We recently discussed how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Trump-y chief of staff seems to pal around with Breitbart-y Islamophobes, and why this is so concerning for the historically apolitical body. Key to our concerns are that FERC staff were secretly helping DOE find coal plants “critical” to the power grid that they could prop up. As is the theme of the Trump administration, this was bad. And then, it got worse.
On Wednesday, Trump nominated former DOE official Bernard McNamee to replace outgoing commissioner Robert Powelson, and to quote Utility Dive’s headline, the “coal lobby [is] pleased.” According to our analysis, if McNamee successfully replaces Powelson, it will be the first time in over thirty years that there won’t be a single former state utility commissioner on FERC. And more importantly, it’s the first time since 1986 that a president has nominated someone for FERC that previously served in that president’s government. That’s a pretty big tell, as far as politicizing goes.
But it gets worse! Powelson is a vocal critic of Trump’s coal and nuclear bailout plan (the one that will lead to 27,000 additional deaths and is opposed by a wide coalition of groups, including conservative ones.) McNamee, on the other hand, played a key role in designing and advocating for the plan as a Trump appointee to the DOE’s office of policy. Politico reported in August that support for the coal handout/bailout was a “litmus test” for nominations--seems to have worked in McNamee’s favor.
But still, it gets worse! Politico also noted that McNamee jumped from DOE to the Ted Cruz and Rick Perry-affiliated, fossil-fuel funded Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) in February, and then back to DOE in May.
Besides writing a pro-fossil-fuels op-ed for Earth Day, we don’t know what McNamee was doing for three months this spring while at TPPF. Given that one of TPPF’s previous “experts” nominated by Trump said coal was responsible for ending slavery, it probably wasn’t any sort of apolitical education befitting FERC’s nonpartisan mission.
It could be months until the Senate confirms McNamee, leaving the independent FERC potentially deadlocked at a 2-2 split on pipeline approvals and climate policy, which would be enough to reject changes asked of the commission.
Only in the Trump era could something as otherwise mundane as FERC appointments devolve into yet another partisan fight. Commissioners are supposed to be the sort of generic nerdy energy policy wonk who will weigh evidence fairly and impersonally--generally, we don’t need to concern ourselves with their political backgrounds and influences.
Instead, we get a partisan entrenched in the administration's pro-fossil fuels wing. The only thing generic about him is his McNamee.
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