Veteran state regulator and former governor’s communication director Kris Mayes was selected Tuesday by her colleagues as chairman of the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC). She is a Republican who has been elected twice to the regulatory panel after originally being appointed by Gov. Janet Napolitano in 2003.

Mayes replaced ACC Chairman Mike Gleason, one of three regulators who left the commission at the end of 2008. She is a former political and general assignment reporter with the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette, with law and master’s degrees from Arizona State University and Columbia University, respectively.

In her five years on the ACC Mayes has made renewable energy a priority, helping to craft the state renewable energy standard (RES), along with focusing on energy efficiency, natural gas issues and pipeline safety. Mayes said she would focus on renewable energy and efficiency, along with water conservation.

“This commission has been at the forefront of efforts to make Arizona a solar energy capital,” she said. “We should insist on the diversification of our energy sources and turn our focus as well to energy efficiency — the ‘negawatt’ — which is the cheapest of all forms of energy.”

©Copyright 2009Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.