Aside from agreeing that Montanans deserve affordable energy, local candidates for the state Public Service Commission disagreed about everything else during a Billings debate Wednesday.

Incumbent Brad Molnar, R-Laurel, and challenger Ron Tussing, D-Billings, debated the merits of wind energy, the real cause of utility deregulation in Montana and whether the PSC could speed up the process of approving sites for power plant construction.

It is the PSC's job to set adequate service and reasonable rates for customers of public utilities while also setting a reasonable rate of return for utility companies. Private, investor-owned natural gas, electric, telephone, water and sewer companies in Montana are regulated by the PSC. Publicly owned utilities, such as electrical or phone cooperatives, city water services as well as cable TV companies, are not.

Molnar and Tussing are vying for PSC District 2, which covers 10 counties beginning with Carbon County and heading east to the southeast corner of the state. Molnar told the crowd of 60 people gathered at the Billings Senior Center that wind energy has cost customers more than advertised.

Wind power is intermittent; it comes and goes with the blowing wind. When the wind dies down, utilities have to have a backup source of energy available, the commissioner said. Molnar said the backup energy has to be bought on the spot market, where rates are most expensive. The cost of backup power, coupled with hidden transmission costs makes wind more expensive than people realize. And wind isn't always available when people need electricity, he said.

Molnar said wind is often available at night, when consumer demand for energy is down. He wasn't clear on how that energy produced in off-peak hours differed from power produced from conventional energy sources during the same periods of low energy demand.

The debate about the merits of wind power is ongoing. NorthWestern Energy officials contend that the cost of backup power is already added into the reported cost for wind energy. The company gets its wind power from the Judith Gap wind project north of Harlowton. The project is owned by Invenergy, which sells the power to NorthWestern. The cost of Judith Gap Power is about $41 a megawatt hour. NorthWestern's 320,000 Montana retail customers pay about $56 a megawatt hour for electricity from a blend of sources, of which wind is one the most affordable, the company has said.

Tussing said wind energy was the cheapest, cleanest energy produced in Montana, which made it a favorable source. He has advocated bringing more wind energy online as part of his campaign. He didn't have much to say about Molnar's assertion about hidden costs associated with wind power, but did say he'd rely on NorthWestern's assessment of wind as the state's most affordable energy source.

On utility deregulation, Tussing, the mayor of Billings, faulted Molnar for co-sponsoring Senate Bill 390 during his days as a state lawmaker. The 1997 bill is agreed by most lawmakers and PSC members to be the cause of utility deregulation and, ultimately, higher energy prices for consumers.

Molnar has insisted for years that the Senate bill was a customer choice bill and that the PSC was at fault for deregulating the utilities two year later in 1999. Two years ago, acting as his own lawyer, Molnar went as far as suing the PSC and PPL Montana to essentially stop the energy company from selling power at unregulated market rates. The lawsuit was thrown out on the grounds that it was seven years too late for consideration.

At least one other sponsor of SB390, former Senate Majority Leader John Harp, R-Kalispell, has since apologized for deregulating electrical energy, saying he'd been "hoodwinked" by Montana Power.

Tussing has said Molnar not only sponsored the bill deregulating the energy producers, but also acknowledged later that it was a mistake.

To prove his point, he's used a Molnar quote from February 2001 in which Molnar said "I voted for and constantly and consistently defended utility deregulation. However the moonscape has changed considerably." At the time Molnar was proposing a plan to set new price restrictions on deregulated PPL.

Molnar told the audience that he never made the comment, which was reported in a Feb. 2, 2001, Billings Gazette story about his plan to stabilize energy prices.

The third sharp disagreement between the two candidates centered on whether the PSC could speed up the approval of locations for power plant construction.

Tussing said it was his understanding that other organizations within state government, particularly the Department of Environmental Quality, were responsible for determining where power plants could be safely located.

The state's Major Facility Siting Act does put the DEQ in charge of determining where facilities like power plants can be located without damaging the water, wildlife and other concerns.

Molnar said it's the PSC that approves projects by assuring new generators that once online, their power will be purchased for Montana customers.