A water quality bill passed in the Iowa House this week aims to add funding for initiatives throughout the state, but support was not unanimous.

Representative Guy Vander Linden tells KNIA/KRLS News he voted against Senate File 512, which passed 59-41 on otherwise mostly party lines, with a majority of Republicans voting yes. Vander Linden expressed frustration with the legislative process that led to the Senate’s bill passing after the 2017 House version did not receive the Senate’s consideration.

“There was some funding details in the other bill that I liked better, but the point was that the House passed a bill with 79 votes–including every single Republican vote, and the Senate wouldn’t even discuss it, would not even think about changing so much as a comma in their bill–I found that unacceptable,” he says. “So it wasn’t about water quality, it was about how the process works.”

State Senator Ken Rozenboom, who chairs the Natural Resources Committee, said earlier in the session he was hopeful this version of the bill would be one of the first bills to come to the Governor’s desk for a signature.