Tag: Public Energy Authority Board

Justice Appoints Preservati As Director Of Energy Office

Preservati is currently vice chair of the state Public Energy Authority and has represented coal, oil and gas and utility companies in legal matters.

Gov. Jim Justice has appointed an energy attorney to lead the state’s Office of Energy.

Justice tapped Nick Preservati, of the Charleston law firm Spilman, Thomas and Battle, as its director.

Preservati is currently vice chair of the state Public Energy Authority and has represented coal, oil and gas and utility companies in legal matters.

He said his office’s mission was to promote the state’s energy resources, including fossil fuels.

“We’ve been tasked, the Office of Energy’s been tasked, by the administration to make sure and ensure that West Virginia becomes and remains not only a national but a global energy power,” he said Wednesday.

Preservati’s term on the Public Energy Authority expires next year on June 30. It wasn’t immediately clear if he would continue to serve on it after his latest appointment.

Gaunch: Reinstated Energy Board To Explore, Promote Ideas

West Virginia’s newly reinstated Public Energy Authority Board will work to explore and promote ideas, according to its chairman.

West Virginia Department of Commerce Secretary Ed Gaunch leads the potentially powerful board according to state statute and told the Charleston Gazette-Mail that he envisions the panel as one that will be a springboard for ideas.

“We see ourselves, I think, maybe as a catalyst to recommend actions in the future,” he said. “Right now, I have no idea what those might be.”

State code gives the board powers that would include entering contracts with other parties to operate energy-related projects, the newspaper reported. That includes financing electric power or natural gas transmission projects. It could also use eminent domain to take property.

“I don’t see us doing any of that,” Gaunch said. “I think we’ll get organized, kind of learn the lay of the land, where we are, and then move forward.”

The board went dormant in the 2010s and Gov. Jim Justice reactivated it last year.

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