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FERC's Chatterjee: Politicization of DOE proposal 'not true'

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FERC's Chatterjee: Politicization of DOE proposal 'not true'

Despite having previously touted his vision for a power grid resilience rulemaking, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Neil Chatterjee on Nov. 28 refused to provide more insight into the interim step he wants the agency to take to stave off premature retirements of baseload generation.

Speaking with reporters after an electricity forum hosted by the Consumer Energy Alliance, he instead strongly defended his actions regarding the notice of proposed rulemaking the U.S. Department of Energy sent to FERC in September, denying any gaming or politicization of the rulemaking process.

In remarks made during the forum, Chatterjee reiterated his desire to meet the DOE's Dec. 11 deadline for action on the NOPR (FERC docket RM18-1) in a legally defensible manner that does not distort wholesale power markets.

To avoid what he deemed to be the "severe" consequences of learning that certain generator attributes are vital to grid reliability and resilience after plants with those characteristics are retired, Chatterjee has said FERC should take an interim step to keep struggling coal and nuclear generators afloat while the agency completes a longer-term analysis of baseload generation and pricing resilience in wholesale power markets.

Asked by reporters about the current state of play of his plan, Chatterjee repeatedly said he would not comment on internal deliberations beyond making assurances that he remains confident about meeting the Dec. 11 deadline. He also said action on the DOE proposal does not need to be delayed so two recently confirmed new commissioners have more time to review the matter.

One of those new commissioners, Democrat Richard Glick, was sworn in on Nov. 29 to take his seat at the commission. A former general counsel to the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee minority, Glick was confirmed by the Senate Nov. 2, along with Kevin McIntyre, an attorney with Jones Day who is expected to be designated chairman. However, no one is saying when McIntyre will be sworn in, spawning rumors on Twitter and elsewhere that the ceremony is being delayed to give Chatterjee more time to drum up support for his alternative plan.

But Chatterjee attempted to debunk rumors of "intentional delay or dragging things out to some nefarious end," telling reporters that "there are no Machiavellian games being played here." Instead, Chatterjee attributed the lag to "simply a matter of timing, prioritization, getting documents signed."

"Once the documents were signed, people have to unwind their own professional obligations in their current jobs before they can transition over, [and] last week was Thanksgiving," Chatterjee added. In any case, he asserted, "there is sufficient material and time for everybody to have plenty of time to review" the DOE NOPR and remain "on a trajectory to act on Dec. 11."

Following FERC's Nov. 16 open meeting, Chatterjee told reporters that he preferred to fully flesh out his plan before presenting it to to his colleagues rather than have them "nitpick through it now." That raised process questions concerning the appropriateness of the chairman floating a plan with the press prior to taking it to his fellow commissioners.

"I want to be clear, I did not present a plan to the press," Chatterjee told reporters Nov. 28. Rather, the chairman said he spoke of "potential avenues" FERC could take as he "felt a sense of obligation" to assuage concerns, "calm everybody down" and provide assurances that the agency was "taking a very thoughtful, deliberative approach."

"Because of the scrutiny and significance of the issue, a lot of people in the media and beyond were speculating as to what actions the commission was taking, there were documents being put out talking about how much certain things would cost, and everyone was guessing without any sort of knowledge of what was being considered internally," Chatterjee said.

Chatterjee further insisted that what he shared with the press was just "a top line description of what conceivably we could be working towards."

In addition, Chatterjee noted that "a lot of people are saying I'm politicizing the process" based on a remark he made following FERC's Nov. 16 open meeting, when he indicated that he was floating the basics of his replacement plan to media members before discussing it with his colleagues because of time spent studying under Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

"That is simply not true," Chatterjee said. "What I was trying to do was calm people down who are following this closely.... There's no game playing, there's no politicizing, and the reference to Senator McConnell was [concerning] the leadership that he shows in difficult situations by putting himself forward and absorbing the hits so that [his colleagues] can deliberate" and address those difficult issues.