Californians In Obamaland – Steve Westly Still on Short List For Energy

Steve Westley is still on the short list for Secretary of Energy.  Yesterday he told the Cal Biz Journal he “would be honored to be in the Obama administration.  This sort of talk has been going on since before the election.

We suppose Westly is a good choice for the Department of Energy.  He’s an old school energy guy and seems like he’s conistently on the cutting edge of new business/technology models.  In the late 70s, he worked in the Department of Energy during the Carter adminiatration (shortly after the Department was formed).  Pretty early days for that sort of work.

He then spent time working at the California Public Utilities Commission and working his way up the Democratic Party food chain.   Then in the late 90s, realizing that there was a need for people to experience the excitement of a swap meet without leaving the comfort of home, he and a few other folks started Ebay.   That was 1997.  By 2000 Westly was stinking rich and left the company.

After that, Westly spent a ton of money running for State Controller, why someone would spend a ton of money to become state bookkeeper is beyond us, but he did it and he won and there ya go.  In ’05 Westly ran for governor and lost in the Democratic primary to Phil Angeleides who no one had ever heard of before or since, but won the primary but won the primary with a TV spot showing Westly making out with Gov. Schwarzenegger (which we can’t seem to find anywhere online anymore).

These days Westly runs The Westly Group, a silicon valley venture capital firm which funds alternative energy start-ups.  Bringing in someone from the green energy world to run the Department of Energy shows that Obama ain’t kiddin’ around with this whole green energy revolution thing, and that’s muy bueno.

Would Westly just hand out federal grants and contracts to his VC clients and friends?  Probably.  But at this point we don’t care, we need someone in that job who understands the industry so we can get it off the ground. Hmmm…we’ll probably regret saying it, but oh well.