Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk continued to speak out against the so-called cap-and-trade bill before Congress in two speeches in Fargo and Minot on Tuesday.

The three-member PSC in May said the sweeping energy policy, which passed the U.S. House in June with Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., voting no, would double electricity bills for North Dakota consumers. Kalk said the bill should be defeated in the Senate.

Under the legislation, the federal government over time would enact limits on carbon dioxide emissions, believed by some to be a leading cause of rising temperatures and climate change around the globe.

If the current legislation becomes law, utilities and other industrial carbon dioxide emitters could then buy or sell carbon emission allowances on a specialized market.

Kalk said policy would financially hamper states like North Dakota, where 95 percent of its power comes from coal, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Coal, a major contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, also makes up about half of the nation's energy supply.

"It is a flawed bill which will drive up energy costs without any true environmental benefit," said Kalk, a Republican serving his first term on the PSC. "If passed into law, it will have a devastating impact on our state and nation."

The Senate will eventually take up the energy bill that includes the cap-and-trade provision, which recently passed the U.S. House. The Senate bill is likely to be different than the House version.

North Dakota Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad say the energy policy should include more protections for the agriculture and coal industries.

Dorgan, a senior member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Tuesday that he opposes the cap-and-trade provision in the House bill.

"The trade piece of cap-and-trade will have investment banks creating carbon securities," Dorgan said. "Once again, we'll be back in a marketplace of speculation."

He said that could lead to similar situations like last summer, when speculators drove the cost of oil to more than $140 per barrel.

Instead, Dorgan said he would support a "cap-and-dividend" policy, which would "reasonably" limit carbon emissions based on available technology, and then charge a fee to emitters who don't follow the restrictions. The money would be given to the public, he said.

Conrad told the Minot Daily News last week that the House improved some aspects of the original cap-and-trade legislation, but added, "I would have a very hard time voting for this bill without additional changes that would take account of special circumstances in our state."

Kalk said the speeches were not official business for the Public Service Commission and that he decided to make them because he feels strongly about the issue. He said no taxpayer dollars were used to make the speeches.

"There's no political ambition behind this whatsoever," Kalk said. "I'm speaking as a public service commissioner."

Fellow Republican commissioners Kevin Cramer and Tony Clark did not participate.

Kalk said Congress should enact a national energy policy that would promote fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, and renewable energy sources, while funding research on ways to store and transmit energy more efficiently.

"We have to acknowledge that fossil fuels are here to stay," Kalk said. "We have unlimited amounts of gas and oil. There's no way to be energy independent with the use of these resources."

As a member of the Senate energy committee, Dorgan added language last month to an energy bill that would require 15 percent of power companies' energy to stem from renewable sources by 2021 and push for improvements to nation's power grid.

National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson sent a letter Tuesday to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and its ranking Republican member, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.

Johnson, North Dakota's former agriculture commissioner, said the NFU supports the cap-and-trade concept, but would also like to see any carbon offset program for the agriculture industry controlled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, among other provisions.

The legislation is primarily sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Energy Committee, and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

Dorgan said Senate is expected to take up the energy bill in October.

(Reach reporter Brian Duggan at 223-8482 or brian.duggan@;bismarcktribune.com.)