“Where I see you going is for the status quo,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., told MidAmerican’s chief executive, William Fehrman, at a hearing Thursday. “The problem for you is that the status quo is about to change.”

Boxer leads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which is taking the lead in developing the Senate’s version of legislation that would require utilities, refiners and other companies to reduce carbon emissions. MidAmerican said it is following up on Boxer’s request to “work with us,” and is trying to schedule a meeting with her.

MidAmerican has been leading opposition among coal-dependent Midwest utilities to a cap-and-trade approach approved by the House that would set limits on emissions and require power companies to buy allowances, or credits, for emissions that can’t be eliminated through changing fuels, efficiency or other means.

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Watch the episode on Hulu here.

Critics say it will significantly boost electricity costs.

Supporters say it will curb global warming and only have a moderate impact on household budgets.

In a notice of inquiry Thursday, the board said it has had discussions with utilities, the state’s consumer advocate office and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, among others.

“It appears that Iowa utilities generally support the concept of a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions. However, they have a number of concerns with how allowances are allocated in the bill,” the notice says.

Allowances, essentially permits to emit carbon, are at the center of a trading market the legislation creates.

The House approved the bill last month on a 219-212 vote.

Rob Hillesland, a spokesman for the board, said an inquiry into a congressional proposal “is not typical.” But he said the idea is “to learn as much as possible, to gather information and know what the impacts might be in Iowa.”

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Ban decided from the moment he became U.N. secretary-general in January 2007 that “climate change should be the most important top-priority issue for the United Nations, for the entire world,” he said in an Associated Press interview this week.

Since then Ban says he has put “all my efforts and energy” into persuading nations to cut a new climate deal in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December, replacing the Kyoto Protocol for reducing greenhouse gases that expires in 2012.

“From day one, I have been trying to visit all the places around the world, wherever and whenever I was able to see the consequences of climate change,” he said. “Now, the United Nations is leading this campaign, in close coordination with the … major players.”

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The article took as its starting point the national debate that had arisen over a 29-year-old physicist named Amory Lovins, who had come to prominence a year earlier, when he published an essay in Foreign Affairs called “Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?” Lovins argued that the country had arrived at an important crossroads and could take one of two paths. The first, supported by U.S. policy at the time, promised a future of steadily increasing reliance on dirty fossil fuels and nuclear fission, and it carried serious environmental risks. At a time before Al Gore was even in Congress, Lovins noted: “The commitment to a long-term coal economy many times the scale of today’s makes the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration early in the next century virtually unavoidable, with the prospect then or soon thereafter of substantial and perhaps irreversible changes in global climate.” He dubbed this “the hard path.”

The alternative, which Lovins called “the soft path,” favored “benign” sources of renewable power like wind and the sun, along with a heightened commitment to meeting energy demands through conservation and efficiency. Such a heterodox blend of clean technologies, Lovins argued, would bring a host of salutary effects: a healthier environment, an end to our dependence on Middle East oil, a diminished likelihood of future wars over energy, and the foundation of a vibrant new economy.

Read the rest of The Atlantic article here.

The vote was 219-212, capping months of negotiations and days of intense bargaining among Democrats. Republicans were overwhelmingly against the measure, arguing it would destroy jobs in the midst of a recession while burdening consumers with a new tax in the form of higher energy costs. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the bill will cost households an additional $175 in energy costs in 2020.

The House’s action sent the measure to a highly uncertain fate in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was “hopeful that the Senate will be able to debate and pass bipartisan and comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation this fall.”

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We can put some basic prices on getting to those future scenarios, realizing that no scenario comes free. By doing some comparison shopping, it is clear that the best bargain in town is a clean-energy future, where we use resources such as wind, solar and energy efficiency and avoid the worst effects and costs of climate change. But this bargain is not available forever. We need to put the right energy and climate policies in place now to take advantage of it.

Moving to this clean-energy economy will require significant investments. These include an infrastructure of new technology, such as wind turbines, solar panels, new or retrofitted green buildings and passenger rail, as well as research, training and education. But these investments will generate real benefits, including new jobs, and avoid substantial costs associated with unabated climate change.

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Calls are important because it’s a clear signal that there is a strong demand for action; but if you haven’t yet, you can also use this link to send an email message: http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/Iowa_ACES

This could be the most important single minute you spend this week!

“This analysis underscores that this legislation is effective and affordable,” said Rep. Waxman. “It sets America on a course of energy independence while taking significant steps to reduce dangerous global warming pollution.”

“Americans know that building a clean energy economy has real value, and this CBO analysis proves it,” said Rep. Markey. “Low-income American families will see a $40 benefit from using more wind and solar energy and less foreign oil. And for the cost of about a postage stamp a day, all American families will see a return on their investment as our nation breaks our dependence on foreign oil, cuts dangerous carbon pollution and creates millions of new clean energy jobs that can’t be shipped overseas.”

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The single boldest stroke must come from Congress. The House and Senate are debating legislation that would impose either a cap-and-trade system or a tax on carbon emissions. Certain politicians and CEOs are trying to talk Congress out of it. Our representatives should dismiss the detractors and pass legislation, before November. That deadline is crucial: nations will meet in December in Copenhagen to hammer out new international agreements to limit emissions. The U.S., shamefully, has never signed such a protocol, and leaders worldwide have said, plainly, that the Copenhagen talks will fail if the U.S. does not enact legislation to clean up its own backyard.

Read the rest of the article at Scientific American.