Pearce named PHMSA deputy administrator

Drue Pearce, a former Alaska state representative and senator, and former federal coordinator for Alaskan Natural Gas Transportation Projects, has been appointed deputy administrator for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration in the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The Department of Transportation said in an Aug. 7 release that Pearce was most recently director of government affairs at Holland & Hart LLP, focusing on energy, natural resource and manufacturing industries. For six years, beginning in 2010, she was a senior policy advisor at Crowell & Moring LLP. In both positions Pearce split her time between the Washington, D.C., and Alaska offices.

Pearce was named federal coordinator for Alaskan Natural Gas Transportation Projects in 2006, overseeing efforts to advance delivery of Alaska natural gas to North American markets.

Prior to that she was senior advisor to the secretary of the Department of the Interior and was named by the secretary to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council on behalf of the Department of the Interior.

She also named by the secretary of the Department of Transportation to the PHMSA Technical Pipeline Safety Standards Committee, where she served for six years.

Prior to her federal service, Pearce was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives and then to the Alaska Senate, where she served two terms as Senate president. She chaired Alaska Legislative committees of jurisdiction that authorized complete rewrites of Alaska’s oil and hazardous waste prevention, contingency, planning and response statutes, and was the prime sponsor of legislation to bring non-tanker vessels into compliance with prevention and response statutes.

Pearce earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in biological sciences from Indiana University and her Masters of Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

- Petroleum News