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Water quality, pesticide policy loom ahead of 2026 Iowa legislative session
Iowa lawmakers, advocates share their agriculture and environmental priorities for the upcoming session
Jan. 8, 2026 5:30 am, Updated: Jan. 8, 2026 12:27 pm
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With the 2026 Iowa legislative session just days away, renewed debate is expected over water quality, nitrate runoff and pesticide policy. Lawmakers, along with environmental and agricultural leaders, are preparing for discussions that could shape the state’s approach in the years ahead.
Among the issues most likely to resurface this year are proposals to expand conservation measures, the return of a pesticide shield bill, and efforts to tackle runoff from Iowa fields that affects water quality statewide.
The session begins Monday, Jan. 12.
Iowa Corn Growers Association President Mark Mueller said controlling nitrate runoff and promoting conservation remain central as the organization engages in the upcoming legislative session.
Iowa’s “conservation and water quality issues aren’t going away, and it’s always a hot-button issue,” Mueller said. “Fairly or not, farmers get a lot of blame for things that people wish, and we need to be on top of the legislative efforts to regulate that.”
Mueller said public financing is “critical” to improving the state’s water quality.
Nitrate concentrations in many of Iowa’s streams and rivers reached near record highs in 2025 after a wet spring that followed years of dry conditions. Central Iowa Water Works, which serves 600,000 customers, implemented its first-ever lawn-watering ban last summer to reduce demand so the system could keep up with its nitrate removal process.
Mueller said the Iowa Corn Growers Association will be working on policies that bolster public financing so farmers and producers across the state can invest in conservation measures that aid water quality measures — like building wetlands or planting cover crops — and further the voluntary work that already is ongoing under the state’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy.
Mueller said many of these conservation projects are “too much for an individual farmer to tackle” themselves.
“It’s a very expensive proposition, so Iowa Corn would support anything that helps study and control runoff in water,” he said.
Mueller, himself a farmer, said he “may produce crops very efficiently, very economically, but at the same time I’m providing a public benefit of cheap food and clean water. The public needs to help me out a little bit too.”
Legislative Preview Series
The Iowa Legislature begins its 2026 session Jan. 12. The Gazette will examine these state issues in the days leading up to the session:
Sunday: Property taxes
Monday: State budget
Tuesday: Public safety
Wednesday: Eminent domain
Today: Agriculture/environment
Friday: Health care
Saturday: Abortion
Jan. 11: Higher education
Jan. 12: K-12 education
Focusing on water quality measures, curbing nitrate contamination
Senate Democratic Leader Janice Weiner, of Iowa City, told The Gazette that water quality — coupled with its link to rising cancer rates in Iowa — should be a focus of this year’s legislative session.
Weiner’s push to zero in on water quality comes as the state’s largest water quality testing network is facing a July funding cliff. In 2023, Republican lawmakers voted to reallocate funding for the Iowa Water Quality Sensor Network, which is run by IIHR — Hydroscience and Engineering at the University of Iowa. The network has continued to operate on “bridge funding” but that money will run out this summer.
Leaders at the Iowa Water Quality Sensor Network — or IWQIS — have been working on finding a new source of funding. It costs about $600,000 per year to keep the program and its 53 sensors in streams and rivers across the state functioning.
“I’d love to see water sensors refunded so we have a baseline to know what’s going on with which rivers and which waterways,” Weiner said. “Every Iowan deserves clean water for drinking, for recreation, for whatever … it should honestly be a birthright.”
She added that the program is essential to know what is in Iowan’s water supply and where intervention is needed.
“We only know that if we have those sensors in place and can measure not just nitrate levels, but other pollutants and other chemicals in the water, so you know where the problem is coming from, and then can put together a program or incentives, or whatever you need to try to improve the situation,” she added. “But I think you’ve got to be able to measure it. So you know what the extent of the problem is, then you can attack the problem.”
Similarly, Iowa’s ongoing water quality and nitrate crisis is a main policy priority for the Iowa Environmental Council.
