An ad running in two Iowa television markets claims Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley voted last week to ease regulations on the polluters in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Grassley, a Republican, says the ad is “very misinformed and very misleading” about the resolution which he says had nothing to do with big oil.

Grassley says the legislation was designed to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Grassley says such a move would bring great harm to the Midwest. Grassley says, “If EPA goes ahead, it’s going to devastate our economy at the very same time that the states along the coasts are being helped as a result of what the EPA’s trying to do.”

The ad is running in the Cedar Rapids and Des Moines markets, but the same ad is also being broadcast in Massachusetts and North Carolina, just with different senators’ names and photos. The ad is being paid for by Americans United For Change, a non-profit group that was formed in 2005 to fight then-President Bush’s policies on Social Security.

“Isn’t it funny that some fancy San Francisco lawyer that’s putting a lot of money into these ads would have any care whatsoever about Iowa?” Grassley says. “That’s just what we need is some San Francisco liberal telling us what we need in Iowa.” The ad shows video of the Gulf Coast oil disaster and claims Grassley’s vote would help those corporations who caused it. Grassley says that’s just not the case.

“Of course, it implies that the vote that the ad is talking about had to do with oil pollution, but it didn’t have anything to do with oil pollution,” Grassley says. “The vote had to do with the EPA regulations on carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases or C-O-2, and they’re all three the same thing.”

The resolution was defeated. Grassley says if the EPA is allowed to continue with its efforts on greenhouse gases, it could cost Midwestern consumers significantly more money to power their homes. He quotes one study that estimates energy costs could bound $1,800 to $3,000 a year for the average Midwest consumer by putting more restrictions on our region’s utilities, but not those on the East and West Coasts.

YouTube link to ad: www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3bSna5tubA