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May 15, 2025 |  By: Associated Press

Iowa lawmakers want to be the center of next year's celebration of the nation's 250th birthday

Iowa lawmakers want President Donald Trump to know that their state is eager to be at the center of next year’s celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday and shares his vision of fireworks filling the skies — so much so that they don’t want local officials blocking any small, neighborhood displays.

The Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill this week that would ban local limits on people setting off their own rockets, mortars, aerial spinners and Roman candles on July 3 or 4, or Dec. 31. There was nothing to stop big, public shows — say, a Fourth of July display as part of Trump’s proposed “Great American State Fair” in Iowa’s capital of Des Moines — but a relative handful of cities, including Des Moines, haven’t allowed people to shoot them off, even on the nation’s birthday or New Year’s Eve.

The bill headed to Republican Gov. Kim Reynold’s desk after the state House approved it Tuesday, 51-39, with the GOP majority overriding Democrats’ concerns that it could undermine fire safety or harm military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Des Moines and at least six of its suburbs, as well as the cities of Ames, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque bar people from setting off their own fireworks even on Independence Day.

Iowa banned consumer sales of fireworks for decades, spurred on by a June 1931 fire that engulfed about 100 buildings in the small town of Spencer, which started with a sparkler at a drugstore. However, in 2017, Iowa lawmakers allowed cities and counties to license firework sellers and allow people to set off fireworks from June 1 through July 8 and from Dec. 10 through Jan. 3.

Iowa state health department data shows that in 2017, the number of fireworks-related emergency room visits in Iowa nearly doubled from 2016 and remained higher than pre-legalization levels through 2023. The state associations for fire marshals, fire chiefs, firefighters and emergency managers, opposed the fireworks law, as did the Iowa League of Cities.