State energy pro moving up

Friday, March 10, 2006 | 7:21 a.m.

When Jon Wellinghoff resigned as the state's consumer advocate in 1988, then-Public Utilities Commission Chairman Scott Craigie noted there was "probably dancing in the halls of the utility companies."

"They probably feel they've seen the last of Jon Wellinghoff," he said. "But that's not true."

It certainly was not.

Wellinghoff has continued to play a role shaping energy policy as a private attorney specializing in energy and consumer issues and as the state PUC's counsel.

And this week, utility companies nationwide learned his name.

Wellington, 56, is slated to be nominated by President Bush to serve on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees the U.S. wholesale energy market and regulates interstate trade of electrical energy.

"This (FERC appointment) is a very prestigious position and a tremendous opportunity to participate in energy policy," said Wellinghoff, who is a partner in the Las Vegas law firm of Beckley Singleton. "Energy will be one of the top two or three central issues for the next decade."

A Reno High School graduate who earned a degree from UNR, Wellinghoff worked in the 1970s as the chief of the Washoe County District Attorney's consumer fraud division and as a staff attorney for the Federal Trade Commission.

He went on to write the bill that would create the state's consumer advocate and was the first appointed to the post.

By the time he left, his office had saved state consumers an estimated $40 million in energy costs by encouraging utilities to use renewable forms of energy and by representing the interests of consumers in more than 500 cases before the PUC.

Statewide energy policies that Wellinghoff has written include a requirement that utilities plan for 20 years in advance and a law that requires them to obtain some of their power from renewable energy resources, such as solar, wind and geothermal energy.

He sees no reason why the nation's energy policy should be any different.

"I want to look at the whole issue of transmission system efficiency to utilize energy wisely and ensure energy flows efficiently on the national transmission grid," he said.

Wellinghoff said if he is confirmed by the Senate he also will encourage the very consumers he protected as the state's consumer watchdog to also do their part to ensure energy savings.

"Instead of looking at just (power companies') generating units, we must look at customers more efficiently using power to cut back at peak times on uses that are nonessential," Wellinghoff said.

Wellinghoff, registered as a political Independent, will be nominated for a term that expires in 2008.

He was recommended to the president nearly a year ago by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate minority leader.