http://media.www.dailyiowan.com/media/storage/paper599/news/2007/11/16/Metro/Iowa-In.Green.Pact-3107497.shtml
Iowa in green pact
By: Patrick Larkin - The Daily Iowan
Posted: 11/16/07
Five governors, including Iowa Gov. Chet Culver, and a Canadian premier signed a bill Thursday to reduce greenhouse gases in the Midwest. 

The accord is aimed to curb greenhouse gases by 60 to 80 percent by 2050, a goal that is on par with national environmental activists' standards. 

The Sierra Club, a national environmental organization, insists upon an 80 percent reduction by 2050.

"The threat of global warming is real, and it is our responsibility to take steps to reduce greenhouse gases," Culver said in a statement.

Culver, along with the governors of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Kansas, and the premier of Manitoba, signed the Midwestern Regional Greenhouse-Gas Reduction Accord Thursday in Milwaukee. The governors of South Dakota, Ohio, and Indiana also signed as observers.

Nathaniel Baer, energy program director of the Iowa Environmental Council, said the goal is "likely and realistic."

Details of the plan, including specific targets for gas reductions and accompanying timelines, will be chiseled out over a 30-month period, to be complete by May 2010.

In addition, the nine leaders, plus the governors of Nebraska and North Dakota, signed an Energy Security and Climate Stewardship Platform. 

The platform is intended to reduce sales of natural gas and electricity 2 percent by 2015 and 2 percent every year thereafter. It also aims to further integrate wind technology and establish a domestic fuel supply infrastructure for electricity, biofuels, hydrogen, and other low- and zero-carbon fuels.

Environmental activists were pleased with the pacts.

"This is pretty bold stuff," said Mike Carberry, the head of the Iowa City branch of the Sierra Club.

Carberry said the pacts "will boost Iowa's economy" by creating "green-collar jobs."

Baer said they will "speed our transition to a clean energy economy," and noted that the federal government should "step up and pass legislation."

Mark Kresowik, an organizer for the Sierra Club's Midwest Clean Energy Campaign, said that while the pact was a good first step, he said the Midwest has a long way to go.

Kresowik noted two proposed coal-fired power plants in Marshalltown and Waterloo, saying the plants threaten to undermine the pacts signed today. 

He said his campaign has called Culver about the plants on a weekly basis, and Culver is currently reviewing them.

If built, the plants would emit greenhouse gases equivalent to 1.6 million cars and create only 150 jobs, Kresowik said, comparing the plants to five recent wind-power plant projects in Iowa which he said will create upwards of 1,000 jobs.

E-mail DI reporter Patrick Larkin at:

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