[Tricia Kitzmann]- Welcome to the ninth installment of "Building Health Equity Webinar Series: Renewable Energy Equity Practices in Iowa." Today's objectives will be discuss how renewable energies and health equity are connected, learn about the public health impacts of current renewable power sources, explore how health departments can promote and advocate for renewable energy using the health equity lens. I'm Tricia Kitzmann. I am a program coordinator with the Institute for Public Health Practice at the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa. Just to go through some housekeeping items, this is being done by Zoom, it's being recorded for your viewing pleasure later, or feel free to share with others in your department, or other partners, if you wanna share the video afterwards. You'll be muted for the most of the meeting. Feel free, however, to put any questions either in the chat that can be located at the bottom of your screen, or in the Q&A section, as well. And we will be monitoring those throughout the session. So, again, don't feel like you have to wait 'til the end of the webinar today to ask your questions. We'll be available throughout. Myself, Cynthia, and Natalie will be monitoring those. If you have any questions, or having, excuse me, technical difficulties, you can message Natalie or Cynthia if you're having any issues. You can also feel free to introduce yourself in the chat. Tell us a little bit about who you are, which department or where you're from, and which organization you work with. I will go ahead and turn it over to our guest speakers and have them introduce themselves, and then we'll move into the question answering session. And again, feel free to put information into the chat. Any questions to everyone, direct message Natalie, myself, or Cynthia, or put questions in the Q&A. David, I'll start off with you.

[David Osterberg]- Well, hello everybody. My name is David Osterberg, and I'm an emeritus professor in occupational environmental health out of the College of Public Health, where Tricia and Cynthia and Natalie are. I taught a class on climate change, so, that's an issue that I've been interested in for a very long time, and worked for a not-for-profit for a time, as well. And when it comes to equity, at least, well, I go back a ways. So, in 1978, I fought a coal-fired power plant, the Louisa Generating Station on the Mississippi near Muscatine. At the time, I was an economics professor at Cornell College, and I was the best they could find to intervene in this process of telling the company the plant was too big, therefore more pollution, but also, the plant was too big, which means you're going to put more costs on people, including low-income people. And so, I was actually advocating for both the environment and for low-income people. In 1978, so it's a while ago.

[Tricia]- That's awesome. Thanks, David. Kerri.

[Kerri Johannsen]- Hello, I'm Kerri Johannsen. I'm the energy program director with the Iowa Environmental Council. I am a native Iowan, grew up on a farm in northeast Iowa, and have been working on energy policy in various venues for about 15 years. So, the Iowa Environmental Council is a statewide nonprofit. We have over a hundred, both other organizations and businesses are members of the council. And so, we really serve to bring together a lot of people and coalitions around advocacy. We also strive to be a trusted voice to relay, you know, science-based information to the public, and translate that into policy for folks. So, I'm very excited to be a part of the webinar today. Thank you.

[Tricia]- Wonderful. Welcome both, and thank you for taking time today to spend with us and share your expertise. I know you both have touched on this a little bit during your introductions, but I wanna at least offer an opportunity to add any additional information you would like. Is there any additional information about your background? How did you get into this work or in this area? And what, specifically, do you do? What's your day-to-day look like? David, we'll kick it off with you. No, you wanna kick it off with Kerri? Perfect, that's fine too.

[Kerri]- Sure, yeah, no, I mean, I really got into this work, as I mentioned, you know, my, you know, growing up on a farm, I really felt like there's this immense opportunity between, you know, the future of agriculture and the future of renewable energy that just seemed to really go hand-in-hand as, like, an environmentalist from, you know, elementary school in the 1980s, that really just resonated with me when I was in graduate school at the University of Minnesota, and decided to take this path forward, where it seemed like it just intersected these two things that were really close to my heart, you know, both the environment and agriculture in the state of Iowa. And so, you know, that's how I ended up here. And, you know, I also, like I said, I've worked in a variety of different places. So, I spent some time with the US Senate Agriculture Committee out in Washington, D.C., helped to pass the 2008 Farm Bill, which was just, I think, the second bill that actually even had an energy portion included in it in terms of a Farm Bill. I've worked for the Office of Energy Independence when that was an independent state agency in Iowa. And I spent about six years working for our utility regulatory commission, the Iowa Utilities Board, and then I, as sort of their legislative liaison, and then doing analysis and cases before the board. And then, I've been with IEC, now, for about six years, which is super hard to believe, but time flies and, yeah. So, on a day-to-day basis, I mean, we have a really wide variety of things that we work on. And on the energy front, our goal is to see Iowa transition to 100% clean electricity by 2035. We know that the International Panel on Climate Change says that that is what needs to be done in order to meet some of the emissions reductions goals we have for greenhouse gas emissions and to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. And so, we take a variety of tactics with that. You know, we have lawyers who intervene in cases at the utilities board and elsewhere. We have advocates who are out organizing people around the state, both digital, you know, through digital means and in-person events. We have our 100% Iowa project, which is really focused on that outward-facing, you know, educating people about renewable energy. We do a wide variety of publications. And so, I spend a lot of time sort of just thinking about our overall strategy, you know, helping my colleagues figure out how all of these different pieces fit together into our, into, you know, reaching our larger vision. And I also have primary responsibility for our state legislative work on the energy side. So, that's something that definitely, starting this week, everyone is thinking a lot about. I'll pass it over to David.

