Biden to nominate DC utility regulator as FERC commissioner

President Biden announced Sept. 9 he will nominate a District of Columbia utility regulator to fill a vacancy at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Willie Phillips, chairman of the DC Public Service Commission (PSC), would fill the seat left open by the resignation of Neil Chatterjee Aug. 30. Phillips, a Democrat, would give Democrats a 3-2 majority on the commission at a time when opposition among Democrats to natural gas pipelines has grown.

FERC Chairman Richard Glick issued a statement welcoming Biden’s decision to nominate Phillips. “He is highly qualified and very well regarded,” Glick said.

“The commission’s work is essential to advancing our nation’s clean energy transition and to ensuring the reliability and security of our energy infrastructure,” Glick said.

Glick was touching on a point of serious contention. Chatterjee, the departing commissioner, had repeatedly made the argument that FERC is not exactly an environmental agency. FERC’s authority to regulate interstate gas pipelines derives from the Natural Gas Act, while regulation of air pollution is assigned to the Environmental Protection Agency.

But FERC gets embroiled in court cases under the National Environmental Policy Act. FERC has suffered legal setbacks over the question of estimating greenhouse gas emissions from the downstream consumption of gas, estimates that may not alter approval of a pipeline but nevertheless, according to some federal courts, must be calculated.

At the PSC, Phillips has been a leader in modernizing the energy grid and implementing the District of Columbia’s clean energy and climate goals, according to the White House announcement of the nomination plan. He has an extensive background in bulk power system reliability and corporate governance, the White House said.

Prior to joining the PSC, he was an attorney at Van Ness Feldman, a Washington, DC, law firm.

Chatterjee, in leaving FERC, joined the law firm Hogan Lovells as a senior adviser to the firm’s energy regulatory practice group. That left the commission with two Democrats, Glick and Allison Clements, and two Republicans, Mark Christie and James Danly.