By the OGJ Online Staff
WASHINGTON, DC, Mar. 27�The White House has notified the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that it will nominate two Republican state utility officials to the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
President George W. Bush picked Pat Wood, current chair of the Texas Public Utility Commission, and Nora Brownell, chair of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and chair of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, to serve on the five-member board, which oversees wholesale gas and power markets.
Wood would become chairman of the agency upon Senate confirmation, congressional sources said. It was not immediately known if the interim chairman, Curtis Hebert, a Republican state utility official from Mississippi, would elect to remain a member of the commission.
The White House appointment of Wood had been anticipated for several weeks.
Wood and Brownell are expected to win Senate confirmation without difficulty, congressional sources said.
The other two commissioners are William Massey and Linda Breathitt, both Democrats (OGJ Online, Mar. 14, 2001).
Under law, three of the FERC commissioners must be from the President's political party and two from the opposition party. The commissioners serve staggered terms.
