Laravel 5.1 AWS SDK proper credentials setup: exception 'Aws\Exception\CredentialsException'

I am working on a Laravel 5.1 App Using this package:

"aws/aws-sdk-php-laravel": "~3.0"

I am trying to properly setup a local environment and a production environment. I keep getting this error when trying to send mail on production server: (My .env file is gitignored and only exists locally)

production.ERROR: exception 'Aws\Exception\CredentialsException' with message 'Error retrieving credentials from the instance profile metadata server. 

Ran

php artisan vendor:publish

My .env file look slike so, only with the keys:

APP_ENV=local
APP_DEBUG=true
APP_KEY=

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_DATABASE=
DB_USERNAME=
DB_PASSWORD=

CACHE_DRIVER=file
SESSION_DRIVER=database
QUEUE_DRIVER=sync

MAIL_DRIVER=ses
MAIL_HOST=email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com
MAIL_PORT=587
MAIL_USERNAME=
MAIL_PASSWORD=
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=null

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=
AWS_REGION=us-west-2

My config/Mail.php looks like this only with keys and email address.

<?php

return [

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Mail Driver
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Laravel supports both SMTP and PHP's "mail" function as drivers for the
| sending of e-mail. You may specify which one you're using throughout
| your application here. By default, Laravel is setup for SMTP mail.
|
| Supported: "smtp", "mail", "sendmail", "mailgun", "mandrill", "ses", "log"
|
*/

'driver' => env('MAIL_DRIVER', 'ses'),

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Host Address
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here you may provide the host address of the SMTP server used by your
| applications. A default option is provided that is compatible with
| the Mailgun mail service which will provide reliable deliveries.
|
*/

'host' => env('MAIL_HOST', ''),

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Host Port
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| This is the SMTP port used by your application to deliver e-mails to
| users of the application. Like the host we have set this value to
| stay compatible with the Mailgun e-mail application by default.
|
*/

'port' => env('MAIL_PORT', 587),

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Global "From" Address
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| You may wish for all e-mails sent by your application to be sent from
| the same address. Here, you may specify a name and address that is
| used globally for all e-mails that are sent by your application.
|
*/

'from' => ['address' => '', 'name' => ''],

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| E-Mail Encryption Protocol
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here you may specify the encryption protocol that should be used when
| the application send e-mail messages. A sensible default using the
| transport layer security protocol should provide great security.
|
*/

'encryption' => env('MAIL_ENCRYPTION', 'tls'),

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Server Username
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| If your SMTP server requires a username for authentication, you should
| set it here. This will get used to authenticate with your server on
| connection. You may also set the "password" value below this one.
|
*/

'username' => env('MAIL_USERNAME', ''),
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SMTP Server Password
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here you may set the password required by your SMTP server to send out
| messages from your application. This will be given to the server on
| connection so that the application will be able to send messages.
|
*/

'password' => env('MAIL_PASSWORD','' ),

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Sendmail System Path
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| When using the "sendmail" driver to send e-mails, we will need to know
| the path to where Sendmail lives on this server. A default path has
| been provided here, which will work well on most of your systems.
|
*/

'sendmail' => '/usr/sbin/sendmail -bs',

/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Mail "Pretend"
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| When this option is enabled, e-mail will not actually be sent over the
| web and will instead be written to your application's logs files so
| you may inspect the message. This is great for local development.
|
*/

'pretend' => false,

];