The White House Wednesday said President Trump intends to nominate conservative energy lawyer Bernard L. McNamee to the vacant Republican seat at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He replaces Republican Robert Powelson. McNamee is currently head of the Department of Energy’s policy shop.
McNamee is expected to push FERC toward administration efforts to boost the future of coal in the face of market and regulatory forces that have seen hundreds of coal-fired power plants shut down in recent years. McNamee advocated for the DOE plan hatched by Secretary Rick Perry for a FERC rulemaking upsetting the competitive wholesale markets the agency supervises in order to keep coal plants earning profits. FERC unanimously rejected the Perry plan in January.
Later, McNamee supported a plan to employ 80-year-old sparely used emergency authority, Section 202 (c) of the Federal Power Act, to keep staggering coal and nuclear plants in service. That plan is apparently still under wraps at DOE.
McNamee has never retreated on his favorable view of fossil fuels. In an Earth Day op-ed in The Hill last April, he wrote, “Fossil fuels have allowed people to be more productive, to engage in less backbreaking manual labor, and to grow more food. Fossil fuel use for machines, transportation, electricity, and plastics allows us to build complex devices, travel longer distances, illuminate our homes, and build everyday products from toys to computers.”
When McNamee wrote the op-ed, he was working for the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, after serving briefly at deputy general counsel at DOE. He rejoined DOE as Perry’s policy guru in May. McNamee has also served as chief of staff to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and as staffer for Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz. In the private sector, he has been “senior counsel” at the McGuireWoods law firm, with clients including Dominion Resources, Nisource, and Novi Energy.
The nomination has prompted rapid responses. John Moore, who heads the “sustainable FERC project” at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “FERC has a longstanding commitment to fuel-neutral regulation, but Mr. McNamee’s past writings and career track record suggest that he would seek every opportunity possible to support fossil fuels. He even went so far as to state in an op-ed that fossil fuels ‘dramatically improve’ the human condition. He should be prepared to answer some very hard questions about his previous comments and positions, and how they would affect FERC independence.”
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry lobbying group, said, “FERC has a critical role in assuring that wholesale markets value resilience attributes, especially fuel security. McNamee’s background and experience at the state and federal levels make him well qualified to be the next FERC commissioner.”
E&E News said, “If confirmed, McNamee would be the most overtly political person to serve on FERC in decades.” S&P Global’s veteran FERC reporter Glen Boshart tweeted, “This guy is pretty extreme, architect of DOE’s coal-plant bailout. Lots of questions if he is confirmed, especially given how poorly crafted and legally deficient that proposal turned out to be.”
— Kennedy Maize