Request to VerifyEmailAddressIdentity action of Amazon SES API call has failed

I'm getting error messages on all tabs of the amazon ses ui. Testing on localhost.

So far, I have created an IAM user with permissions to access ses, verified an email address using the aws console (same as the drupal sites "from" email address), installed the aws sdk module according to the instructions, provided the awssdk with the IAM's services key and secret key, instaled the amazon ses module, and now I'm stuck.

I went to http://localhost/flashcards/admin/config/aws-settings/aws-verify-ses-sen... to try to verify the email address (tested using both the same email address I verified earlier as well as a different email address) and now I get the error message " Request to VerifyEmailAddressIdentity action of Amazon SES API call has failed, please check your network connection or try after some time".

The other tabs are having trouble as well. The DKIM setup tab has the error message "Request to ListIdentities action of Amazon SES API call has failed, please check your network connection or try after some time." The AWS statistics tab has message " Request to GetSendQuota action of Amazon SES API call has failed, please check your network connection or try after some time." and the sender ID list gives me a white screen of death.

My network connection is good. No errors under status report. I flushed all caches a buncha times. Did I miss a step? There seems to be alternate strategies to using amazon ses so I think I will try one of those but if anyone has any insight please clue me in!