Energy team adds UNM professor

Staff Report

A UNM law professor will soon have a say in the sale and distribution of energy resources throughout the country.

Suedeen Kelly, was recently confirmed as a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the entity responsible for transmission of electricity and natural gas in interstate commerce.

On leave from UNM until fall 2005, Kelly teaches energy law, public utility regulation, legislative process and administrative law and practice. Her research is focused on electricity and renewable energy.

She will replace an outgoing commissioner and will serve the remainder of a five-year term, expiring June 2004. Kelly will move to Washington and hopes to be appointed to another term.

"I am honored that the U.S. Senate has confirmed me to this position, and I am looking forward to working with the other four commissioners on the many energy issues pending at the commission that are of concern to New Mexico and the country," she said.

While on a recent sabbatical last year, Kelly worked at the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. She also spent eight months as regulatory counsel for the California Independent System Operator, charged with managing the first statewide, integrated electricity transmission system and real-time market for electricity. During her time in California, the state experienced its devastating energy crisis as it embarked upon deregulation of the electric utility industry.

Kelly began her career in a Washington, D.C. firm where she was a litigator in the federal courts and in Environmental Protection Agency proceedings. She then worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In New Mexico, Kelly established her own environmental law practice. She has worked as chairwoman of the state Public Utility Commission, as a PUC commissioner and with the New Mexico Attorney General's Office public utilities division.

At the UNM School of Law, she served as editor in chief of the Natural Resources Journal for five years.