Climate Change ‘Big Priority’ For Energy Commission Chief

Add a new name to the list of Obama appointees devoted to aggressive action on climate change.

President Obama yesterday named Jon Wellinghoff — a lawyer who once served as Nevada’s consumer advocate and a believer that electric-car owners could someday get paid to provide backup battery power to the electricity grid — as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Wellinghoff joined the commission in 2006 and has been serving as acting chairman since January. He takes charge of an agency that has long been dominated by oil and gas or utility lawyers and that focuses on the wholesale part of the oil, natural gas and electricity markets. The agency oversees about 368,000 miles of electricity transmission lines and more than 11,000 miles of natural gas pipelines, and regulates hydroelectric projects and energy markets.

But Wellinghoff, who conducted a full energy audit of the shortcomings of FERC’s headquarters soon after he arrived, had previously helped write Nevada’s renewable electricity standard requiring utilities to increase their use of wind, solar and geothermal power. He was the lead attorney for a big solar installation near Las Vegas. And on his windowsill, he keeps a small Stirling engine, a device used in many geothermal and solar installations that runs when it comes in contact with the heat of a hand or computer monitor.

Washington Post