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On October 3, President Trump nominated Bernard McNamee to fill the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) seat formerly held by Commissioner Rob Powelson. Mr. McNamee is currently the head of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Policy; and prior to that, he served as a DOE Deputy General Counsel. In his role at DOE, Mr. McNamee was one of the architects of DOE’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which proposed to provide cost recovery to electric generation plants with 90 days of fuel onsite. Before joining DOE, he was head of the Tenth Amendment Center at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is a think tank.

APGA Board and Regulatory Subcommittee leadership meets with the FERC Commissioners twice a year as a means to communicate information and positions on federal regulatory matters of concern to public gas systems. These meetings play a critical role in APGA’s advocacy efforts as they have allowed APGA to develop and maintain a relationship with the commissioners. APGA previously met with the commissioners in May and will do so again in December.

At this point, it is unclear when a confirmation hearing will be scheduled in the Senate Energy Committee. If confirmed as a commissioner, Mr. McNamee’s term would expire in June 2020.

For questions regarding this article or on APGA’s regulatory advocacy efforts, please contact Dave Schryver of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at dschryver@apga.org.