HF2399: Iowa's Stifling of Innovation by Paul Deaton
"These
assertions and arguments are bought and sold by MidAmerican Energy and
the electric utilities, reflecting their power to persuade." The nuclear power study bill, HF2399, sped through the Iowa legislature at breakneck speed, passing the Iowa House on March 2 with a vote of 91-7 and passing the Iowa Senate on March 9 with a vote of 37-13. It is “an act requiring (among other things) certain rate regulated public utilities to undertake analyses of and preparation for the possible construction of low carbon emitting nuclear generating facilities in this state.” There were no amendments to the house bill in the senate, so the measure will be heading to the Governor Culver’s desk soon. While Culver has an option to veto the bill, MidAmerican Energy wrote the bill language and was a financial supporter of the Culver-Judge campaign, so he is expected to sign HF2399 into law. The majority rules and powerful interests persuade in politics. I am okay with that because in the end, what choice do we have?
What is disappointing is not that the bill passed or that the legislature sees nuclear power as a viable part of Iowa’s energy future. Where the legislators fell short is in their vision about Iowa’s future. This bill is not only about electricity generation.
Senator Behn of Boone County typified the vapidity of the bill’s supporters. Behn said, “Iowa needs coal. Iowa needs nuclear. HF2399 is one of the best bills we will run this session.” Senator Hartsuch of Scott County asserted that the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada site would be a "workable solution" for nuclear waste disposal. Senator Feenstra of Sioux County said that “we shouldn’t bury our head in the sand, we need baseload energy,” asserting that Iowa should work with President Obama, increasing the baseload of electricity generated from nuclear power. These assertions and arguments are bought and sold by MidAmerican Energy and the electric utilities, reflecting their power to persuade. Proponents of the bill had the votes, and were not listening to the arguments of progressives like Senators Bolkcom and Hogg when they argued for a different and better view of Iowa’s future. The majority damned Senator Hogg’s amendments with faint praise.
It is easy to understand why young Iowans are leaving the state in droves. We can see the lack of innovation when our elected officials support a de facto tax to fund a study that offers no long term solutions to Iowa’s problems. We can see the lack of creativity when a majority of legislators fund a study that will create few jobs in Iowa and walk away from the potential of creating new jobs related to meeting the demand for electricity. The majority that supported HF2399 is divided along ideological lines, not party lines.
Why would young people stake their future on a state where the prevailing attitude is one of stifling what is best about being young? The failure of this legislature to foster innovation and creativity in addressing Iowa’s challenges is one more reason for people to seek better opportunities elsewhere. It is one more example of the harshness of living in the post-Reagan era.
~Paul
Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend
editor of Blog for Iowa. He is also a member of Iowa Physicians for
Social Responsibility and Veterans for Peace.E-mail Paul Deaton
**BFIA ACTION ALERT**
Call and ask Governor Culver to stop the legislature from stifling creativity and innovation in Iowa by vetoing HF 2399. His phone # is 515-281-5211.
HF 2399: A Gift From Iowans to Warren Buffet by Paul Deaton
"There
is a real need to reduce Iowa's carbon footprint and nuclear energy may play a role. Rather than ask MidAmerican Energy to repeat the
past, the legislature should look north to Canada and invest in
the future." Should Iowa rate payers provide Warrant Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway and MidAmerican Energy Holdings $15 million to check out nuclear power for Iowa? The Iowa House said we should, approving HF 2399 in a 91-7 vote on March 2. In fact, HF 2399 would require “certain rate regulated public utilities to undertake analyses of and preparation for the possible construction of low carbon emitting nuclear generating facilities in this state…” I can imagine MidAmerican President William Fehrman saying something like, “sure, we could do that, but it will cost you.”
Why would Iowans want to spend money to do this study, when MidAmerican recently did a similar study and found that nuclear energy was not financially viable?
