Witness Panel 1

• The Honorable Philip Moeller

  Commissioner

  Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

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  Witness Panel 1

  The Honorable Philip Moeller

  TESTIMONY OF

  PHILIP D. MOELLER

  NOMINEE TO BE A MEMBER OF THE
  FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION

  BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

  UNITED STATES SENATE

  June 8, 2006

   Chairman Domenici, Senator Bingaman and members of the committee, it is a great honor to be before you today as a nominee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).  I express thanks to President Bush for nominating me to this position, and I thank you for holding this hearing.

  I have been involved in energy policy development for over 20 years.  For much of my early career, I was the staff director for the Washington State Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee in Olympia, where I saw firsthand both the positive and challenging effects of decisions by FERC on my state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region -- most notably with the restructuring of the natural gas industry in the 1980s and the development of more competitive interstate wholesale electricity markets in the 1990s.  

  I came to work here in the United States Senate for Senator Slade Gorton of Washington State in 1997, where my primary responsibility was to work on a wide range of energy policy legislation.  In addition to focusing on regional energy issues and hydropower policy, I spent a great deal of time developing electric reliability legislation.  As a Senate office, we saw the Western electricity crisis develop in the early summer of 2000 and witnessed the devastating impacts that high prices had on the economy of the state and region, and on the lives of the consumers and citizens of our state and the entire West.  The memories of that experience will always motivate me to work at assuring that energy consumers are protected when energy policy is actually implemented in the marketplace.

  After leaving public service I have worked in the private sector on energy policy, both with a generating company and a utility.  This experience has broadened my perspective, especially regarding energy issues that are crucial to the Midwest states.

  Thanks in large part to the efforts of Chairman Domenici, Senator Bingaman and this entire committee, last year’s Energy Policy Act is now law.  In addition to the law’s wide range of policies promoting both the supply side and the demand side of energy, EPACT 2005 also aided energy consumers through new consumer protection mechanisms and modernized authority for FERC to impose fines and penalties intended to prevent market manipulation.
   The law gave FERC a long list of responsibilities and tasks to accomplish.  Chairman Kelliher and the rest of the Commission have worked diligently to assure that, to date, all of the tasks assigned to FERC have been completed on time and under budget.  Many of the tasks assigned to FERC remain to be addressed, and if confirmed I would work to assure that this trend continues.  I would also closely follow whether the provisions of EPACT 2005 are working to meet the intent of Congress.

  It is essential that FERC and Congress work closely together and maintain strong lines of communication.  If confirmed by the Senate, I believe my experience working for a member of this committee will enhance this relationship at a critical time of energy policy implementation.  It would be an honor and a privilege to return to public service at the FERC.  I appreciate the chance to testify before you today and look forward to answering your questions.
  

• The Honorable Jon Wellinghoff

  Chairman

  Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

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  Witness Panel 1

  The Honorable Jon Wellinghoff

  TESTIMONY OF JON WELLINGHOFF

  NOMINEE TO BE A MEMBER OF THE
  FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION

  BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

  UNITED STATES SENATE

  June 8, 2006

  
   Chairman Domenici, Senator Bingaman and distinguished members of the Committee, I am honored to be considered today by you for confirmation of my nomination to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).  I thank President Bush for nominating me.  I am also grateful for the trust and confidence expressed by Senator Reid who recommended me for this position.

  Energy and regulatory law and policy have been the primary focus of my career for more than thirty years.  I have worked both in the public and private sectors.  I have represented both consumers and utilities.  I have supported business and public interests advocating energy efficiency, renewable energy, retail competition, and clean coal technologies.
   Like Chairman Domenici, I first worked as a junior high school math teacher.  Like Chairman Domenici, I too quickly turned to law.  After law school I became a legal assistant to Evo Granata, Commissioner of the Nevada Public Utilities Commission (NPUC).  This was the time of the Arab oil embargo, and utility rates were rising faster than ever before.  In my two years at the Nevada Commission I saw more utility rate cases compressed into that short period of time than in the preceding ten years.  I definitely felt as if I had earned my “Ph.D.” in utility regulation in that job under the expert tutelage of Commissioner Granata and Chairman Noel Clark. 

  After working for the Nevada Commission, I held a number of positions in the public sector including Deputy District Attorney in Nevada and staff attorney for the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee and the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C.  All of these positions encompassed work on energy-related matters. 

  Returning to Nevada, I worked with the then Attorney General, later Governor and U.S. Senator, Richard Bryan, and a private citizen, Randolph Townsend, who would later become a prominent State Senator, to create the first Consumer Advocate in Nevada for Customers of Public Utilities.  I was appointed by Attorney General Bryan to serve as Nevada’s first Consumer Advocate.  In that office, I represented the interests of Nevada’s utility ratepayers before the Nevada Commission and the FERC.  I was Nevada’s Consumer Advocate for seven years, serving term appointments under both Democratic and Republican Attorneys General.  I managed and developed strategy for multiple electric and natural gas proceedings in Nevada.  I also developed legislative policy and instituted a number of energy policy initiatives during my two terms.  The most important initiative was drafting the first comprehensive integrated resource planning (IRP) act for Nevada’s electric utilities.  Nevada’s act was passed in 1983 and became a model for similar acts that were subsequently passed in 17 other states.  After passage of the act, I participated in the IRP rulemaking process before the NPUC and managed numerous related cases.

   In the eighteen years since, with the exception of a short return to the public sector as Staff Counsel to the Nevada Commission, I have been in private practice as both an attorney and an energy consultant.  I have testified and/or consulted in various states including Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Washington, Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, and California on the IRP process, energy efficiency, demand response, natural gas decoupling, and other energy issues. 

  For the past six years I have been in private practice with the law firm of Beckley Singleton in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada.  I have been a Shareholder in the firm for the past four years.  During my time at Beckley, I have represented numerous clients in energy-related matters including utility rate proceedings, IRP cases, legislative proceedings, and power contract negotiations.  My clients have included the Department of Energy, DOD/Department of the Navy, Sandia Labs, major international corporations, utilities, manufacturers of energy efficiency equipment, and renewable resource developers.  During this period, one of the legislative energy policy initiatives I proposed on behalf of my clients was Nevada’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS).  That RPS legislation originally created a market for the sale of 15% renewable energy to Nevada’s electric utilities as enacted in 2001 and was then amended by a proposal I submitted to the legislature in 2005 to a 20% RPS market.  Since the first enactment of an RPS in Nevada in 2001, I have consulted on RPS proposals in California, Oregon, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado.  In addition to my policy work on RPS legislation, I also experienced first hand the challenges of electric market restructuring in representing clients in the aftermath of market failures in the West during the 1999-2002 timeframe. 

  The FERC is an important independent regulatory agency with an essential mission.  The Congress has placed even greater responsibility on the agency with the enhancements to FERC’s powers in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  Resource adequacy, electric system reliability, demand response, and transmission planning are all integral to the IRP process that I helped initiate in Nevada and numerous other states.  These are also issues for which FERC has been given a level of responsibility under the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  If confirmed, I hope to transfer the experience I have gained in these areas working at a state level to my work at FERC.  I also hope to bring with me, if confirmed, my thirty years of experience in the regulation of electric and gas utilities and my general philosophy of energy regulation which is to keep it efficient, effective, and responsive to the needs of the energy consumer. 

  In closing, I want to acknowledge and thank my wife, Karen Galatz, who has been with me through over two thirds of my career in energy law.  I could have accomplished little without her by my side.  She could not be here today at my confirmation hearing as she had to be with our two sons who are taking their junior high and high school final exams in Nevada.
   I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today and am happy to answer any questions you may have.