Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
President Trump's executive order requiring White House approval of FERC regulations is an unprecedented move to upend the commission's long-standing independence.
Why it matters: The order could pose a major test of FERC's ability to make legally durable decisions as it faces pressure from Trump and Republicans to keep fossil fuel and nuclear plants running to meet rising electricity demand.
- Tuesday's order faces "near inevitable" court challenges that are likely to end up at the Supreme Court, said Tim Fox of ClearView Energy Partners.
What they're saying: Richard Glick, a former Democratic FERC chair, called it "an unprecedented power grab that will cause stakeholders to question the legitimacy of FERC actions."
- Rob Gramlich, the head of Grid Strategies LLC who advised Republican FERC Chair Pat Wood III, called the move "stupid and terrible for as long as it lasts."
The big picture: The order gives the Office of Management and Budget authority to review "all proposed and final significant regulatory actions" at independent agencies like FERC and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
- It requires independent agencies to establish a White House liaison position and submit agency strategic plans to OMB for approval before finalization.
- FERC is unique because it processes hundreds of filings each day to establish electric and natural gas rates, process public interest assessments of gas infrastructure, merger applications and complaints, Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program, told Axios.
Between the lines: Trump-backed FERC Chair Mark Christie told us last month that he prized FERC's independence from the White House as a guard against political influence.
- "I don't have any concern about independence," he said at the time. "No one has implied anything to me otherwise."
- Christie and FERC's media office didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
Larry Gasteiger, the executive director of Wires who worked at FERC for 19 years, said the White House review could add time to FERC's rulemaking.
- "Any new addition to the process is likely to make it take longer for whatever actions the commission might be thinking of taking," Gasteiger said. "I do think there will be at least the potential for things to take longer than they otherwise would."
- The order's intent for the White House liaison, he added, "is for that person to play a pretty significant and impactful role."
Flashback: During his first term, the DOE pressed FERC to issue a rulemaking propping up coal and nuclear plants in the name of electric grid reliability.
- The commission unanimously rejected that directive after bipartisan backlash from former commissioners, grid operators and free-market supporters.
- A Trump-installed FERC political operative, Anthony Pugliese, resigned shortly afterward.
- This week's order would "easily set up FERC to rubber-stamp Trump's forthcoming efforts to radically upend U.S. power markets to push coal and gas baseload generation," Slocum said.
Our thought bubble: The order positions OMB as the decision-making nucleus on energy policy issues, along with the energy dominance council established last week.
