COMMITTEE APPROVES DOE AND DOI NOMINATIONS BY UNANIMOUS CONSENT AT TODAY'S BUSINESS MEETING

July 21, 2005
04:19 PM

Washington, D.C. – The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today approved the nominations of Jill L. Sigal, David R. Hill, and James A. Rispoli to the Department of Energy and R. Thomas Weimer and Mark A. Limbaugh to the Department of the Interior. 

 

The committee approved the five nominations by unanimous consent during a business meeting this morning in room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building. 

 

Jill L. Sigal to be Assistant Secretary of Energy for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs. 

 

President George W. Bush has nominated Jill L. Sigal of Wyoming to be the Assistant Secretary of Energy, Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs.

 

Since January 2005, Ms. Sigal has served as the Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for promoting the President’s and Secretary’s policies, legislative initiatives and budget requests to Congress.  Previously, Ms. Sigal served in the same office as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment and Science and later as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary.

 

Prior to serving at the Department of Energy, Ms. Sigal was President of Jill Sigal Associates, a government relations consulting firm.  Ms. Sigal developed and implemented legislative strategies on environmental, health and other issues.  Ms. Sigal also served in the Office of General Counsel, U.S. Department of Energy advising the General Counsel on legislative matters affecting the Department.

 

Ms. Sigal is a graduate of the University of Vermont and earned a Juris Doctor at the George Washington University, National Law Center.  Ms. Sigal is married to Bob Muth and they have a four year old son, Harrison James Muth.

 

David R. Hill to be General Counsel of the Department of Energy.

 

David R. Hill is the deputy general counsel for energy policy at the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C.  In that position, which he has held since March 2002, he works closely with the Department’s Secretary, Deputy Secretary, General Counsel, and assistant secretaries, as well as with senior officials at other federal agencies and at the White House.  He supervises the work of four assistant general counsels and approximately 35 other attorneys and support personnel.  His duties involve legal work on general regulatory and administrative law matters, legal and policy analysis of electricity and natural gas issues (including those involving the federal power marketing administrations), drafting of proposed federal legislation, analysis of legal issues involving the Department’s fossil energy programs such as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, legal analysis and advice with respect to the Department’s energy efficiency programs such as its appliance and industrial equipment efficiency standards, legal work involving the Freedom of Information Act, Federal Advisory Committee Act, appropriations and ethics, and participation in the interagency review of other agencies’ regulations that significantly affect energy production or use.

 

David’s prior experience includes work in both of the other branches of the federal government.  From 1991 to 1993, he was associate Republican counsel on the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture, where he worked for Ranking Members Tom Coleman, R-MO, and Pat Roberts, R-KS.  From 1988 to 1989, he served as a clerk for Judge James K. Logan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. 

 

David was born in Richmond, Missouri in 1963, and grew up in Smithville, Missouri, a small town north of Kansas City.  He attended the University of Missouri at Columbia, graduating with honors from the College of Agriculture in 1985.  In 1988, he received his law degree with honors from the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, Illinois, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Northwestern University Law Review. 

 

David is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, the Missouri Bar, and the Virginia State Bar.  He also is a member of the Energy Bar Association.  In addition to his legal practice, David has served as an adjunct professor of federal jurisdiction at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and has been active in organizations that support the University of Missouri and Northwestern University.  David is married and he and his wife Kristina have three daughters – Anna, Margaret, and Julia.

 

James A. Rispoli to be Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Affairs. 

 

Jim Rispoli, a licensed professional engineer, is the Director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Engineering and Construction Management.  His office is responsible for management policy, assessment and oversight of the Department’s facilities, infrastructure and capital projects.  The value of the Department’s facilities and infrastructure is over $80 billion.  Additionally its portfolio of 125 capital construction projects exceeds $38 billion, ranging from one of a kind nuclear facilities and laboratories to standard office buildings and utilities.  Prior to joining the Department of Energy he was Vice President and manager of Dames & Moore’s Pacific area operations.  He also was a Senior Vice President of Metcalf and Eddy in charge of their Hawaii offices.  In both firms he led major engineering and construction projects for private clients, state and federal governmental agencies.  He served in the United States Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps holding executive level facilities, environmental and construction management positions.  He earned his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Civil Engineering from Manhattan College, and a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of New Hampshire.  Additionally, he holds a Master’s degree in business from Central Michigan University.

 

He was appointed to his present position in June 2002.  Since that time, the Secretary of Energy has designated him as the Department’s Senior Real Property Officer, and has appointed him to the Federal Energy Management Advisory Committee.

 

R. Thomas Weimer to be an Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Policy, Management and Budget. 

 

Tom Weimer was appointed Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science by Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton on July 9, 2001.  Since December 3, 2004, he has served as the Acting Assistant Secretary.  His responsibilities include policy, programmatic and managerial assignments related to the operations of the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Central Utah Project Completion Office.

 

On May 10, 2005, Mr. Weimer was nominated by the President to serve as Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget at the Department of the Interior.  His nomination is pending before the U.S. Senate.

 

Before assuming his current position, Mr. Weimer was the Legislative Director for National Laboratory Affairs at the University of California.  He served previously at the Department of the Interior as Chief of Staff to Secretary Manuel Lujan, Jr.  Other federal service includes professional staff and staff director appointments with two committees of the U.S. House of Representatives: the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs and the Committee on Science.

   

Mr. Weimer received bachelors and masters degrees in systems engineering from Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, California and the Master of Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.  He is a registered professional engineer in New Mexico.

 

Mark A. Limbaugh to be an Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science.

 

Mark Limbaugh is Deputy Commissioner and Director of External and Intergovernmental Affairs for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Washington, D.C.

 

In this position, Limbaugh serves as Deputy to Commissioner John Keys, and has been actively involved in the day to day operation of the agency.   He also oversees Reclamation's Congressional and Legislative Affairs and Public Affairs groups. Limbaugh is currently the executive responsible for Reclamation's national relationships with other federal, state and local government agencies, as well as external relationships with stakeholder, citizen and other nongovernmental groups.

 

 

Prior to working for Reclamation, Limbaugh was President of the Family Farm Alliance, a grassroots association that represents growers and water agencies in the 17 Western states, and served on the Board of Directors and as an officer of the organization for a total of six years.  He also served as Watermaster for Idaho's Payette River Basin and as Executive Director of the Payette River Water Users Association, an organization active in protecting the basin’s water rights. As the Payette River Watermaster, Limbaugh managed the delivery of natural flow and storage water from two Reclamation reservoirs and one private reservoir system to more than 150,000 acres of irrigated farmland and several industrial and municipal water users.

 

Limbaugh has served as a Director for the U.S. Committee on Irrigation and Drainage, and has been actively involved in various state and federal water organizations over his career. A native of southwestern Idaho and for many years an Idaho family farmer, Limbaugh earned his B.S. in Accounting, Cum Laude, in 1978 from the University of Idaho, and worked for the accounting firm of Deloitte and Touche in Boise as a Certified Public Accountant.

 

Limbaugh and his wife, Cindy, have four children and four grandchildren.