[David]- Yeah, Kerri's done a lot, and actually, she and I worked together on a, along with Peter Thorne, who's used to be the head of OEH and the College of Public Health. And the three of us did a paper on wind energy, and whether or not there were health effects from the noise made by these turbines, both the sound and the infrasound were too low to perceive. And so, it was equity in some sense, 'cause it was us against a whole bunch of neighbors, which was a position I wasn't usually in, because, generally, I'd be with the neighbors fighting confined animal feeding operations. So, in our experience is such that you take the job that comes along, and try to find out pieces in that that bring science to bear on these questions. And especially when it comes to climate change, we've gotta up our game and get to 100% renewables very, very soon, or you guys who are younger watching us are gonna have a much worse life than you should have.

[Tricia]- Thank you both, I appreciate it. And again, you've both done a lot of work, so that's very exciting, and I'm very grateful to have you here today. What does the path towards renewable energy look like for the state of Iowa? So, we wanna be clean energy, but what's that look like for us from where we are now? Well, where we've been, where we are now, and how do we get there in the future?

[David]- Yeah, let me start with that, because, again, I go back a ways. Turns out that the first renewable requirement, the first mandate that said, "Utility companies, you've gotta have renewable power." The first one came out of Iowa, came out of Iowa in 1983. And I'm not saying that's the reason, but Iowa also produces an awful lot of renewable electricity. Depending on the year, it's 50%, anyway, of all the kilowatt hours generated in the state come from wind. Some more, now, coming from solar, as well. So, Iowa has a lot of experience in policy, public policy, that helped lead towards more renewable energy. And, as Kerri said, the goals are to go a whole lot further than we are now. We need to close a whole bunch of coal plants, and that's what they're dedicated to.

[Kerri]- Yeah, I mean, I think that for Iowa, like David said, we've really been an exceptional leader, and, you know, I think in recent years, actually, I think we've hit about 60% now, like, in a really good year, maybe that was 2020. And so, that's fantastic. I think that where we're at now, though, is that we are in a place where, so, what happens next? Because we know that what we need to do is to achieve, you know, renewable energy, or, you know, carbon-free electricity providing power around the clock, 24/7. And so, right now, the way things are set up, you sort of have, like, a great deal of wind energy production at certain times of the day, you know, when it's very robust, and then you might have, like, it falls off during other times of the day, and then it peaks back up again. You know, luckily, Iowa is part of a larger network, you know, connected by transmission lines across the Midwest, where we buy and sell power, and we can ship this energy around the region. And so, when we think about how do we actually get rid of the remaining fossil fuels that are on the system, which, in Iowa, is primarily coal, we don't have a lot of fossil gas, natural gas, fired plants still on the system. There's a big one in Marshalltown that's pretty new, but most of the others are relatively small. We do have a lot of coal left in the state of Iowa, and we, you know, people hopefully, you know, and I can speak more about that, but I think people are aware of, you know, some of the health risks and impacts that come with burning coal for electricity. And so, there are other complementary technologies that need to be invested in. So wind, you know, will always be important, and expansion of wind will continue to happen in Iowa, and should, needs to happen. But we also need to invest, you know, have increased investments in solar energy. The two are very complementary. You know, you'll get a lot more wind energy at night, solar obviously during the day, right? And then, also seasonally, so, wind produces better in the winter, and solar in the summer, so they're actually wonderfully complementary. And in addition to that, storage. Being able to store these energy technologies for later use is super important. The final piece of that is really transmission lines. So, as I mentioned earlier, you know, it may be a really, really windy day in Iowa, but say, like, you know, in Michigan, it's very still. So, we have a lot of wind energy to export over to Michigan on that day, and then on another day, maybe, you know, maybe we're importing solar energy from Louisiana. You know, it's having that really robust, interconnected grid is also a super important part of it.

