The Fifth Annual OWJEF Scholarship Banquet 2022

Speaker

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  Colette D. Honorable ESG Group at Reed | Partner, Head of Energy Regulatory
  

  Colette D. Honorable

  ESG Group at Reed | Partner, Head of Energy Regulatory

  The Honorable Colette D. Honorable is a highly regarded policymaker and strategist in domestic and international energy sectors. For over fifteen years, she has been a global leader in energy, focusing on clean energy integration, energy storage integration, infrastructure development and energy efficiency. Honorable is a member of Reed Smith LLP’s Energy and Natural Resources Group where she leads the energy regulatory group. In this capacity, she is a trusted legal and strategic advisor to her clients, many of which are Fortune 500 entities. Honorable also sits on the firm’s Executive Committee, or global governing board, and serves on its Audit and Talent Committees. Honorable also serves as an Independent Director for Southern Company (NYSE:SO), a Fortune 200 energy company that serves 9 million customers in the Southeast United States, based in Atlanta, Georgia.

  Prior to joining Reed Smith, Honorable served as a Commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). She was nominated by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in December 2014 for a term that expired in June 2017. At FERC, Honorable focused on reliability oversight of the bulk power system, cyber and physical security, oversight of wholesale markets, transmission planning and cost allocation in regional transmission organizations, and energy storage and renewables integration. During her tenure, Honorable represented the US in the 2015 Second High Level Plenary Meetings at the International Energy Association, a global convening of countries for the purpose of defending and confirming climate action goals in advance of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.

  In recent years, Honorable has provided technical expertise and regulatory support for energy regulators and policy makers in Africa, Australia, North and South America (including several provinces in Canada, Mexico and Brazil), throughout Europe (including the Baltic Region, throughout Europe (including France, Greece, Italy, Slovenia and Spain), the Eurasian Region (Azerbaijan and Turkey) and the Caribbean. In this work, she has supported clean energy integration, energy storage development, transmission planning and cost allocation, and providing technical support for the development of integrated resource planning processes that focus on integrating renewables and storage to support both reliability and resilience as well as developing public, transparent processes to resolve consumer and regulatory disputes. She provides most of this support at the request of the US Department of State.

  Honorable joined the FERC from the Arkansas Public Service Commission (PSC), where she began as a Commissioner in October 2007, and led as Chairman from January 2011 to January 2015. During that time, Honorable also served as the first African-American president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, and served as treasurer and chairman of the audit and investment committees. As president, Honorable focused on pipeline safety, reliability and resilience and workforce diversity. She has testified before Congress on multiple occasions on a range of energy issues, and most recently advised and appeared before the US House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis to discuss nuclear energy opportunities and challenges.

  Honorable previously served in a number of public sector roles in Arkansas, including serving in the gubernatorial cabinet of then Governor Mike Beebe as Executive Director of the Arkansas Workforce Investment Board, as Chief of Staff to Attorney General, Senior Assistant Attorney General in the Medicaid Fraud Division, and as an Assistant Attorney General in Civil Litigation and Consumer Protection. She previously served as a judicial law clerk for Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Wendell Griffen as well as an adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law. Honorable began her career as a legal services career and also previously served as an assistant public defender in Jefferson County, as well as assistant city attorney for the City of North Little Rock.

  Honorable serves on Southern Company’s Finance and Business Security and Resiliency Committees. She is a Senior Fellow with the Bipartisan Policy Center, a member of the Global Advisory Board of the Energy Futures Initiative, member of the Strategic Advisory Board of the European Energy Regulators Regional Association (ERRA) and as an Ambassador for the Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Initiative.

  Her awards and commendations include being named to the Savoy Magazine 2022 list of Most Influential Black Attorneys and its 2021 list of Most Influential Black Corporate Directors; named S&P Global Platts 2020 “Rising Star in Energy” for elevating climate change and DE&I issues worldwide; 2019 Women’s Council on Energy and the Environment’s Woman of the Year; received the 2018 FRI Crystal Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Energy Sector; received the 2017 American Association of Blacks in Energy’s James E. Stewart Award; received the 2016 Women’s Foundation of Arkansas’ Inaugural Woman in Public Service Award; named 2016 “Alumnus of the Decade” by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law; received the 2015 National Bar Association’s Congressional Black Caucus Leadership award; inducted into the 2014 Arkansas Black Hall of Fame; and received the 2013 Just Communities of Arkansas Humanitarian award.

  A proud native of Little Rock, Arkansas, she is a graduate of the University of Memphis, received a Juris Doctor from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law and is a member of St. Mark Baptist Church. She and her late husband, Rickey Honorable, share a daughter, Sydney Marie, who is a junior at Howard University.