She speaks on behalf of legislation to create green jobs, but Susan Brown jokes about mixed feelings.

Her company, Energy Savings Store, deals in solar and wind design and installation. Ms. Brown says there should be 20 such stores in the Kansas City area, and she shouldn’t want the competition that legislative incentives would spawn.

“Right now, we’re swamped,” she says. “There’s plenty of business for us.”

But the Dearborn, Mo., resident finds frustration in the frequent calls she gets from Chinese

manufacturers wanting to sell solar panels to her company. When she goes to trade shows, many of the exhibitors are from foreign-owned companies.

She wonders, why not Missouri?

Ms. Brown stands on one side of an issue seemingly genial with its references to eco-innovation, job creation and environmental friendliness. However, it becomes flammable when applied to legislative engineering, a realm in which congressional bills hold threats of higher energy costs for coal-dependent (and carbon-emitting) states such as Missouri.

Where to strike the

balance?

Last week, the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives delivered to Washington 50,000 postcards from its members concerned about the impact of legislation on their rates.

“It ain’t a postage stamp a day. It’s big money to Missourians,” said Barry Hart, association CEO, in a meeting with Missouri Sen. Kit Bond. “Potentially, it could be a 77 percent rate increase.”

The meeting on Capitol Hill came during a week when Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., introduced their chamber’s version of legislation for curtailing carbon pollution and investing in clean energy technologies.

That follows by months the House passage, in June, of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, dubbed the “cap-and-trade” bill.

Those involved in Missouri green-energy companies insist procrastination in passing such legislation will carry “debilitating costs.” Two dozen business owners signed a letter sent last week to the state congressional delegation.

In part, it read: “Given the current economic climate in Missouri, we cannot afford to delay action on legislation that promises to expand markets for local businesses and stabilize energy costs.”

Others in Missouri demurred. American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman said in a statement Friday that the carbon reduction targets of the Boxer-Kerry bill are unrealistic and the measure will damage agricultural interests.

“America’s farmers and ranchers did not fare that well in the House-passed climate change bill and they fare even worse in the Senate bill,” he said. “There are few benefits and even greater costs to agriculture and the American public.”

Mr. Bond, the state delegation’s senior Republican, said the newly revealed Senate bill amounts to an energy tax on Americans.

“Hard to believe, but Boxer-Kerry is even worse than the other California-Massachusetts bill, Waxman-Markey (the House version),” he said. “My Missouri constituents are saying no to this job-killing and tax-raising bill and so will I.”

In Kansas, Sen. Pat Roberts, also a Republican, insisted the latest energy bill offering would have damaging effects beyond Middle America.

“If this bill were to pass, Kansans, and all Americans, including those in big cities that depend on the food and fiber we grow, are likely to see an increase in their utility bill, transportation costs and basic consumer goods,” he said in a statement.

For Ms. Brown, the clean energy future has arrived, and she believes the government should embrace it.

“We’re going to have to do something about climate, we might as well do it now, give our businesses some stability. They will make the investments,” she said. “These solar and wind manufacturers are looking for places to put their plants.”

Ken Newton can be reached at kenn@npgco.com.