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BISMARCK It was a passionate, but cordial, debate among members of the general public, utilities representatives and academics at the North Dakota Service Commission's Carbon Cap and Trade Summit held Friday at the State Capitol Building.

One of the central questions behind the debate was asked by Commissioner Kevin Cramer of the PSC during his opening remarks. He asked attendees to raise a hand if they believed humankind was responsible for climate change and then later asked the opposite. The room was split with one half of the room, made up of mostly private citizens, raising their hand to the first question while the other half of the room, a majority of them in suits, raised their hand to the latter question. This set the tone for the rest of the summit.

Andrew Keeler, a professor of Public Affairs at Ohio State University, gave an overview of the cap-and-trade legislation as laid out by the Obama administration and its potential effect on the state and the nation.

In a nutshell, Obama's cap-and-trade proposal involves setting a limit of carbon dioxide emissions on the industry level and then auctioning off credits for affected companies to buy who would otherwise exceed their emissions limit. The ultimate goal of this potential program has been to achieve an 80 percent reduction of 2005 emissions levels by 2050. While the program initially seems straightforward, there are many underlying issues which complicates the matter, such as the use and distribution of allocations, the extent to which the program would apply to some or all of the nation's industries and how the money collected from the carbon auction would be spent.

"The devil is in the details, but the purpose of the program is to raise the cost of energy," Keeler said. "As the cost of fossil fuels increase, customers and businesses will change their practices and usage which will cause innovation and research by both the public and private sectors. There's no chance wind and solar power will replace coal in the next three to four decades ... but if we are going to make a significant impact (on reducing carbon) we need to take the steps now."

Several legislators on Capitol Hill have attempted to do just that, but the debate over details continues with each new energy and climate bill that comes to the floor.

Chris Mele, legislative director for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, said that the recent announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency to list greenhouse gases as a pollutant was a tactic to put pressure on Congress to act, but with so many political and economic factors to consider, he said it would be unlikely for anything to be seen before the first year of Obama's second term in office, if he is re-elected.

"The reason for the recent traction is that there is a meeting this December in Copenhagen, and Obama wants a piece of paper from Congress to show (foreign leaders) that the U.S. is doing something ... but it's too complicated to do swiftly," Mele said.

When some form is enacted, Mele said depending on the cost of carbon and any pork barrel spending added to the program the final cost could be $1 trillion or more.

While the legislation will affect each state, North Dakota, with more than 95 percent of its electricity provided by coal, would be the second-most impacted state in the nation behind West Virginia, which gets 98 percent of its electricity from coal.

That's bad news for state utility companies and their customers.

Dave Goodin, who represents Montana-Dakota Utilities, said the legislation could increase their clients' bill by 40 percent while Chuck MacFarlane of Otter Tail said residential customers could see an increase of 12.5 percent for every $10 per ton of carbon credit charged. Harlan Fuglesten, who represents the state's Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives, said the nearly 250,000 customers served by the organization would see increases of 26 percent on their bill, while another cooperative, Basin Electric Power Cooperative, said $20 per ton carbon credits would cost the cooperative $498 million in the first year, according to their representative Ron Harper.

Each of the six utility companies present made recommendations to the PSC including devoting all of the funds to research, incorporating safety valves and giving companies credit for early action among others.

"My gut feeling is that North Dakota is going to pay more, but if the state can aggressively lobby for transmission grids for wind energy, they may be able to capitalize on the economic engine of development," Keeler said, adding that many of the companies at the meeting already do.

While the final program design has not been set, both Public Service Commissioners Kevin Cramer and Brian Kalk oppose the idea of a carbon credit auction.

"If this is going to generate revenue, 100 percent should go toward solving the problem by building technology that doesn't put it (carbon) in the air but sequesters it," Kalk said. Instead, he advocates for a flat tax on what is burned and thinks the money spent by North Dakota companies on the tax should stay in the state and go to research conducted at the numerous universities located in the state.