Eddie Mauro & Mark Kuhn, Iowa grain farmer & former State Representative

By Kendrew Panyanouvong, Team Mauro Digital Director

Iowa can be a national leader on soil health, confronting climate change, and investing in rural communities, and Eddie Mauro is ready to lead that fight.

Within his first 100 days in the United States Senate, Eddie will promote legislation that drives swift and significant action to help Iowa lead the charge.

By doubling down on infrastructure, building up Iowa’s abundant and profitable soil, supporting conservation and investing in research & development, Iowa not only can be positioned as a leader in the wake of climate change — but on soil conservation and agricultural best practices too.

Almost yearly occurrences, Iowa and states across the Midwest have experienced massive floods that have devastated small businesses on Main streets, homes in rural communities, and critical crops and farmlands.

Iowa farmers are already precariously perched between escalating trade wars, eroding soil and tough market conditions — and climate chaos is just adding fuel to the fire.

Those humid summers and frigid winters aren’t what they once were. Iowans face new challenges that are rippling through their communities — longer droughts and excessive precipitation, more frequent flash storms and unpredictable growing seasons.

All while Senator Joni Ernst calls these erratic weather patterns mere “ebbs and flows,” as she continues to take outpour of donations from the Koch Brother(s), the oil and fossil fuel industries, and lobbyists tied to the government of Saudi Arabia.

In contrast, Eddie has refused to be beholden to special interests.

He’s pledged to accept no money from the fossil fuel industry and to support a Green New Deal because he understands the urgency to systematically address the crisis in front of us.

Ushering a path to a sustainable future

Politicians in Washington have waited far too long to aggressively confront the national security crisis that is climate change.

Eddie’s slate of robust and inclusive climate policies will build the infrastructure needed to mitigate damage from ongoing climate change, and require aggressive action to swiftly reach a carbon-neutral future.

Iowa will be instrumental in developing and implementing key climate solutions, that’s why Eddie believes the state can be at the forefront of them.

In his first 100 days in the United States Senate, Eddie will declare climate as a national security emergency, sponsor a resolution to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, and enact a Marshall Plan to revitalize rural communities, who can usher the state to lead down the path to a sustainable future.

On day one, Eddie pledges to get Iowa, and the United States, on the path to a Net Zero Carbon future by the year 2045, to invest in critical infrastructure and bring back principles of basic conservation compliance into the Farm Bill.

In the Senate and the 21st century, Eddie wants to ensure working people can improve their quality of life — by preserving and maximizing both environmental and economic benefits of urgent action on climate.

Among a host of reforms to be made, there are other legislative goals on Eddie’s agenda to combat the climate crisis.

You can read the rest of Eddie’s climate policies here.

Confronting climate through the lens of farmers

Amidst the climate chaos still lingers a trade war and a stagnant ethanol deal, with farmers on the frontline battling climate change — exacerbated by the lack of courage from our leaders and those more focused on playing politics rather than finding common ground and solutions.

Now, more than ever, it is important to work in partnership with farmers and to earn their trust; that’s why Eddie is making sure to hear the issues and concerns of Iowa farmers on the trail.

He’s already visited north of 75 of Iowa’s 99 counties since May.

At the home of Mark Kuhn in Charles City, IA

He wants to foster relationships with farmers, landowners, scientists, agribusiness, and other conservation leaders — to improve soil health, protect sources of clean drinking water, improve the economics of Iowa agriculture, and to provide incentives for farmers to help choose conservation practices.

If we can partner with farmers and other stakeholders on climate solutions, Iowa can lead the charge for a climate stable future.

Right now, our current government and top-down structures are preventing them from doing so.

Climate changing beyond Iowa

Outside of his local activism efforts, Eddie heads The Purify Project, an organization committed to providing clean water for school children in communities in Tanzania, Africa, where climate change is already posing considerable challenges for their communities.

An uptick of more major and sporadic weather events is pushing people away from their homes — causing a mass migration issue in North Africa and Central America.

“I’m seeing firsthand, in Tanzania, the impacts of climate change, of widespread droughts and pollution that have led people to flee their home countries. “Mass migration — we’re seeing it in North Africa, we’re seeing it in Central America, which is having people knocking on our doors. Those are the real impacts of climate change.” — Iowa Starting Line, 11/13/19

The climate crisis is an existential threat to humanity. Nothing we’re fighting for matters if we don’t address it urgently and aggressively.

Instead of leadership that fails to recognize, or even acknowledge the climate chaos raining down on our communities, Eddie is ready to fight back with a plan to confront the crisis — which entails comprehensive approaches that can shift the paradigm to find the solutions we desperately need in a sustained fashion.

The groundwork can be laid in Iowa. If the state can be a leader in feeding the world, then Iowa can surely navigate the bureaucratic waters to be a sustainable leader moving forward.