[David]- And maybe to bring, since nobody said "equity" for a minute or two.

[Kerri]- Yeah.

[David]- When you think about coal-fired power plants, those who suffer the pollution more tend to be lower income and people of color. And there's actually a nice new study, 2019, by someone named Kowalski for the Energy News Network, that finds that black families, much greater rate of, than the, you know, the average family, suffering coal pollution. So, that's inequity. Closing down coal plants, which is related to renewable, 'cause you wanna replace them with renewable, but that is an equity issue, as well. And, you know, the stuff we're certainly gonna talk about, the, sort of, the Biden-Harris programs on energy include environmental justice. There's this notion that 40% of what we do is supposed to go to disadvantaged communities, and that is also a way that you do energy, making it better, but also think about equity, as well, because not every renewable program is gonna be real good for low-income people. Buy a brand new solar and a brand new electric car? No, not a lot of low-income people are gonna be able to pay for that. And so, that subsidy, which can be up to $7,500 off the price of a car, which is a bunch, that's not a piece of the 40% for a lower-income people. It's important to be part of this, but it's important to think about lots of other programs, 'cause not every one that is renewable is going to be equitable also, but some are.

[Kerri]- Yeah, and one thing I didn't talk about that I want to be sure to mention is that, you know, I was sort of talking about, like, a large scale, like, at a grid scale, but, you know, having local, and individual, and community-scale clean energy is also really important. And those can be places too, where, you know, you can build equity into a system. So, you know, you could have a community solar project that allows people to, you know, pay over time, or if you, you know, you live in an apartment, you can't put solar panels on your roof no matter how much money you make. So, to have access to renewable energy at that scale, to have community investment and community benefit accrue is really important. But then, beyond that, like David was saying, everybody should be able to plug into their wall outlet and have access to renewable energy, as well, because that is, you know, that is what we all, you know, have a right to, to reduce some of these these disproportionate impacts, both from climate change and from fossil fuel pollution.

[Tricia]- Awesome, thank you both. I just wanna remind everyone, since we've had a few more folks join since we kicked off earlier, if you have any questions, please feel free to put them in the chat, or feel free to put them in the Q&A. Cynthia, Natalie, and I are monitoring those, and we'll bring them into the group as we facilitate. So, do not hesitate to go ahead and post those questions for us. You don't have to wait until the end of the presentation. You both kind of touched on this a little bit, but we'll go a little more in depth is, what are some of the public health risks associated with some of our current power systems in the state versus those associated with the renewable energy? Who wants to kick it off? Yeah.

[Kerri]- I can talk about, you know, just, when we think about coal plants, some of the main pollutants, and sort of the things associated with those. So, you know, when we're talking about coal, you know, number one, mercury, 44% of US mercury emissions come from coal plants. And when we think about mercury, we're thinking about impacts to nervous system, digestive system, you know, the immune system, early childhood development. And we know that even a very small amount of mercury is very toxic to these systems. And so, you know, we know that, with the coal plants still remaining in Iowa, for example, there's enough mercury emitted every year to contaminate four times the amount of surface water we even have in the state. Even though mercury emissions have gone down over time, it is still a lot of mercury that's getting into our waterways, and contaminating fish, and creating a danger, there. The other pollutants we're gonna see coming from coal generation are sulfur dioxide, and that's a problem for folks with asthma. It can cause increases in bronchitis, and then, just, environmentally, you get smog and acid rain when you have SO2 there. NOx is another big one that can really cause increased cases of pneumonia, influenza, and asthma, aggravating asthma. And then particulate matter is the final piece of that cocktail of pollutants that you're gonna see from coal plants, and particulate matter, I'm sure many people are already familiar with the impacts there, but chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma, heart attacks, and premature death are all associated with particulate matter. You know, the most recent analysis we did showed that Iowa coal plants, just the health impacts alone cost between $27.4 million and $61.6 million per year in health impacts for Iowa.

[Tricia]- Wow. David, do you have anything else you wanna add to that? Okay.

[David]- No, I'm gonna, when I hear a good answer, I'm just gonna clam up.

