Holly Rachel Smith is Deputy Assistant Secretary for Permitting and Planning for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Electricity (OE). Previously, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Electricity with OE. Before joining OE, she served as Deputy General Counsel of Regulatory at Invenergy, a large privately held generation and transmission developer.
She also served as Walmart’s Director of Markets and Compliance, responsible for wholesale electric supply operations, Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) stakeholder participation, and all licensing and regulatory before legislatures and commissions for Walmart’s then retail electricity subsidiaries in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Her career also includes five years as Assistant General Counsel to Exelon, where she managed retail regulatory compliance for the Mid-Atlantic and represented the Exelon Companies in grid modernization and wholesale supply proceedings before state public utility commissions.
Holly Rachel is most proud of her service as Energy Policy Lead and Assistant General Counsel of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners between 2012 and 2015, where she represented the interests of state public utility commissioners before Congressional committees, Federal agencies, the United States Courts of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.
For more than 10 years, Holly Rachel was in private practice as both an associate of several large D.C. law firms and as the owner of a boutique energy law firm that represented utility customers before state public utility commissions. While in private practice, she appeared before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and more than 26 state utility commissions. In 2020, Holly Rachel received the Energy Bar Association’s State Regulatory Practitioner of the Year Award, which is a national award recognizing innovation and superior advocacy in state utility law practice.
She has served as an officer and member of many industry boards and committees, including the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s Membership Representative Committee and Southwest Power Pool’s Corporate Governance Committee.
Holly Rachel began her energy career in 1997, as a law clerk to the Administrative Hearings Division of the Oregon Public Utilities Commission. She also served as Senior Legal and Policy Advisor to the Director of the Tennessee Regulatory Authority in 2005.
She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado, her Master of Public Policy from the College of William & Mary, and her juris doctorate from the University of Oregon. In her spare time, Holly Rachel has enjoyed teaching as an adjunct law professor of energy policy at both the William & Mary and Washington & Lee University law schools, and competing her horses at the national level.
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