In December 2007, Berkshire Hathaway, turned its back on nuclear power. According to the Institute of Science in Society, “MidAmerican Nuclear Energy Company scrapped plans to build a plant in Payette, Idaho, because no matter how many times the managers ran the numbers, and they have already spent $13 million doing so, they found they could not balance the books.” So if MidAmerican Energy Holdings, in which Berkshire Hathaway holds an 89.5% interest, found nuclear energy to be untenable in Idaho then, why would it be tenable in Iowa today? If the sage of Omaha found nuclear power to be a bad investment, then why does the Iowa legislature persist in advancing this bill? I don’t agree with a lot of things Warren Buffet says and does, but on this one, he seems smarter than many Iowa legislators.
The Iowa legislature may be reacting to the need to decrease carbon emissions in Iowa. This is a real need, and nuclear energy may play a role in reducing Iowa’s carbon footprint. Rather than ask MidAmerican Energy to repeat the untenable past, the legislature should look north to Canada and invest in the future.
The province of Ontario, Canada understands what needs to be done to protect the environment and protect human health from the deleterious effects of burning coal. The government of Ontario had the political will to recognize the negative effects of coal on humans and to legislate the elimination of coal-fired power generating plants by the year 2014. Ontario is on track to be one of the first jurisdictions in the world to eliminate coal-fired electricity generation. They will be accomplishing this by using a mix of energy sources, including renewables. Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act also addresses the transmission grid that delivers electricity from the generation points to customers.
If a person hangs out with electricians, what we learn is that Iowa’s initial investment in wind energy took place in what T. Boone Pickens called the “wind corridor” in central and western Iowa. What we are seeing now is that wind turbines are being built in locations where the wind is not optimal for power generation. Why? To avoid additional transmission expense by locating the turbines closer to the grid. More important than nuclear power is updating the electrical grid.
What the Iowa legislature has done in HF 2399 is concoct a way for rate payers to spend $15 million on a study, the end result of which might be to replace what electricians call the “baseload” of coal power with a “baseload” of nuclear power. Even though we already know that nuclear power is very expensive, too expensive, according to Warren Buffet. HF 2399 ignores one of the most important aspects of making Iowa energy independent, investing in expanding our electricity grid to make it “smart.” The "smart grid" is another post for another time.
As the bill rushes through the shortened legislative session and hits the Senate next week, we should urge our Senators to vote no on HF 2399. Instead, the legislature should take real steps to move Iowa towards energy independence and reduce our carbon footprint. A dalliance with nuclear power studies and a company that has been around the block before may sound like romance, but when we think about it, one wonders about the relationship.
~Paul
Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend
editor of Blog for Iowa. He is also a member of Iowa Physicians for
Social Responsibility and Veterans for Peace.E-mail Paul Deaton
**BFIA ACTION ALERT**
To Locate your Iowa State Senator Click Here. Ask him/her to vote no on HF 2399.
"Residents
understood the influence of prevailing wind, geography and the impact
of the many industrial plants in the area... People seemed resigned to the fact that a life with
middle class problems will go on."
Within the plume of emissions from Grain Processing Corporation and thirteen other Muscatine County point source emitters permitted by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, a group of us met with more than eighty residents yesterday at the Garfield Elementary School Gymnasium to discuss air quality.
HD-80 Representative Nathan Reichert organized the meeting and sent invitations to area residents. The panel consisted of Representative Reichert, Dr. Maureen McCue and myself from Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility, Patrick O’Shaughnessy from the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health of the University of Iowa, Leland Searles from the Iowa Environmental Council and Jim McGraw of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Air Quality Bureau. The meeting went from 1:00 PM until 4:30 PM and the audience remained engaged throughout. The corporate media was less engaged, with one local television station covering the meeting. He left after 45 minutes and was apparently not there to cover most of the information presented by the panelists.
My participation was brief, framing the discussion after Representative Reichert made introductions and answering a couple of questions at the end. The residents seemed to understand that the air quality in Muscatine is and has been bad for a number of years. There were no real answers to the question “what can we do about it?”
