Resignation to let Patrick put his stamp on the DTE

Nearly a year sooner than expected, Governor Deval L. Patrick will get to put his stamp on the state's key utility and energy regulatory agency, the Department of Telecommunications and Energy, following last night's resignation by DTE commissioner Brian P. Golden .

Golden is taking a position as regional director of the US Department of Health and Human Services. His DTE term was not due to expire until December. Patrick aides had no names of potential candidates to replace Golden, but said the governor would make his appointee the chairman of the five-person DTE commission, replacing current chairman Judith Judson, a Topsfield Republican. Judson will remain on the board as a commissioner.

The appointment comes as administration officials are also discussing a possible shift of DTE from the state's economic affairs bureaucracy to the office that oversees environmental agencies and regulation. Moving swiftly to reverse a move by his predecessor, Mitt Romney, Patrick and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles this month recommitted Massachusetts to participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative , a group of Northeastern states working to impose new policies curbing emissions of carbon dioxide from electric power plants.

Paul G. Afonso , a former DTE chairman who is now an energy and business lawyer with Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels LLP in Boston, said, "Clearly delineating energy and environment as one unified sector would be a positive development."

But Afonso noted that the DTE also has "very important issues to deal with in telecommunications and cable television" that don't clearly relate to environmental policy, along with a grab-bag of regulatory responsibilities covering everything from bus safety to private water company rates. "There is a challenge there," Afonso said.

Golden, a former Democratic state representative from Allston, was appointed by Romney a DTE commissioner in 2005. A US Army reservist, he was called up to serve in Iraq from March through October of that year.

In an interview as he walked up to the State House to hand Patrick his resignation letter, Golden said he was grateful to have served but lamented that because of steadily climbing electric and gas rates, "there was never a lot of good news to give people."

In his final days in office, Romney reappointed Soo J. Kim to a three-year DTE term, part of a flurry of final-hours Romney personnel moves. Patrick will get to name a second DTE commissioner in December and a third, creating a Patrick majority, in 2008.

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.