ABSTRACT

In 1997 Bill Richardson was appointed Secretary of Energy, he brought several new people into the Department, and I was replaced as head of OUT. My new assignment, along with a few other “displaced” senior managers, was to work on climate change issues, which were beginning to attract some attention. My background in renewables was clearly an asset in this work and my new group was active in developing and supporting clean energy initiatives with developing countries. It was satisfying work, and freed from the responsibilities of running a large organization with a large budget, I even had time to write a long chapter on solar energy for a new energy encyclopedia.In mid-August 1999 I was approached by a representative of the DOE’s Policy Office, Gene DeLatorre, who asked me to represent the United States at a meeting in Amman, Jordan, only a few weeks later in mid-September. The purpose of the meeting was to help plan a high-level water conference to be held that December in Jordan that would involve the United States as well as King Hussein of Jordan, Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel. You can imagine my surprise at the invitation as I had no professional involvement with water issues at that time, and my reaction to the invitation was “Why me? I don’t know a damn thing about water except what I read in the papers.” Of course, at that time President Clinton was engaged deeply in peace

talks between the Israelis and Palestinians and it was well known that water issues were high on the agenda of the peace negotiations. Gene explained to me that I had three qualifications the Policy Office was looking for: I was a senior DOE official, I had a strong background in renewable energy which everyone recognized would play a role in future desalination efforts in the Middle East, and I had extensive experience in meeting with senior officials of other governments. Not really being in a position to say no I accepted the invitation and put myself on a steep learning curve with respect to water issues. This involved lots of reading, especially with regard to desalination and its energy requirements, and meetings with people in the DC area who had relevant Middle East experience. After several weeks of this preparation I left for Amman where I was scheduled to meet up with two water experts from Livermore National Laboratory as part of a small U.S. delegation at the meeting. That time in Amman changed my professional life for the next 12 years.The meeting in Amman, organized by a former U.S. Congressman from Salt Lake City, was part of an effort to educate American legislators about Middle East issues and improve relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. About 50 people participated, mostly Israeli and Palestinian water experts, and a few Americans, including an expert on Middle East water issues from the United States Department of State. It was for me an enlightening experience-I had not previously appreciated fully the nature of water problems in the Middle East, the importance of energy in addressing water issues, and the critical role of water in the peace negotiations. In a defining moment for me, I was deeply impressed by a statement made by Nabil Al Sharif, head of the Palestinian delegation, the PA’s chief water negotiator, and a civil engineering classmate of Yasser Arafat. He stated: “There will be no peace in the Middle East until the water issue is addressed.”