This is a step toward replacing blind faith in badly flawed wholesale electricity "markets" with sanity and regulatory sense. Joseph Keilliher, head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, is stepping down as chairman.. Now Obama can start putting people at the agency who will look more closely at market power, manipulation and other shenanigans.

UPDATE: Power Market Today reports Kelliher will stay on as commissioner.

Kelliher to Step Aside as FERC Chairman, Remain Commissioner

FERC Chairman Joseph T. Kelliher, who was tapped by President Bush, announced Wednesday that he will step down as chairman effective Jan. 20, the day the government reverts to Democratic leadership, but he will continue to serve as a commissioner.

"Although my term as commissioner does not end until 2012, I will also immediately begin to recuse myself from FERC business as I explore other career opportunities," Kelliher said.

How can he recuse himself from his job and still draw a paycheck? I want that deal. In any event, it sounds like he's outta there.

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Joseph T. Kelliher today issued the following statement:

“Today I announce my intention to step down as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), effective January 20, 2009. Although my term as commissioner does not end until 2012, I will also immediately begin to recuse myself from FERC business, as I explore other career opportunities.

“It has been an honor to serve as chairman of FERC at this particular time, with the expanded power granted the agency in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This law gave FERC better tools to discharge its historic missions of guarding the consumer from exploitation and promoting the development of a robust energy infrastructure, as well as giving the agency new missions on grid reliability and enforcement. It has been a privilege to exercise this new authority and define these new missions.

“I thank President Bush for giving me this opportunity to serve the public.”

UPDATE: Helpful background on Obama's energy team from Gerry Norlander of NY PULP. (From late November.)

President-elect Obama has named Dr. Susan Tierney and Rose McKinney-James to his transition team for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is organizationally within DOE. Both appointees, former state utility commissioners of Massachusetts and Nevada, respectively, have a record of supporting electricity industry deregulation, or, as it is euphemistically named, "restructuring."