Exit Peña

Patrick Crow
Washington, D.C.
[email protected]

Last week, Energy Sec. Federico Peña abruptly announced that he is resigning, effective June 30.

Peña explained that he wants to return to private life and spend more time with his family, the same things he wanted 15 months ago, when he quit as transportation secretary at the end of President Clinton's first term.

Instead, Clinton persuaded Peña to succeed Hazel O'Leary at DOE.

He has done a creditable job at what should be called the Department of Nuclear Energy. His latest achievement was to issue a national energy strategy, one of those rituals that energy secretaries enjoy but that never have any discernible effect.

Peña said that, in the next 3 months, he wants to "bring closure" to as many issues as he can at DOE. For one thing, he wants to "add more momentum" to the retail electricity decontrol issue.

Reactions

Nicholas Bush, Natural Gas Supply Association president, said Peña has been "hard-working and a quick study on complex energy issues." He said Peña "was both candid and well-informed" at meetings with energy executives.

Bush said the next secretary should be "a proven leader with extensive knowledge of energy markets and a firm grasp of the complex interactions between energy markets and federal regulation."

Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alas.) was disappointed at Peña's resignation.

"The truth is that his departure may make it difficult...for electric rate deregulation to proceed this year. It likely will take time for any replacement to fully understand the administration's positions and to get someone up to date on these issues."

Actually, Bush and Murkowski are well aware that one person exactly fits their criteria: Deputy Energy Sec. Elizabeth Moler.

Moler is DOE's chief operating officer. She is the administration's key official on retail electricity restructuring. And she has sterling energy credentials.

Second chance

Moler began working in Congress in 1967, was an aide to two Senate energy committee chairmen, and served 12 years as counsel to the panel, helping draft most of the energy laws on the books today.

She was named to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 1988 and chaired the panel in 1993-97, when it completed restructuring of the interstate gas pipeline industry and instituted wholesale electricity decontrol.

In late 1996, Moler was the obvious and apparent choice to succeed O'Leary at DOE. But at the last minute, Clinton decided he wanted a Hispanic in his cabinet (OGJ, Dec. 30, 1996, p. 32). That was about the only qualification Moler didn't have.

She accepted the No. 2 job at DOE when it came open last June.

Asked if he expected Moler to succeed him, Peña said, "The president will proceed very methodically in making a decision about who the next secretary of energy will be. I am very confident that Betsy's name is right up there. I have very much enjoyed working with her. I have a great amount of confidence in her. But that will be the President's decision."

So Moler appears to have a second shot at the job. Unless, of course, Clinton again lets diversity or other political concerns rule his decision.