There were other issues on people’s minds. Residents were concerned that the Garfield Elementary School, where the air quality monitor is situated, would be closed and consolidated by the school board. I was asked whether specific community health problems had been caused by emissions from the GPC plant that locked workers out back in 2008 in a contract dispute. Some residents left during the course of the meeting, and at the end about 35 remained to socialize with the panelists and each other before returning home. Residents understood the influence of prevailing wind, geography and the impact of the many industrial plants in the area. They understood that continuing to live in Muscatine may present health problems because of the air quality. People seemed resigned to the fact that a life with middle class problems will go on.
The area surrounding the school includes industry, railroad tracks servicing industry and small houses with about 1,000 square feet of living space. It is a working class neighborhood that seems to be drifting into poverty, where residents have few options to get out. Representative Reichert encouraged them to organize as a community and hopefully they will. Banding together to deal with poor air quality may be their best hope in a world that easily could forget them after the panelists and the PowerPoint presentations are gone.
An Iowa Interview with Appalachian Voices by Julia Wasson
"Iowa City resident
Julia Wasson, publisher of Blue Planet Green Living (BPGL), recently spoke with Dr. Matt Wasson, Director of
Programming for Appalachian Voices about the fallacy that is 'clean coal.' Matt Wasson and Julia Wasson are first
cousins."
In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama mentioned that the United States needs “continued investment in…clean coal technologies.” According to Matt Wasson and other experts, when you look at the entire process, from mountaintop removal through burning and coal ash disposal,there is no such thing as clean coal. Here is the interview:
BPGL: What sparked your interest in the environment?
WASSON: I am someone who loves being outside. When I was living in the Pacific Northwest in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the old growth forests were being cut at a phenomenal rate. I just loved forests, and that was a huge motivating factor to go down that path. Then I fell in love with the mountains in the east, when I came out here for grad school.
BPGL: You were involved in the cleanup of Prince William Sound after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. How did you get involved in that?
WASSON: I didn’t actually work to clean up the spill, but worked on a team studying its aftermath — specifically, the spill’s impacts on sea bird populations. I got the job through one of my professors at the University of Washington. After the first summer working on a remote island out in the Gulf of Alaska, I was pretty much hooked on biology.
BPGL: After you earned your Ph.D. in ecology from Cornell University, what did you do then?
WASSON: I actually started at Appalachian Voices several weeks before handing in my dissertation, and I’ve been working here ever since. I knew I wanted to do environmental work, and I really fell in love with the eastern mountains when I was doing my dissertation work out in the middle of the Adirondacks in New York. As it turned out, my research on air pollution’s impacts on birds and other wildlife provided an excellent background for working at Appalachian Voices — at that time, fighting air pollution in the mountains was our signature issue.
BPGL: What is the nature of your work at Appalachian Voices?
WASSON: I have been at Appalachian Voices for the last eight years. Currently, I am the director of programs. I oversee our campaigns to reduce air pollution, protect water quality, end mountaintop removal coal mining, and promote energy efficiency and renewable energy development in the mountains. I am blessed to have my dream job here. I can focus on the things I really love doing and that I am really good at.
BPGL: There is no mountaintop mining in North Carolina. Why did Appalachian Voices choose that location for your main office, with all the mountaintop removal going on elsewhere?
WASSON: Mountaintop removal is a very small part of what Appalachian Voices worked on back in 1998, when the organization first formed. We’ve been building this national campaign over the years and really found our niche because nobody else was focused on passing federal legislation. We started doing it because we knew it was the right thing to do; over time, it has become our signature issue.
...to continue reading the entire article, click here.
HF 2100: The Risks of Nuclear Power Belong to Iowansby Paul Deaton
"Who pays for the real possibility of failure or cost overruns? The answer is you, me and every utility customer."
The last electrical utility bill we received at our house was unexpectedly high. No doubt this is due to my recent retirement, more computer time, more cooking on our electric range and keeping more lights on in the early hours of morning. Even though the bill was double what we expected, we could afford it. The cost of electricity on the power bill is cheap.
