Harkin: Energy bill hurts Midwest states

Sen. Tom Harkin reaffirmed his support for climate change legislation Thursday, but said the House-passed Clean Energy Act disproportionately hurt some of our Midwest states."

"I'm for a climate bill. We got to reduce CO2 emissions, but my bottom line is that the burden has to be fairly distributed ... so energy producers share the burden equally," Harkin said.

The House bill puts an unfair burden on Midwest coal-burning states, like Iowa, and energy producers in those states.

MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company President David Sokol testified before Congress earlier this year that the climate change bill's cap-and-trade system is really two concepts, one of which will be costly to electric consumers.

He backed the emissions caps called for in the legislation. The electricity sector can meet the interim and ultimate caps of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050, Sokol said

However, the bill's trading mechanism "will impose a huge and unacceptable double cost on customers," he said. They will have to pay for emission allowances, "which will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one ounce," Sokol said, and then for construction of low- and zero-carbon power plants needed to actually meet the new caps.

After a Wednesday meeting with Carol Browner, who advises President Obama on energy and climate change, Harkin arranged a meeting of MidAmerican Energy with administration officials.

"There is a recognition on (the White House's) part that companies like MidAmerican are caught in a bind and so are the consumers that are part of their distribution network," Harkin said.

MidAmerican, he noted, has done a great job of venturing into wind energy production.

"Yet because we've been burning coal, we don't have the hydro-electric resources that some other parts of the country have enjoyed for a long time," Harkin said. "I might point out that those hydro resources were built by taxpayer dollars from Iowa and other states and yet we don't get the majority of those benefits."

Harkin expects the Senate to take up the issue after completing work on health care reform.