FERC Commissioner Suedeen Kelly, whose confirmation for a second term on the Commission has been bogged down in Capitol Hill politics, was tossed a life preserver when House and Senate lawmakers decided to return after the elections for a lame duck session in mid-November.

The decision extends the grace period under which Kelly has been serving since her existing term at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission expired in June. The grace period runs until Congress adjourns for the year, which until very recently looked like it was going to be Oct. 8. Congress now has chosen to return for a lame duck session the week of Nov. 15 to act on appropriations bills and other business.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted out Kelly’s nomination for a second term on the Commission in June, but Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-ID) quickly placed a hold on the nomination when it reached the Senate floor, preventing senators from confirming her until his concerns were addressed. Craig’s hold still is in place.

Craig threatened to keep the hold on Kelly, a Democrat, until Senate Democrats allowed votes on Republican judicial nominees. “We understand there may be a vote on Al Lance” to the Veterans Court of Appeals by the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said Craig spokesman Dan Whiting. “We’ve just heard rumors…Nothing is confirmed,” he noted.

“If we can get Al Lance out of committee then we’ll release the hold” on Kelly for the Commission, Whiting told NGI.

Kelly, who joined the Commission in November 2003, served out the remainder of a term of a prior Commissioner that expired on June 30 of this year. The White House in April re-nominated her to a full five-year term that would end on June 30, 2009.

A Senate Energy Committee spokesman was optimistic that Kelly will be confirmed by the Senate by the end of the lame duck session. “These things at the end have a way of sorting themselves out.”

But if things aren’t sorted out, he said the president in January would have to re-nominate Kelly, and she would have to go through the confirmation process again. Kelly would not be allowed to sit on the Commission during this period.

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