We are customers of a Rural Electric Cooperative and it is hard to say where the electricity comes from. When a substation in Ohio went out last year, our lights went out. I suspect that the fuels that generate our electricity are a mix of mostly coal with some natural gas, nuclear fission and wind. The electric utilities are reasonably reliable in providing the service, so we don’t think much about electricity or where it comes from. Maybe we should.
The Iowa legislature is considering HF 2100 which in its current version contains language that would provide incentives to electric utilities (Section 1, Paragraph 5) to build nuclear power plants in Iowa. The incentives would enable them to recover their costs in the event a nuclear power plant was designed, partially built, was litigated against and/or the plant did not go on line.
There
is significant risk in building the first nuclear power generating
plant approved since the 1970s and the Iowa legislature is, in the
language of HF2100, removing the financial risks from the
electric utility who might build a nuclear reactor in Iowa. Who pays
for the real possibility of failure or cost overruns? The answer is
you, me and every utility customer. In any business venture, the business owner takes risks in going to market and the customer pays for the product or service and everything involved with developing it. According to the U. S. Energy Information Agency, “there has been no new order for a nuclear power plant since the 1970s. The last nuclear plant to be completed went on line in 1996. A few, perhaps four, construction licenses are still valid or are being renewed for half-completed reactors, but there are no active plans to finish these reactors.” The trouble with nuclear reactors is that the risk of failure or of cost overruns for a new plant is too high. That's why electric utilities in Iowa want the incentives in HF2100. That's also why Iowans should be concerned with the legislation.
The Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives has registered for the bill on the lobbyist web site. If I was an electric utility and could avoid the financial risk of my nuclear power generating plant not getting finished, running over on costs, or facing litigation from any source, I would favor the bill too. It would be a sweetheart deal.
While the powerful interests in Des Moines influence the legislation that is considered, the role of the legislature should be to consider a bigger picture of achieving energy independence for Iowa with an electrical utility system structured to meet the needs of Iowans in terms of risk, costs and the environment. I
am a citizen who buys the electricity for my home and have to rely on
the Iowa Utilities Board and the legislature to protect my interests. This may be too much to ask.
As an alternative, let’s hope HF2100 does not make it out of the Commerce Committee through the funnel until all of the risks and costs are better understood. I urge you to contact your elected officials and tell them as much.
Here is a link
to find your legislator. Please let them know how you feel about HF2100.
"If we care about sustainability and energy
independence, we should urge our elected officials in Des Moines to vote no on
SF464."
Once a year I try to get to Des Moines to visit my elected
officials in the legislature. As a citizen, my interests are many, and I lack
confidence that third parties can represent my interests as well as I can do it
myself. This is a native American impulse and the scourge of organized
religion, labor unions, trade associations and community organizing groups. If
everyone felt this way, and participated in our democracy directly, we would
have less need for third parties and our government would be much more
representative of the people. If you want to read more about my experience in
Des Moines, check out my blog, Big
Grove Garden.
Iowa lawmakers will be considering SF464 this session, a
bill that would require, among other things, a five percent blend of B5
biodiesel to be sold at all diesel fuel outlets in Iowa. The preamble to the bill
seems simple enough, “An Act relating to motor fuel, by providing for a
biodiesel quality standard for energy security andsustainability,ethanol blended gasoline and biodiesel blended fueldesignations
and tax credits, penalties, and effective dates.” Already the powerful
interests are lining up on this one.
One thing about the Iowa legislature is that they provide
a list of all of the lobbyists and where they stand on specific bills. I
met Steve Falck who represents Renewable Energy Group, a registered biodiesel
industry lobbyist, and supporter of SF464. He seemed well versed on many of the
issues pro and con on this bill and was enthusiastic about its prospects. According
to Falck, the largest buyers of biodiesel in the state are truckstop operators and
they are against the bill. They don’t like mandates.
