Kelliher resigns as FERC chairman after 3½ years

Jan. 7, 2009
US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Joseph T. Kelliher resigned on Jan. 7, effective Jan. 20. He led the commission for 3½ years.

Nick Snow
Washington Editor

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 7 -- US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Joseph T. Kelliher resigned on Jan. 7, effective Jan. 20. He led the commission for 3½ years.

"Although my term as commissioner does not end until 2012, I will also immediately begin to recuse myself from FERC business as I explore other career opportunities," he said in a statement.

Kelliher noted that while he was chairman, FERC's authority expanded under the 2005 Energy Policy Act (EPACT). "This law gives FERC better tools to discharge its historic missions of guarding the consumer from exploitation and promoting the development of a robust energy infrastructure, as well as giving the agency new missions on [electric power] grid reliability and enforcement," he said.

EPACT represented the most important changes in FERC-administered laws since President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and gave the commission regulatory tools it needed to meet today's challenges, Kelliher said in the resignation letter he sent to US President George W. Bush.

Kelliher's legacy as FERC chairman also will include the siting of several LNG import terminals and an energy price transparency initiative.

"We very much appreciate the leadership Joe Kelliher provided," Interstate Natural Gas Association of America Pres. Donald F. Santa told OGJ in a telephone call from Houston. "He was a strong supporter of energy infrastructure and also of reasoned and balanced regulation. We think he and his colleagues did an exemplary job during his tenure."

Kelliher's impending departure leaves US President-elect Barack Obama free to nominate a successor to resolve energy commodity jurisdictional questions with the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission and the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Obama already has nominated Gary Gensler as CFTC chairman and Mary Schapiro as SEC chairwoman.

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