WOI News Clips 270

Well I think there has been too much influence from the governor's office and I guess I would like to see him be more influential and requesting enough staff for that office to properly deliver the services that the legislature is mandated. I question whether there's any real sensitivity or concern via the governor's office for many of the people programs that exist around the state. We, as a government, ought to be willing to properly staff that department so that we can carry out and they can carry out the responsibilities legally delegated to them and we're simply not doing that right now. Iceberg feels that these cereals contain excessive amounts of sugar, specifically it's sugar known as sucrose. Chemically, sucrose is not nutritious for the human body. In fact, it's empty calories. All these cereals that are in front here contain over 50% sugar. For that reason, because of its non nutritious aspects, iceberg is urging all Iowa consumers not to purchase these types of cereals. I favor the the concept of eliminating that the double payments that take place by reason of other kinds of insurance. Both of those things obviously address themselves to to the problem directly. They have attached and to the bill, however, some unwarranted and unjustified swipes at the legal profession and the judicial practices. I think that those are without without any justification, without any indication at all that that they will do anything to reduce premiums for a medical malpractice. What is your response to the argument that the bill takes swipes at the legal profession? I don't think that's right at all. The bill is sincere, honest effort to address itself to the broad question of the availability and the cost of medical malpractice insurance. There are six elements in the bill. The only one element as far as I can see even relates to the to the legal profession. But we're really concerned with is making that insurance available. If we don't make an insurance available, then doctors won't be able to practice in the state and the public will be seriously affected. In the public water supply area we have very limited control. We have just very little Authority and we have a very small staff. We can can marginally keep up with the bacteriological contamination, the hundred to 150 unsafe water supplies that are encountered periodically throughout the year and being able to effectively deal with those, let alone to be able to take on new and expanding programs such as looking into the actual effect of this one. The long-term solution has to be the reorganization of the railroads of the Midwest. That means that whatever course we take, whether we have a hundred million dollar loan, or whether the ICC divides up these tracts in some way, we have to end up sometime in the next two or three or four years with a whole reorganized effort, because if we don't do that, we're not going to be able to move the grain that's essential for the rest of this country and for the rest of the world. We're not going to be able to have a viable transportation system unless we have a reorganized railroad here in the Midwest. Do you think maybe one of the solutions could be for the nationalizing of the rail beds and then charging the rail lines for the use of them? Yes, a matter of fact I do. I think ultimately that that probably we're going to have to go to some kind of public ownership of the rail lines. Not the railroads, but the road beds. We do that with highways, we do it with waterways, we do it with the Airways. All of those are publicly owned and publicly maintained, and I think we're going to have to do the same thing with the railroads. It seems to me that would be a good investment and in the public interest. They could be out of there by now, you know. If you can give me a little bit... ...the plan that we're we were talking about today in that part of it. Senator Murray, why did you introduce this legislation? Legislation, Don, is to help out the families and the students at the edges of the state of Iowa, and especially in southwest Iowa, Council Bluffs area. For these people, we've provided state four-year institutions of higher learning, but all of those institutions are located in the center, or the northern, or the eastern part of the state. None in southwest Iowa, none in extreme northwest Iowa. Those students and those families are closer to the University of Nebraska, the University of South Dakota, some universities in Minnesota and Illinois, and in Missouri than they are to Iowa State University. Many of them would like to have the opportunity to go outside the state, just across the border, to a higher education institution for much less money. They don't have to live at the University. They can live at home and commute and save all of that money. So what I'm trying to do through this legislation, along with 17 other senators who co-sponsored with me, is to provide higher education, four-year institution learning to these students and their families at the same cost that it's provided to the citizens of central Iowa and Eastern Iowa.