I am sorry to report that Sue Tierney will no longer be a candidate for Deputy Secretary of Energy. She sent out an email today to friends indicating that was her decision.
She would have been a first rate Deputy (see Chu at Energy/Enviro Ball: “We are on a path that scares me.” Plus Sue Tierney for Deputy, and stuff I leaned at DOE, Part 2).
The email was private so I won’t discuss its contents. I will say that just months as acting assistant secretary in 1997 was pretty much all I could take of that unbelievably demanding and stressful job. And the workload — and travel — gets more demanding and stressful the higher up you go. Deputy is two levels above assistant secretary, so I honestly don’t know how anybody manages those jobs — and it is no surprise to me that anyone ultimately decides it isn’t right for them.
I don’t think it will be particularly easy to replace her multiple skill sets and talents — but it is absolute critical that Steven Chu pick someone who is an energy expert, preferably someone with some DOE experience, and preferably someone who can help on the crucial issue of transmission (see “A smart, green grid is needed to enable a near-term renewable revolution“).
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
I guess, income tax just always seems to get you in the end.
Speaking of energy, check out this site:
http://alternativeenergy.procon.org/
Her withdrawal is a real loss for Energy.
Mr. Romm, you strike me as a straight shooter and I’m often pleasantly surprised and impressed by the extent to which you on occasion will challenge other enviros on policy that you view as misguided. However, regarding Sue Tierney, I believe your assessment is flawed.
To me, she’s the embodiment of conflicted environmentalism: she consults for energy companies while currently chairing the board of a Energy Foundation (EF), a major funder to environmentalists.
Critics have take the foundation to task for having driven the deregulatory agenda on electricity that manifested during the Clinton years, favoring with financial largess groups supportive of deregulation while cutting off critics. These same groups favored by EF are the ones pushing the trading agenda towards dealing with global warming.
I’m sure that Tierney is quite personable, capable and smart, but gross conflicts of interest are what got us into the current economic abyss, opened up California to be looted by Enron and its ilk, and I fear that the same amongst elite enviros doesn’t bode well for the future of the planet.
While I don’t regret that she’s had to pull out, I imagine that whoever replaces her will be no better regarding these matters that concern me.
[JR: Please provide any evidence EF pushed deregulaton. Just for the record, when I was at DOE with Tierney, she took the lead in writing a DOE letter to California warning them against the kind of deregulation they were contemplating. You also seem to be complaining against EF's efforts on global warming. Can't agree with you on that.]
As I recollect, EF claimed it was not taking a stance on the matter as well as upon the extent to which nuclear stranded costs were recovered by the utilities from ratepayers, but meanwhile it threw huge chunks of $ at the pro-deregulatory groups that others felt were too generous in regards to the extent of stranded cost recovery; and there was grumbling that if groups opposed the pro-deregulatory agenda, they faced having their funding cut off. There is literature about this, but it received very limited attention and thus is essentially lost. I’ll try to put it together and post citations by early next week. It would be interesting if you would consider taking a look at the material and offering an assessment of the criticism.
Interesting that Tierney wrote a letter re dereg; perhaps I may need to eat some of my words above. I’ll also take a look at time frame(s) for her involvement with EF’s board.
However I think stand by my basic critique of her that there is at the very least an appearance of conflict of interest if in her professional work she is consulting for energy interests while chairing a group that doles out major amounts of $ to environmental organizations. How might this effect the advocacy of a group that on one hand would be appealing to EF for funds while on the other perhaps encountering her working for energy interests with which the group may have differences? And forget consideration that for the good of humanity and current ecosystems it might be necessary to reconsider the approach towards energy interests, at least if you’re going to appeal to EF for funding.