No. 2 Official at Energy Dept. to Step Down
Deputy Energy Secretary Bill White is expected to resign from the department today and return to the private sector in Texas, an Energy Department spokesman said Sunday.
Sources close to the department said Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary intends to propose that the White House nominate Undersecretary Charles Curtis, the department’s third-highest official, to succeed White.
“It’s no repudiation of the department. It’s just time,” one source said of White’s plans. He noted that White had been in Washington for two years and looked forward to returning to the private sector and having more time with his family.
White was responsible for the department’s oil and gas initiative aimed at boosting domestic energy production, and he strongly backed efforts to reform the energy sector in the former Soviet Union.
Before joining the department in July, 1993, White practiced law in Houston and taught antitrust and voting rights law at the University of Texas in Austin.
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