Nevada attorney Jon Wellinghoff was sworn in Monday as a new FERC commissioner by Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada at his Capitol Hill office. He is the last of the three FERC nominees to take the oath of office. The commissioners already are at work at the agency, according to a FERC spokeswoman.

Wellinghoff, a former attorney with the Nevada-based law firm of Beckley Singleton, assumes the Democratic seat of former Commissioner William Massey. His term expires on June 30, 2008.

Former Arizona regulator Marc Spitzer and ex-Alliant Energy executive Philip Moeller were sworn in earlier this month as commissioners at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see Daily GPI, July 25).

Spitzer, a Republican, succeeds former Commissioner Nora Mead Brownell, who left the agency after the July 20th FERC meeting. His term as a FERC commissioner will expire June 30, 2011. Moeller, who most recently was head of Wisconsin-based utility Alliant Energy’s Washington, DC office, was sworn in last Monday by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts. A Republican, Moeller assumes former FERC Chairman Pat Wood’s seat on the Commission. His term would expire June 30, 2010.

All five Commission seats will be filled at the agency’s next meeting (Sept. 21), for the first time in a number of years. The political make-up of FERC will be three Republicans and two Democrats. It will be the first time that the Commission will be made up mostly of westerners.

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