2 years ago
President Joe Biden's efforts to deliver on his ambitious climate agenda are getting a big boost from the leader of one often overlooked agency who has used his position to home in on the energy industry's greenhouse gas impact.
Now that official, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Richard Glick, may see his efforts to put climate change at the forefront of federal energy policy cost him his job.
Glick, who was appointed to FERC in 2017 and elevated to the chair role last year by Biden, has pushed policies that angered prominent lawmakers, including many Republicans — and, most crucially, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who as the upper chamber's swing vote has weakened much of Biden's climate agenda. That's put Glick's future at risk after his current term on the commission ends in June.
Former FERC staff say Glick has launched perhaps the most far-reaching agenda of any leader ever at the commission, which regulates U.S. power markets and approves the siting of gas pipeline infrastructure. His efforts to reshape the agency's mission include conducting closer examinations of the climate impacts of new energy infrastructure, as well as the effects of existing natural gas pipelines and fossil fuel facilities on low-income areas and minority communities where they are often located.
FERC will play a key role in fostering the transition to a low-carbon economy, said Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), who has sought to raise the agency's profile.
“If we are going to get carbon emissions down as quickly as we need to, we are going to have to substantially electrify huge parts of our economy, which means building a lot of generation, building a lot of transmission, doing things that are uniquely within the purview of an agency that most Americans don't know anything about,” Casten said in a statement.
New rules spearheaded by Glick could also require companies seeking to build new pipelines prove that the projects are needed to strengthen regional reliability and save customers money. That change would counter criticism that the agency has greenlit projects that sometimes weren't justified by consumer demand but would boost utility company revenues.
Red states and other opponents of FERC's new approach flooded the commission with formal challenges to those policies earlier this month, accusing the agency of going far beyond its statutory authority. They also argue that the policies will harm the reliability of energy supplies and raise consumers' costs, by making pipelines more expensive to site and chilling investment.
A FERC spokesperson declined to say whether Glick has met with any members of Congress to discuss the end of his term, saying in a statement only that he is “focused on moving the work of the Commission forward” and remains committed to his agenda.
In an interview last month, Glick said he would stay on if the Senate and the White House backed him, a sentiment he reiterated to reporters Thursday. The White House and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s offices did not respond to requests for comment on whether they would seek to reappoint and reconfirm Glick.
“I like the job. I like what I'm doing. I hope I'm making a positive impact on the commission, but I'm going to let those decisions be made by President Biden and the Senate and I'm just going to continue to do what we need to do,” Glick said. “Hopefully, with as much unity as possible.”
Renewable energy backers and climate groups in particular worry that if the Senate declines to give him another term, his departure would let the commission slip back into a deadlock, stalling critical action on clean energy. FERC spent several months last year with two Democrats and two Republicans at loggerheads before Commissioner Willie Phillips was confirmed, giving Democrats a majority.
Even after Glick's term ends, the commission's rules allow him to stay until the end of the year.
Bipartisan cooperation is possible on some of the issues that come before the commission, but having a full complement of five commissioners is always preferable, said Jeff Dennis, a former FERC staffer and general counsel at the clean energy business group Advanced Energy Economy. And given the delays over nominating and confirming Phillips last year, he’s not optimistic that Glick could be quickly replaced.
“I think everyone in the industry is watching now very carefully,” Dennis said. Regardless of where industry officials stand on the issues, “a commission of less than five — and one that has some fundamental splits on some key issues — isn’t really good for anybody.”
Glick's departure could stall FERC's work in updating transmission policies and market rules to support the development and expansion of clean energy, said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program.
“The worst case scenario would be a split commission,” he said.
Still, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said he believes Glick has already accomplished so much that any successor would have no trouble keeping his agenda at FERC on track.
“Chairman Glick’s done an amazing job [of] sort of taking a FERC that was headed oftentimes in the wrong direction and getting it organized to facilitate a modern electric grid and the kind of changes that we're talking about,” Heinrich said on a call with reporters last week. “I think he's been remarkable. At the same time, I think that anyone that the Biden administration nominates, the majority of my colleagues are going to want to see that same skill set.”
Glick was confirmed without controversy under the Trump administration in 2017 under the long-standing practice of allocating seats to each party. But the bipartisanship that led to his confirmation has wavered in recent weeks as Republicans — and Manchin — have become increasingly irate over the commission’s action on pipelines and related gas infrastructure.
Under Trump, the commission often focused on improving economics for gas-fired plants by raising prices for state-subsidized renewables in the regional markets. FERC also approved liquefied natural gas projects at a rapid clip — enough to double U.S. export capacity — and approved thousands of miles of pipelines.
