Today, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the President’s nomination of 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, a think tank.
During the hearing, there was a focus on Mr. McNamee’s involvement, while at DOE, in the administration’s efforts to provide economic relief to struggling coal and nuclear plants. In her opening statement, Chairman Murkowski (R-Alaska) stated that, “FERC is an independent agency and must continue to function as such. The Commission’s orders are never contingent on the Department of Energy’s policy decisions.” She also stated that in her meeting with Mr. McNamee she stressed the importance of maintaining FERC’s autonomy and a commitment to an independent role at the Commission. Ranking Member Cantwell (D-Wash.) stated that she is troubled by the administration’s “persistent efforts to try and interfere with our electricity markets to try and subsidize high cost coal plants.” Mr. McNamee communicated that FERC rejected the administration’s proposal on a 5-0 vote earlier this year and that if confirmed he would be a fair, objective, and impartial arbiter in the cases that would come before him as a commissioner.
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 natural 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.
The next step will be a committee vote on the nomination and then, if approved by the committee, the nomination would go to the Senate floor for a vote. The timing of when a committee vote, as well as a floor vote, is unclear. If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. McNamee’s term would expire in June 2020.
For questions on this article, please contact Dave Schryver of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at
dschryver@apga.org.