Falck gave me a copy of a letter dated December 10, 2009
from the American Lung Association supporting the bill, which asserted, “the
average diesel school bus emits nearly twice as much pollution per mile than a
big rig truck, and the type of pollution they emit is particularly harmful to
children, who have a higher respiration rate than adults, and immune systems
that are not fully developed.” He also indicated that Iowa becoming energy
independent was a national security issue and this bill would help keep dollars
in Iowa that are currently going to oil producing nations. He had a couple of
cogent talking points, which he had obviously rehearsed. If I didn’t know
better, I would have thought he was trying to scare me into supporting the
bill, talking about children and national security that way.
The American Lung Association letter was somewhat deceptive
with its focus on school buses. Their facts seem accurate, and using
pollution-reducing fuels in school buses is a no-brainer from a health of
children standpoint. As far as school buses are concerned, why not compressed
natural gas as an alternative to both diesel and bio-diesel? This is what other
communities are doing to control emissions, especially in urban centers. For
that matter, why a 5% blend in school buses instead of 100% bio-fuels if we want
a bio-fuels mandate? Another question is if school buses are to be a focus, then
why implement a legislative mandate when the same result could be achieved
through other administrative channels without it? The answer is it’s about the
biofuels industry and their lobbyists in Des Moines like Mr. Falck.
SF464 is a corruption of what it means to seek energy
independence for Iowa and to be sustainable. The most significant thing the
Iowa legislature could do to help move towards energy independence would be to
find ways to produce electricity with non-food fuel stocks. To a large extent,
this means stopping the flow of dollars out of the state to buy coal from the
Powder River Basin of Wyoming. It also means supporting development of enzymes
that can metabolize non-food plant products like corn stover to produce
cellulosic ethanol. What appears to be
foremost in the biofuels industry is locking in their sales through legislative
mandate by passing SF464. If we care about sustainability and energy
independence, we should urge our elected officials in Des Moines to vote no on
SF464.
Here is a link
to find your legislator. Please let them know how you feel about SF464.
Copenhagen Talks Extended to the Weekend by Simeon Talley
The Final Day
Update: TALKS JUST EXTENDED TO THE WEEKEND
So much has happened while so little real progress has been made.
Obama’s speech essentially reiterated the US’s already stated position – mitigation commitments by all major economies, transparency by both developing and developed countries alike and $10 billion in the short term, $100 billion in the long-term by 2020 for climate finance. The speech was primarily directed at the Chinese. The president didn’t say anything new. The 17% number has not moved and he didn’t specify what the US contribution would be to the climate finance fund. In talking with journalist and delegates from developing countries, that’s exactly what they wanted to hear. The speech is being interpreted as take it or leave, which may play well with the domestic audience but has not gone over well here.
After the speech Obama met with Chinese president Wen Jenbao, no word on the outcome. Ban Ki-Moon just asked requested to extend the conference into the weekend. This could mean two things – we are close to an agreement but leaders need some more time or not enough progress has been made on the last day. This meeting with 193 representatives from each country and over 100 heads of state in attendance is becoming a bi-lateral meeting between China and the US. For all we know right now, the Chinese have not agreed to the American proposal.
There’s a draft text that was leaked early this morning that shows how far apart from consensus countries really are. Very, very troubling.
It’s late afternoon here in Copenhagen, there was a scheduled signing ceremony for 3pm. Everyone is still waiting, still guessing as to what will happen. The pessimism is growing.
The scene inside the Bella Center is frenetic. Hundreds of journalists are all trying to piece this puzzle together. You find TV cameras stalked outside meeting rooms, where they don’t know who’s inside, but whomever they are they want that quintessential shot.
On the final day the process of negotiations have moved from talks between delegates to direct communication between heads of states. As I write this, President Obama is in talks with other leaders over the remaining unresolved issues. Cnn’s Ed Henry tweeted that President Obama has scuttled his schedule and is in a meeting with Ethiopia (representing China) Russia, South Africa, India, Mexico, Spain, South Korea, Norway and Columbia. Accompanying President Obama to Copenhagen is a renewed sense of optimism for the prospects of success at COP15.
