About the Office of Fossil Energy
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Christopher A. Smith
Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy |
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Christopher Smith is Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy with responsibilities for office operations and managing the oversight of Fossil Energy's Research and Development program (encompassing coal, oil and natural gas) and the U.S. Petroleum Reserves.
He was appointed to the Department of Energy in 2009 as Deputy Assistant Secretary for FE's Office of Oil and Natural Gas. Smith served as the Designated Federal Official for the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, established by President Obama to investigate the root causes of the Gulf oil spill.
Prior to joining DOE, Smith spent eleven years with two major international oil companies focused primarily on upstream business development and LNG trading, including three years negotiating production and transportation agreements in Bogotá, Colombia.
Smith began his career as an officer in the U. S. Army and served tours in Korea and Hawaii. Smith holds a bachelor's degree in Engineering Management from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an MBA from Cambridge University. |
The Office of Fossil Energy in Brief
The Energy Department's Fossil Energy organization is made up of about 1,000 scientists, engineers, technicians and administrative staff. Its headquarters offices are in downtown Washington, DC, and in Germantown, Maryland. The organization also includes the National Energy Technology Laboratory with offices in Morgantown, WV, Pittsburgh, PA, Sugar Land, TX, Albany, OR, and Anchorage, AK; the Strategic Petroleum Reserve based in New Orleans, LA; and the Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center in Casper, Wyoming.
The Office of Fossil Energy is responsible for several high-priority initiatives including implementation of the $2 billion, 10-year Clean Coal Power Initiative to develop a new generation of environmentally sound clean coal technologies, the Fossil Energy elements of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve and Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve, both key emergency response tools available to the President to protect Americans from energy supply disruptions.
> Fossil Energy Program Fact Sheets [592KB PDF]
> Benefits of Fossil Energy Research & Development [532KB PDF]
> Clean Coal Technology: From Research to Reality [1.5MB PDF]
> NETL Technology Support Facility Dedication, August 14, 2008 [978KB PDF]
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