EnergyBiz - November/December 2007 - (Page 86)

» LeGAL eAGLe Go-To Staffer SEnAtE EnErgy CoMMittEE’S wiCkEr by dArrEll dElAMAidE the oVerhead lIGhts IN bIll Wicker’s office will automatically dim as the afternoon sun comes streaming through the windows. A small photosensor perched on the wall opposite the window sends a reading to the computer in the reception area of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which then sends a signal to the lights to dim or brighten as needed. The best thing about this energy efficient lighting system is that it did not take an act of Congress to get it installed in the suite of offices in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. This was the slightly irreverent message that Wicker, communications director for the committee, sent in one of his regular emails to the press and a few thousand other subscribers. “Some say it takes an Act of Congress to change a light bulb in Washington,” Wicker wrote on September 7. “Not in the Senate Energy Committee. Leading by example, we are the first committee on Capitol Hill to install a new energy efficient and environmentally friendly lighting system.” That touch of irreverence is characteristic of Wicker’s approach to his job. “Things are often humorless here on the Hill,” Wicker says, sitting in his efficiently lit office. “I decided early on to take a slightly different approach.” Early on was 2001, when Wicker joined the committee as communications director for the Democrats, then in the minority. “I don’t consider myself a particularly funny person by nature,” Wicker says, “but I don’t take myself too seriously.” Too much of the communication emanating from Hill was so dry that you needed a cup of coffee to get through it, Wicker recalls, or so full of spin that it had no credibility. So Wicker decided to tell the story straight, a trait he had learned in his early years as a reporter for the Texarkana Gazette. Today, Wicker has an old AP teletype machine crammed into a corner of his tiny office to recall his start at the newspaper as a copy boy, ripping off the wire copy and distributing it to the reporters and editors. NewsFlash He also has hard hats from the various oil and gas iZZo For CaPs companies he worked for, ralph izzo, chief such as Shell Oil and Phillips executive of PseG, told Petroleum, before joining the congress that it should Department of Energy, where enact a national caphe worked seven years in the and-trade program to encourage development communications department. of new technologies “Of course you like to say that lessen emissions of that was six years too many,” carbon dioxide. he jokes. “But if I hadn’t put izzo said, “… i am confident we can meet in the time there, I would this challenge in a never have been able to land manner that will unleash this job.” our nation’s innovative So does it make a differskills, create jobs, and ence to be on the majority truly transform the economy.” side of the aisle now? bill Wicker PHoto By stEPHaniE soMMEr “What I do is still the same,” Wicker says. “The difference now is that people pay a whole lot more attention to what you say.” That means a lot more phone traffic, for instance, than he ever received as the minority spokesman. It was phone traffic that first prompted Wicker to begin sending out his emails. “My job is to help reporters do their job,” Wicker says. “A lot of it is in these emails. All of my messages are written with the media in mind.” He tries to give reporters all the essentials – and then some – so that they only need to call if they have some particular angle they want to follow up on. Because of their detail and readability, however, the emails have found an audience far beyond the journalists covering the committee – companies, lobbyists, NGOs and clergy are all among the groups subscribing to the emails. Nobody gets turned away, Wicker says. The informality of the emails gives Wicker a chance to get across some points that the courtly chairman of the committee, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., might not be able to broach. “I can be a little cheeky, a little partisan,” Wicker says. Cheeky, indeed. Take this e-mail from June 12: “Commissioners in the Southeast (and some lobbyists in Washington) are running a temperature about the prospects for a national renewable portfolio standard (RPS). They seem to be feeling under the weather because they think such a law would mean higher costs for consumers. This suspicion is supported by ‘evidence’ in a study commissioned by – surprise, surprise – the utility industry’s biggest trade association, the Edison Electric Institute. Fortunately, we have found the cure for the RPS blues!” Wicker’s email goes on to discuss a new study by the Energy Information Agency, which found a 15 percent RPS would lead to only slightly higher electricity expenditures by 2030 and lower coal and natural gas prices. Wicker’s conclusion: “If fear of renewables is the fever, EIA’s new analysis surely is the cure.” 86 E n E rgyB i z November/December 2007 http://www.energycentral.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EnergyBiz - November/December 2007

EnergyBiz - November/December 2007 Contents Continental Grid Vision Needed Readers’ Views and Opinions Next for National Grid Clearing the Air The Need for Nuclear Energy Trade Status Report The Innovators California On The Leading Edge FERC Sparks Change Getting Coal Right Leadership in Times of Turmoil Innovation Delivers Return A Tale of Two IPOs LNGs Bright Prospects Generation Techologies The Age of Superconductors Leaders with Vision Get Ready for Plug-in Hybrids Betting on Batteries Cost of Decarbonizing Nuclear Helmsman – A chat with Dale Klein, Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Global Energy Snapshot; Low-Income Energy Help; IT Spending Robust; The Greening of State Regulators; Generating Support Simplifying Offshore Wind Regs Chasing Construction Costs Energy Agency Sets New Course Deregulation Means Higher Rates Go-To Staffer Nightmare in Manhatten

EnergyBiz - November/December 2007

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