Named

A natural gas-fired Honda passenger vehicle was named the top-ranked clean vehicle for the eighth consecutive year earlier in February, and Chrysler Group LLC, a unit of Italy-based Fiat SpA, announced last Friday it was considering making a compressed natural gas (CNG) version of its popular Ram truck.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has been named the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, which holds the purse strings to the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — agencies with which she has had policy disputes during the last couple of years.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has been named the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, which holds the purse strings to the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — agencies with which she has had policy disputes during the last couple of years.

San Diego Gas and Electric Co. CEO Jessie Knight has been named the cochair of the Southern California Leadership Council, a regional economic development organization he helped found six years ago. Knight and former California Gov. Gray Davis co-chair the group, which seeks to provide a “platform” for business and community leaders to speak “as one voice” on public policy issues such as job creation.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who was edged out as chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, in a sort of parting gift has been named chairman emeritus of the panel.

The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) has named Charmaine Jackson, a communications professional, as the PRC’s Native American Liaison, responsible for keeping open lines of communication between the regulators and all Indian nations, tribes and pueblos in the state. Jackson will advise the five-member elected regulatory commission on all Native American matters and is expected “to establish and maintain mutual understanding and good relations.” A communications/journalism graduate from the University of New Mexico, Jackson previously served as the public information officer for the Navajo Nation’s president and vice president (2002-04). She also served as the information officer for the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department (2004-06). Jackson was the first Native American news reporter to broadcast in the Four Corners region of the state with an NBC-TV network affiliate, KOBF-TV, in Farmington, NM. One of the five current PRC members, Theresa Becenti-Aguilar, previously served the commission in the same liaison position.

David Meister, a partner in the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, has been named director of enforcement at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. A former federal criminal prosecutor, he has nearly 25 years of experience in investigations, litigation and trials involving fraud and other complex schemes relating to U.S. financial markets. Meister previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he was a member of that Office’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force. Vincent McGonagle, who has been acting director of enforcement since Oct. 1, will continue in that capacity until Meister joins the agency.

The Western Energy Alliance, which represents more than 400 natural gas and oil operators as well as six producers, last week filed a lawsuit to force the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to award 118 leases in Utah and Wyoming worth an estimated $4.5 million.

The Western Energy Alliance, which represents more than 400 natural gas and oil operators as well as six producers, has filed a lawsuit to force the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to award 118 leases in Utah and Wyoming that are worth an estimated $4.5 million.