Cool it on global warming.

That was the call from business, coal industry and agricultural representatives Tuesday in Rapid City during a panel discussion on energy reform. They warned that electrical bills in western South Dakota and elsewhere will rise, and the economy could fall, if fears over climate change lead Congress to push through overly aggressive reform package.

And the heartland of America could be hardest hit, as states that rely on coal, oil and natural gas bear the brunt of fossil-fuel restrictions, Wyoming state Rep. Thomas Lubnau of Gillette said.

"It's shifting dollars from the center of the United States to the West Coast and Northeast," he said.

But an advocate for an energy reform package being pushed by President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress said climate change is real,and reform is needed soon. Matt McGovern of Sioux Falls, the state director for Repower America, said South Dakota could actually benefit in jobs and an economic surge through incentives in the reform package for the development of wind power and other alternative fuels.

"This is a great bill for South Dakota," he said.

McGovern was the lone supporter of the reform plan represented on the five-person panel on energy issues sponsored by the Energy States Alliance in a conference at the Ramkota convention center. They argued points of the so-called cap-and-trade legislation being debated in Congress, a version of which was already approved by the U.S. House.

The House bill would require a 17 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 and an 83 percent reduction by 2050. Those mandates are the total "cap" in a system that would allow emission permits or allowances to be traded or sold between utilities companies and other entities responsible for such emissions.

Even with such permits and provisions to ease the financial pain on consumers, the production of energy from fossil fuels will be restricted and more expensive.

"That means no more oil, coal and gas unless you can find a way to capture emissions," said panelist Bill Kovacs, a senior vice president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Such capture is an expensive process that's far from perfected, Kovacs said. That means businesses and individuals could pay a heavy price for the war on global warming, he said. He contends that the cap-and-trade bill is an overreaction to a problem that isn't as clear-cut as bill supporters contend.

And much of the nation would lose under the plan, Kovacs said. In a presentation before the panel discussion, he presented a map of the United States that showed states on the West Coast and in the Northeast benefiting from the proposal, while most of the rest of the nation would suffer.

South Dakota stood out on the map as the only state in the region that was benefiting from the plan. McGovern noted South Dakota's standing.

"I especially appreciated the slide that showed South Dakota is going to make money on this bill," McGovern said. "I've been trying to tell people that all across the state. So I'm glad the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is with us on this issue."

McGovern said South Dakota stands to gain 5,000 new jobs through the bill because of clean-energy incentives construction of needed transmission lines.

Asked later about the map, Kovacs said he didn't compile the data for the state-by-state breakdown but believed it was based on population, emissions and the type of power generation in a state.

Barbara Zar, a spokeswoman for Black Hills Corp., said after the panel talk that the map was misleading. She said it doesn't account for electricity used in South Dakota but produced in coal-based plants in North Dakota and Wyoming. It also failed to consider that, although South Dakota's four Missouri River hydroelectric dams produce a great deal of electricity, most of it goes to other states, Zar said.

"That map is an aberration, and that's why we don't use it in our materials," she said.

Black Hills Corp. officials contend that South Dakota electric consumers will feel a sharp rise in rates under the cap-and-trade proposal, just like consumers in Wyoming and states with great amounts of oil, coal and natural gas production.

Those effects could hit hard in the West River ranching community, where additional energy costs could disrupt an agriculture economy that has helped feed the world for generations, Vale rancher Troy Hadrick said.

"I'm really concerned that this climate change legislation has the potential to change all that, really has the potential to put us out of business," he said.

Hadrick also challenge the notion that the planet is warming as quickly as proponents of the energy package insist.

McGovern said there's little argument about that in the mainstream scientific community. Climate change is affirmed by sound science and vast majority of scientists who agree that something must be done, he said.

The version of reform passed by the House can be improved in the Senate, he said.

"One way or another, we are going to have to reduce carbon emissions," McGovern said. "We should work to improve the bill in the Senate rather than kill it."

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com