Congressman Dave Loebsack photographed on May 11 with Gaylen Jarrard of Jarrard Farm Corp. and Steve Falck of the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

Congressman Dave Loebsack went on a solar tour of Washington County yesterday.

The congressman’s tour included the solar installations at the WACO Community School District and at the Jarrard Farm in Washington. Loebsack shares his interest in solar energy, “This was something I wanted to do for a long time. I went to the local REC here when they were breaking ground for their big solar array, and so I’ve been trying to follow the progress of that. This is about renewable energy but it’s also about energy that is efficient, that’s good for the environment, and clearly it’s good for the bottom line of farmers. I went to the WACO school district to start out. You know, it just pays for itself, and within five years they’ve recaptured their initial investment, and then after that it’s basically free. I mean it’s amazing. These kinds of things I like to do, I like to have a rural focus, my district is largely rural, not entirely, and this is something where we can do a lot of things at the same time it seems to me.”

Congressman Dave Loebsack finished his solar energy tour of Washington County at Jarrard Farm Corp. Washington County has the most solar panels in the state of Iowa.

Loebsack also said the most important message for him is that solar energy is bipartisan. The tour was sponsored by the Iowa Solar Trade Association, the Environmental Law and Policy Center, the Iowa Environmental Council, and the Center for Rural Affairs.