President-elect Bill Clinton has nominated Hazel O'Leary, an executive vice-president of Northern States Power Co., Minneapolis, to be secretary of energy.
The appointment is of interest to the oil and gas industry, but it is far from crucial.
Despite the title, the energy secretary is not the key player on U.S. energy issues.
EPA NO. 1
In the next 4 years the Environmental Protection Agency administrator will make more decisions of more importance to the oil industry than the energy secretary.
EPA will consider issues ranging from production wastes to operation of refineries and the makeup and marketing of gasoline and other fuels.
The second most important official to the oil industry probably is the secretary of interior, who controls leasing of federal land.
The energy secretary probably is a close third, mostly making research and development decisions. The Department of Energy was more important in the days of crude oil and products price controls.
This year O'Leary will have to make a number of decisions to implement the new National Energy Policy Act, mostly relating to energy efficiency and conservation issues.
But most of the energy secretary's job will be-and always has been-administering the manufacture and problem-ridden cleanup of the country's nuclear weapons program.
The defense related work claims most of DOE's employees and $14 billion of its $19 billion budget.
Because it seems so logical, various groups have urged the Clinton administration to shift defense related activities to the Department of Defense or the Environmental Protection Agency. Neither DOD nor EPA wants that hot potato.
EPA Administrator William Reilly has warned his replacement, Mrs. Carol Browner, to resist any such attempt.
Energy Sec. James Watkins recently recommended against shifting that function to DOD, reasoning that as a matter of policy the government should keep the people who make nuclear weapons separate from those to order them.
Watkins said, "I don't know what economies it would gain for the government, and we would waste a lot of time in debate over it."
Energy secretaries always have been picked for their strengths. James Schlesinger was a nuclear man, Charles Duncan a strong manager, James B. Edwards well versed in nuclear, Donald P. Hodel a strong backer of oil and gas production, John Herrington a manager for the nuclear cleanup problem, and James Watkins a nuclear authority.
CLINTON AGENDA
In his key environmental speech, Clinton said, "We would make energy conservation and energy efficiency central goals in every field of policy-in designing our offices, planning our communities, designing our transportation systems, and regulating our utilities. My goal is to improve America's overall energy efficiency 20% by 2000."
O'Leary's appointment owes something to the fact she is a woman, a gender Clinton wants on his cabinet.
But it probably owes much more to the fact she will reflect Clinton's proconsumer, proconservation plans for DOE.
Copyright 1992 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