“Water quality is something that absolutely needs to be addressed with a long-term comprehensive plan and strategy for improving the state of our water. … We think it is so important to prioritize this session, making sure that the state is funding water monitoring so that we know what is in our water, so we know if it is getting better or worse, and if it is safe from a health perspective,” said Kerri Johannsen, senior director of policy and programs with IEC. “We’re pretty well aware that there’s more we need to do as a state to make sure the water is safe.”
Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Klimesh, R-Spillville, said the state’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy has been working since it was implemented in 2013. He said he has seen “dramatic improvements” in the district he serves in northeast Iowa.
“Those initiatives are taking hold. I think if there’s a conversation to be had about how we can improve existing programs or make changes to those programs, I think Senate Republicans are open for those conversations,“ Klimesh said. ”But it’s important to realize the work we’ve done and the funding we already have in place, and the direction we’re heading.”
House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, said voluntary conservation measures — and the conservation work being undertaken by farmers — have improved Iowa’s water quality.
“When we’re talking about water quality, I still believe that using the voluntary, incentive-based system that we have in place is how you affect the long-term change,” he said.
Gov. Kim Reynolds declined to be interviewed for The Gazette’s legislative preview series.
Iowa’s pesticide shield law
Lawmakers and environmental advocates alike expect a bill over pesticide labeling to resurface during the 2026 session.
Iowa Senate Republicans, in 2024 and again in 2025, passed bills that would shield agricultural chemical companies from lawsuits over their products’ warning labels. Both years, Iowa House Republicans declined to advance the bill.
Bayer, the company that owns glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, which is used across the state, has backed the 2024 and 2025 bills. The company argues that since the Environmental Protection Agency has determined glyphosate is not carcinogenic, it should not be required to put cancer warnings on Roundup.
Opponents of the legislation say the bill would shield Bayer from liability over failure to warn about the product’s health risks.
Johannsen said the Council “absolutely” expects to see the issue return this year.
“We have very serious concerns about what this bill could mean for people in Iowa,” she said. “It creates really a universal shield for any pesticide company to be able to be protected from accountability for their actions, and there's a lot of conversation around the technicalities of this.
Klimesh referenced current research at the University of Iowa that’s exploring the link between cancer and chemicals, and said he’d like to “let them point us in the right direction” before exploring potential legislation.
“If that’s one of the areas that we need to have policy conversations on, let’s have a policy conversation at that point in time,” he said.
House Minority Leader Brian Meyer, D-Des Moines, said he has concerns about the shield bill.
“We have a huge problem with cancer in this state, and I think when you shield liability by these corporations, it’s incredibly shortsighted,” Meyer said. “It’s not really a legal issue. This is a health issue.”
Mueller, with the Iowa Corn Growers, called previous legislation a “lightning rod for criticism.” He said the bill that was approved by the Senate would not shield chemical companies from lawsuits.
“That is absolutely not true. … But what it would say is that if you follow the rules and the (Environmental Protection Agency) establishes the rules that we farmers have to follow, and you do everything correctly by the book, then there should be no issue,” Mueller said. “However, people can still sue, and there's nothing that says you can’t sue anybody for anything. This would not prohibit that, but it would also say that you need to have some sound science behind this. Just can't be an emotion-laden plea before a jury of people that don’t know there’s science.”
Meyer, who is a lawyer, said the argument that the bill would still allow lawsuits is "not the case" and that those who make that argument are being dishonest.
"It gives a broad liability shield on negligence," Meyer said. "I think that they are not telling the truth on that matter. The way I read it is, and somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, in my experience as a litigator, it is a broad shield against liability, 100 percent."
Mueller said farmers having access to chemicals like glyphosate is important for being a “better steward of the soil” because using weedkillers like Roundup reduces the need for tillage, which keeps more soil in place and leads to less runoff.
“The pesticide labeling law is crucial to get to help preserve the tools I need as a farmer to become a better environmental steward and opponents of that legislation don't seem to point that out, but my work is cut out for me because my explanation won't fit on the bumper sticker,” Mueller said.
Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. She is also a contributing writer for the Ag and Water Desk, an independent journalism collaborative focusing on the Mississippi River Basin.
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Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com
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