Anthony to assume Corp Commission Chair

Effective January 1, 2009, Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony will assume the chairmanship of the Commission, with Commissioner Jeff Cloud serving as vice chair.

The commission consists of three members elected statewide to staggered six-year terms.  Commissioner-elect Dana Murphy will take office January 12, 2009. The State Constitution calls for the commissioners to elect a chairman from among themselves.  A vice chair is elected to preside in the chairman’s absence.

Anthony joined the Commission in January, 1989, following election in November of 1988.  He is presently serving in his fourth consecutive six-year term and will be serving as chair for the fifth time.

Anthony currently serves as chairman of the board of the National Regulatory Research Institute (NRRI), the official research arm of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC).  He is also immediate past president of the Mid-America Regulatory Conference (MARC), which conducted its most recent annual summer meeting in Oklahoma City.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission’s many duties include regulation of oil and gas exploration and production, public utility rates and quality of service, petroleum storage tanks, motor carriers and pipeline safety. 

Bob Anthony has been a statewide elected official longer than any current Oklahoma officeholder, winning his fourth consecutive six-year term on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission in November 2006. Anthony initially ran for the Corporation Commission in 1988, becoming the first Republican elected to that body in 60 years when he received more votes than any Republican since statehood. In 1994 Anthony became the first Republican incumbent in Oklahoma history to win statewide reelection to a state office, and in 2000, he was reelected receiving more votes at that time than any candidate for state office in Oklahoma history.

He serves as chairman of the board for the National Regulatory Research Institute, immediate past-president of the Mid-America Regulatory Conference, a member of the Natural Gas Committee of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, a member and past-president of the Economic Club of Oklahoma, a board member of Skyline Urban Ministry, member of Rotary and was a delegate to the 2008 General Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Anthony graduated from Oklahoma City’s Casady School in 1966 and holds a B.S. from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania.  He also earned an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, an M.A. from Yale University and an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University He served to the rank of captain in the U.S. Army Reserve. In 1972 Anthony was the staff economist for the Interior Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and, in 1976 he served as a consultant to the U.S. Library of Congress. From 1979 to 1980 he served on the City Council of Oklahoma City as Ward 2 Councilman and then vice mayor.