Introduce by ROBERT WHITE
There is a lot of wisdom in what Esther has said. Our next speaker is William White. He is the Deputy Secretary of Energy and serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the Department. He has a very large number of employees, both in the department and under contract. They are on a budget of over $18 billion. Before becoming Deputy Secretary, he practiced law in Houston, Texas, and served on the management committee of one of the most successful law firms in the country. He has taught anti-trust and voting rights law at the University of Texas in Austin. His involvement with energy policy began back in the mid-70s with work at Harvard University and for the United States Congress in support of deregulation of natural gas and oil. Let us welcome Bill White, Deputy Secretary of Energy.