We know where the fault lines lie. Essentially where we were two weeks ago - emission cuts that would limit temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius by 2020, climate finance and if developed countries like China, India and Brazil will agree to a system of international monitoring and verification. Whatever form of the final deal, it must include a nod towards or even a better, a specific timeline or deadline for a legally binding agreement.
What do we know now in the eleventh hour? These types of talks will proceed in the future on a two-track process – a Kyoto Protocol track and a long-term cooperative agreement track. The G-77 favors the KP route, while the US along with other developed countries tried and failed to remove the Kyoto negotiating process from the Copenhagen proceedings. We know that China can nix any final deal it doesn’t approve of but, that the Chinese position has slightly softened. That African nations long distrustful of the US in these types of proceedings effectively elevated their issues and concerns in Copenhagen. And that President Obama will have to charm and cajole this international body forward or risk another major embarrassment in Copenhagen.
No one, I mean no one really knows that the outcome of all of this will be. However most are hoping for success.
Simeon Talley is a student at the University of Iowa studying International Politics. Check out Simeon's blog for more updates from Copenhagen.
The climate change talks taking place in Copenhagen are on life support. One week in to the conference, and with one week to go, progress towards a worthwhile climate change deal has been slow. In order to salvage COP15, negotiators will have to double down in order to reach a deal.
Monday’s major news was a group of African nations walking out on negotiations and in dramatic fashion - late in the evening hour - chose to come back to the negotiating table. Last week it was reported that the Danish government had met with a group of rich nations including the US outside of the formal process and agreed to a draft “text” - a text that could eventually become the agreement that the Copenhagen conference produces. Several poor nations were angered by what they perceived as a backdoor deal that favored rich nations. The mood has been sour and souring ever since, culminating in today’s walkout.
The walkout by African nations would have made a Copenhagen deal impossible and it reflects long held divisions. Organized as the G-77, developing nations want developed nations to commit to 40-45% emissions reductions from 1990 levels by 2020. And if you’ve been following international negotiations at all, you know that developed countries so far committed, have committed to considerably less. The US’s commitment to 17% reduction from 2005 levels by 2020, is estimated to be only a 3-4% reduction from 1990 CO2 levels. And hell is more likely to freeze over before a change in US position.
G-77 countries want more ambition by way of emission reductions and adaptation financing. So far, developed countries haven’t budged. The US still hasn’t committed to a specific amount it will pay towards climate financing, funds to help poor countries adapt to the negative effects of climate change. With one week to go and only two days until heads of state start to roll in, negotiators have to find a way to reach consensus in order for the Copenhagen conference to have a positive outcome.
China, as a developing nation, is also a part of the G-77 grouping. But this morning’s report of impasse over verification, shows the complexity of China’s status as a poor developing nation and continued differences with the US.
In many respects, poorer nations and nations closest to actual climate disaster like small-island states, are playing a moral role in negotiations. The country of Tuvalu - a small-island state only two meters above sea level – has repeatedly called on rich nations (read the US) to do more. The president made an impassioned plea to conference delegates to agree to a binding deal, which limits the amount of CO2 to the levels the IPCC has said, is needed. Such a deal is likely out of reach at this point.
An EU Commissioner characterized the atmosphere as “frozen.” And that’s a fairly accurate description of where we stand currently.
Simeon Talley is a student at the University of Iowa studying International Politics. Check out Simeon's blog for more updates from Copenhagen.
*IBLTV is a group of citizens from the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area who are concerned about the decline in the quality of local television. Fight local media consolidation, as it leads to an unaccountable medium that enriches itself while disregarding the need to serve the public good.
*The rational counter to 'The Point,' 'The Counterpoint' critiques and corrects the daily editorial by Sinclair Broadcasting's corporate vice president, Mark Hyman, that is broadcast on all Sinclair-owned television stations across the country