[Tricia]- Nope, that sounds great. Again, we kind of touched on this a little bit, and David kind of brought us back, you know, to talking a little bit about health equity. Can you explain how renewable energy is related to health equity? I think we talked a little bit about how it's, you know, some of the things might not be appropriate for all families, but how do we start addressing that? What are some of the key elements that we need to take into consideration when we're looking at renewable energy?

[David]- Okay, let me start that, anyway. So, part of my job, and my many jobs, was to be an expert witness on the design of electric rates, who gets charged how much for the system. So you, again, go back to a system that's been primarily baseload coal, and that's a natural gas peakers. That's what existed before renewables really started in the 1980s and 1990s. So, I've always argued that you have equity, which is not the same thing as equality. So, there's equality, more or less, in the rates charged by an electric company. They charge, I mean, my company charges 17 cents kilowatt hour for me, also for a low-income person, and for a real rich person. So, that's the equality. The equity is real different from that, though, because the energy burden, and that is the percentage of household income that goes towards your utility bills, is very different. There's a pretty good study by a group called American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. It's a 2020 study. And they found, and most studies like this find the same thing, that, if you, low income households spend about 8% of their income on energy costs, not on cars, but on utilities, on average, and that's compared to about 2.3% for non-low-income people. So, you have low-income households paying three times as much of their income towards their utilities. That's an equity issue. And so, my friend Roger Colton, who's a consultant that used to be a partner of mine, has something called the 6% solution, which says that's 8% is too much, maximum amount you should ever have to pay is 6%, and somebody else pays the rest. The utility company, the state, federal government, somebody brings that price down. So, there's always been an equity issue in electricity. So, before we, you know, talk about renewables, we have to understand that how you charge people for the electricity they're using has an equity component in it. So, to the extent that renewables will be cheaper over the long run than coal, you're beginning to address equity in that broader sense. That make sense, Kerri?

[Kerri]- Yeah, absolutely. And I wanted to add to that, David, that, you know, you start off with an inequity just in basic housing quality, right? So, you know, if you are a person who lives in a pretty leaky old house, or an apartment that you actually don't really have any ability to change the appliances, or the real energy hogs in the place where you live, you're, you know, you're at a disadvantage from day one. And I think it's interesting, you know, in addition to thinking about capping energy costs, you know, research has found that, even these higher-income people who pay a smaller percentage, actually, and maybe having a more efficient house, are actually still using way more energy because they want to. And so, for folks who are low income, they may be actually using less energy than they need to feel comfortable and safe in their home because there's such a risk, you know, it just goes right out the window, or, you know, goes under the door, like, whatever, you know, is, you know, problematic in their home that they can't afford to fix. And so, I think starting with energy efficiency, and improving people's homes, and making investments at that level, can have a huge impact on equity before we ever get to the larger scale.

[David]- Right, first thing you do is not use it, and then you make it renewable. That's the order in which you, and Kerri and I were in the last rate case that Alliant Energy was part of. And my argument in that case was that, in the way you charge people, Alliant wanted to keep raising the basic charge, what you get before you even get one kilowatt hour. And to the extent that they do that, it makes poor people, it discriminates against low-income people, 'cause they live, their appliances may be crappy, but they have smaller houses, and therefore they use less energy, they don't take advantage of some of those rate structures that give you cheaper power as you use more. And so, my argument, which lost, the company raised their fixed charge from up to $13 1/2 from around 10. So, it doesn't seem like a lot, but it's discriminatory against low income, and it's also discriminatory against those of us who have solar power, which produce some of our own electricity, 'cause you have a big fixed charge, it's not a good way of being conservationist. It's also not a good way of helping low-income people. So, again, we're gonna find that renewables, or energy, in some sense, fits together with equity in a lot of different ways.

[Tricia]- So, we have a couple questions that came in in the Q&A, so I'm gonna address those before we move forward with some of my questions. What was the name of the energy-efficient study that you mentioned?

[David]- Ah, the one that, I can put something in the chat, how about that?

[Tricia]- That would be fantastic.

[David]- But the one I, I think the one you were wanting is about the ACEEE, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. But you can just go to their website, A-C-E-E-E, and you will find that study, it's right up there. And, again, that's the number 8.1 versus 2.3. And I talked about another study about low income people getting more pollution. I'll put that in the chat.

[Tricia]- Awesome, thank you, David. And again, this is being recorded, we can provide that. And also, when we send out the information, any additional information as we talk about it today, we can include that, as well. So, again, please, if you have questions or if there's additional information that you would like, just let us know so we can make sure when we send out the email with the evaluation, we can include links and additional information, as well. Another question from the Q&A. If renewables lowers the cost across the board, how is that equity?

