded by the Values Fund. The biggest critic, ironically, was Ed Fallon who was right on in his criticism of Vilsack and former Economic Development Director Mike Blouin. The truth is, the Values Fund has not lived up to its billing. It has only created a fraction of the output it was expected to unleash and there has been alot of shadows surrounding the oversight of the board.

Labels: biofuel, taxes