DES MOINES, Iowa — Forty Iowa lawmakers, including Iowa House Majority Leader Bobby Kaufmann, are urging federal regulators to reject a request from utility companies that would temporarily halt competition for major electric transmission projects.

In a letter sent to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, lawmakers asked regulators to deny a complaint filed by utilities seeking a moratorium on transmission competition, arguing the move would increase electricity costs for consumers and reduce market competition.

The complaint, filed in April by incumbent utilities against regional grid operators Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, and Southwest Power Pool, seeks to pause competitive bidding for transmission projects across multiple states.

Supporters of competition argue the change would effectively allow utilities to receive no-bid control over billions of dollars in future transmission projects tied to growing electricity demand, including from data centers.

The lawmakers wrote that Iowa has repeatedly rejected anti-competitive legislation in recent years and pointed to President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at reducing regulatory barriers for new market participants.

“The utility complaint is tone deaf to the electricity affordability crisis facing Americans,” Paul Cicio, chair of the Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition, said in a statement. “Suspending competition in MISO and SPP would expose consumers in these regions to billions in unchecked cost escalation for years, guaranteeing higher utility bills.”

Utilities that filed the complaint include ITC Midwest, Ameren Services, Xcel Energy and several other regional electric providers.

The coalition opposing the complaint argues competitive bidding has historically lowered costs for transmission projects in MISO and SPP regions, while utilities say changes are needed to speed project development amid growing energy demand.

The dispute comes as energy providers face increasing pressure to expand electric infrastructure to meet demand from large-scale developments, including data centers.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – The Cedar Rapids Fire Department responded to a fire at a garage Wednesday evening.

Crews responded to the 1200 block of Wright Brothers Boulevard SW at 6:23 P.M.

The department says they spotted heavy black smoke prior to arrival, and found an attached garage fully involved with fire.

Crews managed to put out the fire and confirmed that everyone was outside of the house, as well as extinguished a hidden fire in the attic and concealed spaces inside the home.

The garage suffered heavy fire damage while the rest of the home had minor damage.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

The future of college football continues to be in flux, as schools and conferences wrestle with how to make more money.

Conference realignment exploded because schools like USC and UCLA were falling well behind, financially, relative to peers in the Big Ten or SEC. College Football Playoff expansion continues to be a topic of discussion, led in part by those two conferences, as administrators believe there’s more money to be made by adding more games and teams to the mix.

But another point of discussion in college football is even larger and more structural: the point of the NCAA and current configuration.

Some have speculated that the Power Four conferences should leave the NCAA entirely, form their own breakaway league that’s organized differently than the existing format. Notable personalities like Kirk Herbstreit spoke about that earlier in 2026, saying that name, image and likeness (NIL) and other issues could be fixed if there’s a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between conferences and players in a new entity.

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“I think the Power Four needs to break away,” he said in an interview with Front Office Sports. “Create their own world, create their own governing body. Allow the Group of Four to create their own world. Allow them to have their own playoff. Much like FCS and Division II and III. Just create a new level, which would be the Power Four. Let’s create a new governing body, let’s put a commissioner. If we need to unionize the players, to allow them to create a CBA to avoid the antitrust laws, make the rules, come to an agreement like the NFL does on both sides.”

Then there are proposals that the Big Ten and SEC, as the two most successful conferences, should set up their own arrangement. And one athletic director at a major Big 12 program, surprisingly, seems to think they should.

“Let them break away. We should break away from them,” said Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard to reporters this week, per Brett McMurphy. “Let them go, but they have to go in all their sports and see how fun it is to play baseball, softball and track when it’s just the 20 of you. That’s what I think we should do, but I’m one person & that’s probably a little more draconian.

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“That’s how I feel about it. Like, let’s quit talking about it. Quit threatening. Go do it. But if you’re going to do it, you don’t get to just do it in football and then keep all your other sports with us. No, take them all. See how fun it is.”

Sounds like relations between the two dominant superconferences and the rest of the P4 are in a great spot.

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Pollard is right, directionally, in that the Big Ten and SEC “need” the other conferences. But it’s also short sighted to act as though the Big 12 doesn’t need them too. There’s logic to all sides of the argument; the Big Ten and SEC provide the most value to college athletics, but there is value from Big 12 and ACC programs too. And with everyone grasping for a large slice of the pie, there’s bound to be disagreement over how best to distribute money or make more of it.

It would be stunning if the Big Ten and SEC broke away entirely. But it seems increasingly likely that Power Four does break away from the NCAA. It’s only a matter of time.