[Kerri]- Yeah, that's a great point and question, Georgia. I think, like, yeah, like, first, renewable energy, you know, you should choose the lowest-cost resource, right? So that you're not, you know, saddling folks with expensive coal plants when it doesn't make sense to do so. But you're right that that lowers prices for everyone. And where the rubber hits the road is the kind of things David was talking about, where, when you really get into who pays. So, you know, if utilities are putting big fixed charges on customers that disproportionately impacts low-income people, if we're giving more favorable rates to really large customers because we're trying to attract industry into the state, is that fair? So, I think you're right, that, you know, looking for that lower-cost baseline as a starting point is important, but then putting the detailed policies into place to make sure that that's done in an equitable way, that's where the rubber hits the road on it, I think that's right.

[Tricia]- Great, thank you both. And again, feel free to add any questions in the Q&A or the chat. How can we ensure that incorporation of renewable energy into our power system is equitable and consider issues of social and environmental justice? David, do you want to take that off?

[David]- Wow, okay. There, we can, renewables, first of all, there are two sorts of renewables. Right now, in Linn County, we're building two very large solar farms. I mean, the one at the old fail, the nuclear power plant, that payload that closed, they're gonna start out with 200 megawatts of solar and storage, about a 75 megawatts storage plant. The old plant was 615 megawatts. So, 200 megawatts of solar is not as much as was there, but it's a bunch. That's one kind of addition to our energy. But there's also distributed, and distributed is solar panels on my garage. That's a different kind. Now, that's where you really have to begin to think about equity. How can we have a program which then makes sure that it's not just gonna be rich folks' homes that have these solar panels? And you can handle that in several ways. You can simply subsidize, you can make the utilities give money to Habitat for Humanity, and that's happened in many places, around. Sometimes that's something companies like to volunteer, 'cause, you know, makes 'em feel good. And so, that's one, those kinds of things happen. But in general, the whole distributed energy is kind of inequitable to the extent that people have money to do that, a lot of low-income people don't. That moves to something called community solar, which is being done a lot in Minnesota and Illinois, and the Illinois program is that, you're not gonna be able to put in one of these community solars, where somebody builds one of these and you then buy in a share of them, you own a piece of that. You can tie those programs to, one, making sure that there is some subsidy for low-income people included in it. And second, and this is what Illinois has done better than Minnesota, you make sure that if something's going to go a big solar, a bunch of rooftop solars are gonna happen in this neighborhood, the people putting them in, the women and men putting those panels in, gotta be from the neighborhood. There's gotta, you gotta be thinking about some low-income people taking parts in that. So, there are some pretty good programs out in a system of distributed energy that has this kind of high-income bias to it. Try to make it a little less bad.

[Kerri]- Yeah, and I think that, in addition, I mean, David mentioned, before, the IRA, like, there are so many things that are built into that legislation that are really remarkable in terms of the kinds of incentives that are really structured around income in particular, you know, all the way to the point where it's basically a 100% rebate for some of these technologies, and I think that is gonna be a game changer. The biggest question in my mind is like, are we gonna have enough people to do the work to, you know, get the stuff out the door? Are we gonna have the technologies, the supply chain, you know, available to make all this happen, as we all know, like, an ongoing issue in so many areas of life right now. But I think that the other piece, so, you know, I mentioned energy efficiency, like, I feel like that as a first line is so critical to making sure that we start building out an equitable system. But the other thing I think we always need to look at is, like, what is our current system, and what does this look like from an equity standpoint compared to where we are today? And we know that fossil fuels, you know, the pollution from fossil fuels disproportionately impact people of color, they disproportionately impact older people, people with chronic health conditions, and young children. And so, when we are thinking about, you know, equity, simply moving from this fossil fuel system, that has done so much damage to people, to a renewable energy system that is built out in a way that, of course, includes local impacts, conversations, discussions around, you know, other amenities and benefits the community has that impact public health. Like, all of those things need to happen in a conversation around the people who, you know, are hosting or are impacted by the plants. But I do think it's really important to continue to just make that comparison between the system we have today and the system that, what it would look like with a renewable energy system.

[Tricia]- Fantastic, thank you both. How can health departments promote or advocate for the use of renewable energy in their communities? What are some steps that they could take, or action that they should be pursuing, as they move forward in looking at protecting the environment and communities?

