Washington, D.C. – The Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee today in an 11:30 a.m. buesiness meeting approved unanimously by voice vote the nominations of Philip Moeller to be a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and Jon Wellinghoff to be a Member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. 

Philip D. Moeller is the head of the Washington, DC office of Alliant Energy Corporation, an electric and natural gas utility based in Madison, Wisconsin.  Alliant Energy provides utility service to portions of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota.  Prior to representing Alliant Energy, Mr. Moeller worked in the Washington office of Calpine Corporation.

From 1997 through 2000, Mr. Moeller served as an energy policy advisory to Senator Slade Gorton (R-Washington) where he focused on electricity policy, electric system reliability, hydropower, energy efficiency, nuclear waste, energy and water appropriations and other energy legislation.

Prior to joining Senator Gorton’s staff, Mr. Moeller served for nearly ten years as the Staff Coordinator for the Washington State Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications, where he was responsible for a wide range of policy areas that included energy, telecommunications, conservation, water, and nuclear waste.

Mr. Moeller was born in Chicago and raised on a ranch near Spokane, Washington.  He received a B.A. in Political Science from Stanford University.

Jon Wellinghoff is a shareholder with the law firm of Beckley Singleton, Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. He has concentrated his practice in the fields of energy law and utility regulation for the past thirty years. In addition to representing clients before the Nevada Commission where his regulatory practice is primarily focused, he also has represented clients before the regulatory commissions of California, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona (Corporation Commission), Washington (UTC), and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He has testified as an expert witness on behalf of clients in utility regulatory matters in Nevada, Texas, and the District of Columbia, and was retained as a consultant to the staff of the Oregon Commission. He has also advised the staffs of the Missouri, Minnesota, New York, and Georgia Commissions.

Before joining the law firm of Beckley Singleton, Mr. Wellinghoff’s utility practice included several public sector positions. He was Administrative Assistant to the Honorable Evo Granata, Commissioner, Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, and participated in numerous natural gas and electric rate cases before the Nevada Commission with Commissioner Granata. Mr. Wellinghoff was then appointed by the Attorney General of Nevada to serve as the state’s first Consumer Advocate for Customers of Public Utilities. While Consumer Advocate, Mr. Wellinghoff represented Nevada’s utility consumers before the Nevada Commission, the FERC, and in appeals before the Nevada Supreme Court. He served two terms as Consumer Advocate, and personally participated in dozens of complex utility rate and regulatory matters on behalf of Nevada Consumers. While Consumer Advocate, Mr. Wellinghoff authored one of the first comprehensive state utility integrated planning statutes and successfully lobbied that statute through the Nevada legislature. The statute became a model for utility integrated planning processes across the country and companion statutes were eventually adopted in seventeen other states. The last public sector position that Mr. Wellinghoff held was as Staff Counsel to the Nevada Public Utilities Commission. In that position he was lead counsel in the merger proceeding between Nevada’s two largest utilities, Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific Power Company.

Mr. Wellinghoff has also served as a Staff Attorney for the Federal Trade Commission, Energy and Product Information Division, Washington, D.C., from 1978 to 1979. In 1978 he was the Assistant Majority Staff Counsel for the United States Senate Commerce Committee, Consumer Subcommittee, Washington, D.C. He was a Deputy District Attorney in the Consumer Fraud Division for Washoe County District Attorney’s Office in Reno, Nevada from 1976 to 1977.

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