Democrats eye 3-2 majority at FERC following US Senate confirmations

The US Senate on June 12 confirmed two of President Joe Biden's picks for vacant seats on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, giving the independent agency a new makeup as it weighs key power and natural gas policy decisions.

A confirmation vote to fill a third open seat on the five-member commission, set for June 13, is expected to give Democrats a 3-2 majority at FERC through at least mid-2025.

David Rosner, a former energy industry analyst at FERC who has been serving as a Democratic aide on the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and Lindsey See, the Republican solicitor general of West Virginia, were both confirmed on a bipartisan basis June 12.

Judy Chang, a Democrat and the former undersecretary of energy and climate solutions for Massachusetts under former Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, is also expected to win bipartisan confirmation June 13.

Chang is set to succeed Democratic Commissioner Allison Clements, whose five-year term expires at the end of June. Rosner will fill a seat vacated by former FERC Chairman Richard Glick, a Democrat, with a term expiring in June 2027. See will take the place of Republican Commissioner James Danly, who left the agency at the end of 2023 after serving out his term. See's term will expire in June 2028.

FERC Chairman Willie Phillips, a Democrat, is currently serving a term that expires in June 2026, while Republican Commissioner Mark Christie's term is set to expire in June 2025.

Senate Energy Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) stressed the importance of bringing FERC to a full complement of five commissioners during a June 12 floor speech. "Five good heads are better than one," Manchin said.

New members with diverse backgrounds

Once seated, the three new FERC members will bring a diverse range of backgrounds to the commission. Rosner and Chang are professional policy experts, while See is an appellate lawyer who has argued multiple Clean Air Act cases before the US Supreme Court.

A Harvard Law School graduate, See represented West Virginia in a legal challenge before the high court that is still reverberating across federal agencies with rule-writing authorities. In siding with West Virginia and other Republican-led states, the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority, for the first time, in June 2022 invoked what is known as the major questions doctrine in finding that the Obama-era Clean Power Plan exceeded the US Environmental Protection Agency's authority. The major questions doctrine holds that federal agencies cannot regulate on matters of "vast political or economic significance" without express authorization from Congress.

During her confirmation hearing, See told senators she would look "very closely" at FERC's statutory authority under the Federal Power Act.

Rosner has faced opposition from environmental groups over his previous support for US natural gas production and LNG exports. His elevation to FERC comes as the Biden administration implements a temporary pause on LNG exports to non-free trade agreement countries amid a broader climate policy review. FERC has not approved any new LNG export terminals since the pause was announced in January. Under Phillips, however, the commission has issued other orders supportive of existing LNG projects, such as associated pipeline facilities and certificate amendments.

FERC has also struggled to find consensus in recent years on a durable update to its certificate policy under the Natural Gas Act. Manchin, who is retiring from Congress at the end of the year, in December 2022 refused to advance Glick's nomination for a second term after the Democratic chairman sought to revamp project reviews under the policy to more fully account for greenhouse gas impacts.

FERC, with its new makeup, must also confront a host of pressing policy issues on the power side. Those include acting on requests for rehearing and clarification of a sweeping final rule issued in May that requires US grid regions to plan at least 20 years in the future across multiple scenarios. The rule, Order 1920, is the first major update to FERC's transmission planning policies in more than a decade.

The commission is also considering a minimum interregional transmission standard to address extreme weather risks and the growing penetration of variable renewable energy resources. Grid operators have repeatedly warned in recent years that thermal generator retirements could soon outpace the accredited capacity of renewable resource additions, raising concerns about grid reliability during challenging operating conditions.