[David]- Well, Harrison County just got done with this mass buy, and, where you get one company to come in and put solar panels on everybody's houses, and as more and more people do it, the price comes down. Make sure that you get involved in that. There have been, Johnson County and Linn County have kinda led, I'm from Linn County, around Cedar Rapids, Linn County's led on on that. You just make sure that the local health department becomes part of that. And where their asked is, "What are we gonna do for low-income people?" We like the program, but we wanna see something there that shows that a couple of the homes, maybe it's Habitat for Humanity, which, is generally equitable, in that sense, or at least, you can't get into one of those homes if you're real high income, that could be a piece, getting involved in policy. And I'd think about rate cases, too, argue against large fixed charges, that the utilities shouldn't do that because it's bad for poor people, and if it's bad for poor people, it's a public health issue. So, I'd love to see more intervention, there. You just have to write a letter. It says that, you know, kind of does that, shake your finger at people, 'cause they're not thinking about everything. They're not thinking about equity when they're doing this. I think, you know, I really like county public health. They can get involved on a lot of stuff. And Linn County, by the way, has a new building, which is pretty energy efficient, and also a little renewable on it.

[Kerri]- Yeah, I mean, the first place my mind goes when I think about county public health and the role is really, you know, in Iowa, the siting for wind projects is entirely at the county level at this point in time. And for solar, counties have a role to play, as well, even though that decision does run up the flagpole to the Iowa Utilities Board, ultimately. And we have seen, you know, increasing and emotional conversations around renewable energy projects across counties in Iowa. I'm sure most people on this webinar are probably not surprised to hear that, or have been, you know, right in the middle of these conversations. They're hard, they're emotional, you know, it's difficult. But we do know that there is, you know, there is science out there about the health impacts, or lack thereof when it comes to wind, in particular, where you will see a lot of claims made. And I think one of the most important roles for public health is to just make sure the facts that are available and that are accurate are clear and available to the people who are making the policy. And that's hard, I understand that, but I do think that access to good scientific information is so important when these conversations can get very derailed with a lot of misinformation that is very readily available on the internet right now. And that there are people, you know, some who have a specific agenda, who are, you know, causing some of the misinformation to appear. So important to have a conversation where you balance interests of people with different opinions, but certainly so important to be science-based when we're talking about, is the health of our community at risk or not? Like, that's a legitimate, should be a science-based discussion.

[David]- Yeah, actually, a real, and as I mentioned earlier on, Peter Thorne, who is first author, and Kerri and I, did a paper on wind power and noise, or wind power and sound, finding that maybe there's something out there that says it's a health effect, but nobody can find it. So, it probably isn't real important. But the County Board of Health in Madison County decided it was, and I remember Peter Thorne, who was incredibly smart and had done this study, went before them and just got turned down flat, and they said, "No, we think it's a menace." And Peter had the data, but they decided that they knew better. And then I went before the whole supervisors, and I got smashed down, also. They weren't listening, they weren't, neither the supervisors nor the Board of Health was willing to listen to science. And that was a county in Iowa that did that, and they were wrong, and it probably has hurt getting more wind turbines in the state of Iowa, and more wind turbines are gonna do the kind of things we've been talking about, fight climate change, bring on more renewables, stop having so much pollution coming outta coal-fired power plants. It's an argument that is a public health argument, and I would like to see the county public health people be on the right side.

[Kerri]- Yeah, and I mean, given what you all have recently been through with the pandemic, like, the arguments around science-based information, right? Is not, like, I'm sure it's a daily battle that people fight. It's a hard environment to work in, certainly. And so, yeah, that, you know, to try to get the good information front and center is really important, but we know that many of the rest of us have a lot of role to play in how all of this goes at the end of the day, as well.

[Tricia]- Absolutely, and thank you both. I think, Kerri, I think you're absolutely right. I think, if anything, local public health agencies across the state, and across the nation, honestly, have been combating misinformation. Unfortunately, I think we've now become experts at it due to Covid. But hopefully, as we've become more savvy, local public health agencies have become more savvy in being able to find that research and to make sure we're providing scientific-based information that will just trickle across the board, not just when we're dealing with vaccine efficacy, but also, now, with environmental health and environment and climate change. I mean, it's needed, and as we continue to beat that drum and provide education, I'm hoping that public health is becoming more confident in knowing where to go to get that information and to have the science that backs the initiative that they wanna do. I also think it's very, this is very timely for a lot of folks, as local public health agencies across the state of Iowa are getting ready to do their community health assessments. Some of those were put on hold a little bit because of Covid, and so, I think really having folks from their environmental health, whether it's a separate agency, other folks within their own departments, at the table to talk about some of those health needs that are impacted by either renewable energy or the current energy sources that are there, and how can they continue to improve. So, this is good timing for folks as they work on some of those community assessments. I think a lot of times, local public health agencies forget to include environmental health. We look a lot about obesity, and we look at, you know, infectious diseases, and cancer-causing diseases. But, as we know, some of the renew, or not-so-renewable energies, has impact on all of that, some of our chronic and infectious diseases. So, great timing for sharing a lot of this information. What other advocacy approaches that have been implemented so far to improve renewable energy equity and the practice in Iowa?

[David]- Hmm.

[Tricia]- David's pointing to Kerri.

[David]- Yeah, Kerri, well, Kerri works at the legislation.

[Kerri]- I mean, I ring in.

[David]- No, she, it's part of her job.

[Kerri]- Like, what have we not tried?

[Tricia]- No kidding.

[Kerri]- Yeah, I mean, I think that, in my experience, when we're talking about state-level policy, or even county-level policy, right? Like, I think, actually, the closer you are to, you know, that level of your policymaker, the more that they're going to be responsive to people in the local community. And I do think that translates strongly to the state level, as well. So, hearing directly from constituents is gonna be the most impactful contact that a state legislator is going to receive. I think that, you know, we try to talk a lot about jobs, and employment, and economic arguments for renewable energy or, you know, future economic development in the state of Iowa, attracting businesses, helping to meet sustainability goals, things like that. And then really engaging, you know, the people who are directly impacted by the policy change or proposed policy change. So, you know, we fought a pretty big battle a couple of years ago around a policy called net metering that really allows people to have solar on their own homes. And, you know, policymakers hearing directly from, you know, the I-80 Burger Barn, or whatever it was, you know, to say like, "Hey, this is, like, my small business, and is how this, you know, solar is impacting my, you know, my ability to be here in Iowa." I think those things just have a tremendous impact, to be able to bring it down to a story from someone in a district is really important. And then I think it's also, you know, and public health folks do so much of this around, you know, just thinking about culture, and, like, the general, what do people believe about this thing? Like, generally, what do they say to their neighbors about it? And so, really doing that broader, you know, we do a lot on social media, which, like, who knows what the future of social media is. Generally, right now, it's all in chaos. But, you know, social media, we also, you know, do newspapers, we, you know, try to get out there in, you know, op-eds, and heck, you know, radio ads, we've done posters, billboards, like, basically, you know, the idea of educating people with a message that we identify that we hope will resonate with where their values are at, and then translating that into, "Hey, I'm a supporter of this, this is what I believe in, and I'm gonna, you know, let my policymaker maker know."

[David]- Yeah. Great answer. I think that one of the things that has happened that has moved towards equity when it comes to energy is community solar, and both Minnesota and Illinois have good programs. Iowa doesn't. Right now, Alliant is starting one. They have 1 1/2 megawatts, I think it's going to be in Cedar Rapids, and I bought in, I own a, I have a kilowatt of that system, and it is not that good a deal, but I wanted to do it anyway, so at least I know what the numbers are, and I can say it's not that good a deal, it could be a little better. But it's still the one thing you can do if you live in an apartment, 'cause you cannot be part of renewable energy as an owner, or a kind of an owner. It's not, what Alliant is doing is funny, but at least it's better than what the other big investor-owned utility is doing, which is nothing at all. So, I think it's, if you're in MidAm territory, you ought to be pushing for community solar, you ought to do it, and you ought to make a better one than Alliant's doing in Cedar Rapids, which is still better than nothing.

[Kerri]- Yeah, and I would say the same for Rural Electric Co-ops and municipal utilities. Like, they have, you know, some flexibility to implement programs like that, as well. Yeah.

[Tricia]- Wonderful. I just wanna remind everyone, as we're getting closer to the end of our hour together, please feel free to put any questions that you may have for our speakers in the Q&A or in the chat. I wanna make sure we allow opportunities for you guys to ask the questions now that we have the experts with us today. So, please feel free to put a question in the Q&A or in the chat. I think we touched on this a little bit, but I'll see if you guys have anything additional that you wanna expand. What impacts does legislation, or do you see legislation over the next year or so, especially as we've, you know, just went through our election and have some new folks in office, what impacts does legislation have on the clean energy movement?

[Kerri]- It's absolutely, I mean, it's absolutely critical. We have had generally favorable policy environment for renewables in Iowa. I think that that's clear from, you know, if you look around, and how much renewable energy we have. We've seen that start to sort of chip away just a little bit over time. You know, in 2018, we saw a bill passed that really decimated the energy efficiency programs that we used to have in the state through the utilities, they're a shadow of what they once were. That was really unfortunate. It impacted a lot of people and continues to do so. So, you know, I think that, over the next few years, as, you know, the energy transition continues, and we start to reach these, you know, much higher levels of renewable energy, and we start to get into some of the trickier questions of, like, how do we do this? Like, how do we get all the way there? And then, in addition, like, how do we do that in a way that is equitable? Because right now, for example, you know, there are a couple of proposals that have been, you know, in the paper a lot, lately, around changes to our energy system and one that would allow really big customers to basically opt out of our system and go buy energy on the open market. Well, what does that do to the rest of us who are left, then, paying for the system? Is that really fair to allow those really large customers to go while everyone else has to stay and pay? You know, there's also been a proposal floated around, you know, utilities being able to, you know, offer to sell renewable energy directly to some of these big buyers. And again, it's like, well, why should rate payers be involved in that at all? Like, if we're going to help pay for renewables, we should get the cost, the benefit of it should accrue to everybody. And so, I think that that's where there are definitely some risks where, from the bottom line of, like, "Oh, we've got more renewables," it might seem okay, but there are a million equity concerns that need to be taken into account for how this is actually delivered to Iowans and who pays.

[Tricia]- Anything to add, David?

[David]- Good answer.

[Tricia]- This is my last question, and so, we'll kind of wrap it up. Again if you have any, if our audience has any questions, please feel free to put those in the chat or in the Q&A, and we'll also be wrapping up. So, there's a couple other things we'll talk about before we close out today. But last question from me to David and Kerri, how would the transition to renewable energy need to change based off the efforts of climate change?

[David]- Well, you know, again, it's the IRA, there's a bunch of stuff that is going to happen at the federal level to bring on more renewables and more energy efficiency. And to the extent that these are rebates, and to the extent that Kerri said earlier, that, if you are low income, you're going to get 80 or 100% of that paid for by somebody else, that's a very good thing. To the extent that they tend to be tax credits, and the more taxes you owe, the better the tax credit deal is, that's not as good. I really like what I've seen in the IRA, because there's a lot of the stuff that is pushing, first of all, for energy efficiency before the sexier stuff, which is, you know, the solar panels on your house so you can brag about it, you wanna make sure that there is good policy. And the policy coming out of the Biden administration that passed, miraculously, and not that many months ago, is going after climate change, and it's going after it in a pretty equitable way, pretty equitable. And again, the, you know, the good should not become the enemy of the perfect, and we could have a more perfect one and maybe not do such big subsidies for Elon Musk, but all of it's gotta happen. We've gotta take on climate change, period. And this new federal program begins to do that.

[Kerri]- Yeah, and I take it from just a little bit different angle. I mean, I think that, you know, one of the big things that we're seeing just constantly, right, is disasters, like, escalating disasters that, again, like, public health has to deal with at the end of the day, a lot of that, too. And that is causing, you know, large-scale disruptions to our electric grid. And so, to me, I see this just like, we burn more fossil fuels, we create more extreme weather, the grid becomes less reliable, so we burn more fossil fuels, and then we, it's just this sort of death spiral, and we have to get off of it. There really is no choice. You know, we're, so, to me, it's like, yes, like, renewable energy is gonna have to deal with all of the fallout from the climate change that has already happened. And so, you know, that is gonna mean, you know, building in more resiliency, even do, you know, little microgrids, like, if we're gonna have more electricity outages, what do we do as communities to be more resilient? And so, all of that is part of the, you know, how do we adapt to climate change and protect people as we are also trying to just get off the train, right? And get on a new track.

[Tricia]- We're gonna go ahead and put the evaluation in the chat if you have time to fill that out. We'll also be emailing it out. I do want to, I know we're almost out of time, but there was a question that came in through the Q&A, and I'll read it. "You would be surprised of the smear campaigns and changes in zoning to protect agricultural plots. When you talk solar and the millions of dollars to be placed into a community's budget for a small, unused plot, people feel it creates an eyesore." So, I don't know if that's really a question, but a comment I wanted to make sure we shared with everyone. Again, I can't thank our speakers enough. You guys were wonderful, and I appreciate your expertise. Thank you for your time today, everyone. Have a fantastic afternoon, and happy new year.