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 The California Energy Commission recently lost a lion of energy-efficiency when William Keese relinquished the chairmanship after 8 years. Appointed by then-Gov. Pete Wilson, Keese took the chairmanship in 1997 with the goal of "reinvigorating" the commission. Longtime friend and fellow Alliance Board Member S. David Freeman noted that "no one has worked as long or hard to save energy in California as Bill Keese." Keese talked with e-FFICIENCY NEWS about his tenure on the commission, the drafting of the Energy Action Plan, which Freeman credits to Keese's persistence, and his plans for the future.
e-FFICIENCY NEWS: You were appointed to chair the California Energy Commission (CEC) in 1997 by then-Gov. Pete Wilson. What kind of activities did you have in mind when you received the appointment?
William Keese: California had gone through a series of very fiscally difficult years and there were proposals to eliminate the CEC for cost-saving purposes. When the position of Chair (and member) opened up, I was interested in the position for the purpose of re-invigorating the Commission. As it turned out, that was Gov. Wilson's position too, even though he had submitted budgets that eliminated its funding. His charge to me was to re-invigorate the position.
e-FN: At the time, how did you envision you would do that?
WK: I took over the Commission shortly after legislation passed that was intended to restructure California's electricity industry. The legislature gave a number of new tasks to the CEC, including a $60 million a year research and development program and the administration of $135 million for renewable energy programs. I threw our staff fully into implementing the restructuring.
e-FN: Can you talk about your experiences during the energy crisis in 2001? How did that event alter the goals you had in mind when you started at the CEC three years earlier?
WK: When the energy crisis arose in 2001, the responsibilities of the Commission in attempting to deal with it were expanded, including the distribution of an additional $500 million budgeted by the legislature for energy-efficiency programs. A significant portion of CEC staff time was shifted to dealing with the efforts to bring California out of the crisis. One of the side effects of the crisis was the start of an unprecedented collaboration between the Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC), which resulted in the Energy Action Plan (EAP) that became the framework California's energy policy.
The EAP created a loading order, or a prioritized list of methods we would use to meet California's electricity needs. Energy efficiency is first, renewable energy second, conventional generation is third. The plan was initially drafted--I should say "dreamed up"--at informal meetings I had with the chair of PUC, Michael Peevey, and S. David Freeman who chaired the California Power Authority helped to draft the EAP.
e-FN: What do you think were some of your landmark achievements on the CEC?
WK: There are three achievements I'm most proud of.
- Certainly at the root is re-invigorating the Commission.
- Establishing rapport between sister agencies of the CEC, the Air Resources Board and the PUC.
- Drafting the EAP and related Integrated Energy Policy Report (IEPR). That is a report that the legislature asked us to do every two years, with update in between, to project what is necessary in the energy area (electricity, gas, natural gas, etc). The IEPR meant to be guidance for state agencies. That is the document that goes through the formal hearing process and is presented for government review. When we drafted the EAP, we asked ourselves "Let's see what we can do now," and we took the low-hanging fruit. We all said "we know energy efficiency is the first, best, and easiest thing we can do: it lowers emissions, saves need for generation, extends LNG supplies." So we put that at the top of the loading order.
e-FN: How did your participation on the Alliance board overlap with your mission at the CEC?
WK: The EC, since its existence, has been committed to ee and its strongest proponent in CA. The Alliance is the leader on the national level, as it was a perfectly natural fit to align those two efforts.
e-FN: What does the future hold for you?
WK: Right now I'm co-chairing CDEAC, Clean and Diversified Electricity Advisory Committee, of western governors. This is a western governor's effort, initiated by Govs. Schwarzenegger and Richardson, to develop 30,000 MW of clean and diversified energy in the west by 2015 and a second goal of 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency. I intend to stay involved in policy field in the energy efficiency area for a while yet.
e-FN: Thanks for your time.
WK: You bet.
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