Iowa

Fascinating and easy-to-make lists of every position taken by all lobbyists on any bill. A model for other states!

Exposure to chemicals from gas extraction projects has been increasingly linked to cancer. So have chemicals from gas transmission projects. And in June 2023, a Stanford University study found that the cancer risks from benzene leaking from gas stoves can equal or exceed that of secondhand smoke.

Despite these risks, a Mar. 2024 study from F Minus found that the American Cancer Society shares lobbyists with fossil fuel companies in ten states. In Iowa, lobbyist Jim Carney represents ACS and LS Power Midcontinent, a subsidiary of LS Power, which operates 16 gigawatts of gas-fired power plants around the country. Thanks to Iowa’s excellent lobbyist disclosure system, it’s possible to see that Carney has consistently lobbied for higher tobacco taxes for ACS. And yet, for an organization committed to reducing smoking and fighting cancer, ACS shares this lobbyist with a client whose pro-gas advocacy is exposing people to many other types of carcinogens.

Best feature: provides in seconds what some states never provide–a list of every position taken by each lobbyist on each of their bills.

Worst feature: Iowa would have received one of the highest overall grades of any state but for its worst-in-the-country score for frequency of disclosure–only once a year.

Additional Findings

The Iowa lobbyist database is fairly easy to find both through Google and through the Iowa legislature’s website under the “Lobbyist information” header. It uses a very simple search tool which allows to search for lobbyists or clients by year – not factoring in active/terminated lobbyists. All listed for each year were/are active. It’s not possible to see every client a lobbyist represents through the preview page, but by clicking the clients hyperlink, it’s possible to see a full list. The client search works in the opposite way for viewing lobbyists.

The export option is fairly simple and automatically converts to Excel format. The most inacessible part of the process is the download itself. Lobbyists are all listed in the same cell, requiring some excel wizardry to separate. Lobbying firms are also not listed in the dataset. It doesn’t suffer from having unecessary information, but could probably stand to include more, or at least offer the option. Overall, Iowa’s lobbyist reporting system is easy to find and simple to use, but doesn’t allow for any customization options, and the download itself is in a slightly difficult format to work with.