President Barack Obama used a visit to Iowa on Earth Day to announce that his administration is establishing a program to authorize for the first time the leasing of federal waters for projects to generate electricity from wind as well as from ocean currents and other renewable sources.

"This will open the door to major investments in offshore clean energy," Obama said. "For example, there is enormous interest in wind projects off the coasts of New Jersey and Delaware, and today's announcement will enable these projects to move forward."

The program being established through the U.S. Department of Interior will develop the renewable-energy projects on the waters of the Outer Continental Shelf that produce electricity from wind, wave, and ocean currents. These regulations will enable the nation to tap into the ocean's sustainable resources to generate clean energy.

In a three-hour visit Wednesday, Obama toured and then spoke to an invitation-only crowd of about 200 at Trinity Structural Towers in Newton, the former Maytag appliance factory that now houses a green manufacturing facility producing towers for wind-energy production and employing dozens of former Maytag employees.

Hundreds of opponents and supporters of the Iowa Supreme Court's Varnum v. Brien decision legalizing same-sex marriage descended Thursday on the Iowa Capitol and watched as House Speaker Pat Murphy declined twice to call up a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman.

"Let us vote! Let us vote! Let us vote!" supporters of the Iowa Marriage Amendment shouted after the first attempt to bring the issue to the House floor was ruled out of order.

Advocates on both sides of the issue watched at about 9:30 a.m. as House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen made an attempt to bring House Joint Resolution 6 to the House floor.

The Iowa legislature's budget subcommittees worked this week to craft budgets for various areas of state government that would cut an average of 12 percent after state revenue estimates were lowered by $269.9 million next fiscal year, making layoffs almost a certainty.

Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal called the decline in state revenues "the worst I've ever seen" in 27 years in the legislature and said everything is at risk of being cut.

"I wouldn't say there's anything off the table," said Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs). "These are incredibly challenging times. ... We will do, probably in some cases, across-the-board stuff. We will also make selective cuts."

More budget cuts are on the way in Iowa after the three-member Revenue Estimating Conference (REC) on Friday lowered estimates of state revenues by $129.7 million this fiscal year and $269.9 million next fiscal year.

"The economy continues to falter," said Holly Lyons, director of the Legislative Services Agency's fiscal services division. "We're witnessing more layoffs. We're witnessing reduced hours and furloughs. We may not even be halfway through this recession."

The lowered revenue estimates, combined with the $700-million budget gap the state already had for Fiscal Year 2010, make for a $1.1-billion gap between expenses and revenues over the next 15 months, according to Representative Scott Raecker (R-Urbandale), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee.