Clean Up MidAm Pushes for Climate Accountability

By Katie Rock

Iowa Beyond Coal finished April working closely with Clean Up MidAm, our third coalition featured this month. (Read more about our coalition work here and here.) Clean Up MidAm is a coalition of organizations and individuals concerned about MidAm’s lack of commitment on climate change. Together we are calling on the utility to retire its Iowa coal fleet by 2030, not 2049.

Together we traveled to Omaha for the Berkshire Hathaway (BH) shareholders meeting, otherwise known as “Woodstock for Capitalists.” Why? Berkshire Hathaway owns MidAmerican Energy and has the power to make decisions and changes that will have a monumental impact for our climate.

Brian Campbell with the Iowa Environmental Council and Katie Rock, Sierra Club Beyond Coal, attend the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting in Omaha on April 30, 2022.

The Iowa Environmental Council and Sierra Club attended as part of Clean Up MidAm. So did youth activists Hannah Hayes and Lillian Hill, teens from the Des Moines area, who were hoping to ask a question to Warren Buffet, chairman and CEO of BH. Lillian was randomly selected from those in attendance to ask a question, but Buffet only answered half of the promised 60 questions during the meeting due to having such long winded answers.

While Hannah and Lillian weren't able to ask Warren Buffet about their climate future at the shareholder meeting, they did make a pit stop at MidAm's biggest coal plant outside Council Bluffs and wrote an incredible op-ed about their experience.

Hannah Hayes poses with her Earth Day protest sign outside MidAmerican Energy’s Walter Scott coal plant in Council Bluffs, Iowa after attending the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting, April 30, 2022.

We need more brave voices like Hannah and Lillian who are willing to speak out and show up.  Sign up for our Sierra Club email list so you can be in the loop on future events, or contact Emma Colman and me with any questions.