Earlier this month, Manchin's committee summoned all five FERC commissioners to answer for a controversial gas policy statement on pipelines that the agency had adopted in a 3-2 partisan vote. The policy statement directs FERC to take a harder look at how pipelines contribute to climate change and affect low-income communities and communities of color — as well as more closely assess whether a pipeline is needed in the first place.
Tensions were high at the oversight hearing. The committee's top Republican, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, threatened to dissolve the pipeline policy using a law called the Congressional Review Act, though it's unclear if Congress has the legal authority to do so. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) threatened to get rid of the agency altogether. Manchin was also critical of the commission, and has heightened his criticism of Glick in particular in recent weeks.
On Thursday, the commission did an abrupt about-face, and downgraded its recent changes to "draft" status in order to solicit comments on the policies and hold back on applying them to pending projects. Glick denied that political pushback drove the decision, and said it was done to ease the concerns of the energy industry.
"Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not going to do anything for political purposes," he said. "FERC is an independent agency and I very much honored that."
But the change did assuage Manchin, who praised the move as a "course-correction."
Former FERC Chair Neil Chatterjee, a Republican, said Senate criticisms don't bode well for Glick’s reconfirmation.
“To have the chair of the committee call the action political and saying that they ... prioritized a political agenda over the commission's responsibility for oversight of reliability — that's a pretty stinging rebuke,” said Chatterjee, who served with Glick at FERC. “I don't know how you undo that.”
A former FERC staffer acknowledged the Senate has been a tumultuous place for Biden nominees recently, but said there is still opportunity for Glick to appease Manchin.
“Senate confirmation is a total wild card for anyone for almost any position these days,” the former staffer, who requested their name be withheld to speak candidly, said in an email. “Clearly Glick didn’t make Manchin happy recently. But there is time to make amends this year. And I’m sure he likes Glick more than most candidates that might be nominated by a Democratic president who has ambitious carbon goals.”
Manchin's office declined to comment on how the senator might vote if Glick is reappointed, but the senator has openly expressed his irritation with Glick, telling reporters last week that the FERC chair “went way out of his wheelhouse” with the policy statement and should “just do your damn job.” Opposition from Manchin helped quash Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination to the Federal Reserve's top job overseeing banks recently because he wasn't convinced Raskin would support an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy.
A spokesperson from Barrasso's office did not comment on whether he might vote to reconfirm Glick, but said he will “continue to hold [FERC] accountable,” including through pushing for the agency to “immediately” make changes to its pipeline policy.
If the White House doesn’t forward anyone to replace Glick — and the Senate declines to reconfirm him — the chair could stay on through 2022. But that's probably not enough time to enact the kind of substantive rule changes advocates say are needed to usher in a cleaner power grid era.
Among the items on Glick's agenda are new rules to make it easier to build the long-distance transmission lines needed to connect remote locations best suited for large wind and solar power plants with large demand centers and to support the demand from electric vehicles. Glick has said he wants to see a transmission rulemaking finished by the end of the year, though he has acknowledged it may take more time or need to be broken into smaller pieces.
FERC has also built an extensive record on potential power market changes to ensure reliability of the network while increasing access for clean energy. And the commission is working on methods to implement a landmark order designed to lower market barriers to resources such as rooftop solar, electric vehicles and energy efficiency.
Glick's priorities have drawn pushback from powerful industry interests, such as the Electric Power Supply Association, which represents wholesale power suppliers. They opposed FERC's change in pipeline rules, as well as a previous decision to kill a rule that had raised prices for some state-subsidized renewable power sources.
“The Commission under Chairman Glick’s leadership has made a number of decisions that EPSA is concerned negatively impact reliability, go beyond its Congressional mandate, are harmful to well-functioning markets, and negatively impact access to affordable electricity for consumers,” EPSA chief Todd Snitchler said in a statement.
Glick can point to one consistent supporter: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Judges there have repeatedly cited his dissents in pipeline approvals when the court kicked cases back to FERC or overturned the agency's decisions altogether. But the court does not have a say in whether Glick keeps his job, even though the court’s opinions have supported his arguments for taking climate and environmental justice factors into consideration in permitting decisions.
Federal courts have now sided with Glick on eight of the 10 orders they overturned, which he has said gives him mixed emotions.
“I'm proud of it in some ways, but obviously saddened by it in some other ways because the commission didn't have to get overturned so often. And I think it creates just more uncertainty when that happens,” Glick said in an interview after the commission approved its policy statements in February. “My real goal here is to make sure that we do things the right way; that doesn't mean I'm always going to win.”
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