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Forbes Breaking News
  • 4 months ago
During a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) asked President Trump's nominees for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission whether the President could fire them.
Transcript
00:00Thank you Mr. Chair and again welcome to both the nominees appreciate the
00:04opportunity to raise some questions and issues with you. First as we all know
00:09FERC is critically important. It serves as a central regulator for America's
00:14interstate energy system shaping everything from grid reliability to our
00:21monthly bills as well as the pace of project deployment and all this work is
00:26made possible not just by the commissioners but by the the
00:31professional staff. So my first question for both of you is a yes or no question.
00:37Do you agree that the FERC staff is critical to the operations and success
00:41of FERC? Ms. Wett. Yes Senator thank you for the question I absolutely agree with
00:46that premise. Mr. Lassert. Yes Senator FERC will not be successful without
00:50the outstanding career staff. I very much appreciate your answers and the reason I
00:54lead with that is because as you I imagine are aware in February of this
00:59year President Trump issued an executive order requiring that agency heads
01:04undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force at their
01:10respective agencies. So given your acknowledgement that the staff at FERC
01:15is critical to its mission and success will you commit to protecting FERC staff
01:20from directed reductions in force whether they come from the president or they
01:24come from Doge or anybody else at the White House? Mr. Lassert. Thank you for the
01:29question I don't foresee a large-scale reduction in force at FERC. The mission
01:33of FERC is directly in line with the president's management agenda and and I
01:37don't I don't foresee anyone asking that of FERC. Ms. Wett. Thank you for the
01:42question Senator. As someone who worked alongside FERC staff myself I know how hard
01:46they work how mission-driven they are how technically strong and legally strong
01:51they are and the value of each employee there. Okay I'm not getting it clear yes
01:56I'm gonna go to bat for the professional staff and you may not foresee a directed
02:00reduction in staff but it we've seen it across the administration for months and
02:06months and months now so yes or no you're gonna go to bat for maintaining
02:09staffing levels. Yes or no? Yes or no Mr. Ms. Wett. Yes Senator. Thank you very much.
02:15The second area I wanted to just echo a concern that Senator Heinrich has raised a
02:20couple of times he and sort of Senator King for that matter respecting the
02:26independence of FERC and how critical the independence is for the job that it
02:31does. Ms. Sweat I'm satisfied with the answer you've given earlier but Mr. Lassert you
02:37kind of gave a little bit of a caveat referencing the Supreme Court and whether
02:42they would change anything in terms of the president's ability to hire or fire
02:49commissioners. What's your commitment to maintaining the independence of FERC
02:54regardless of the outcome of any case that gets the Supreme Court? Senator I'll do
02:57most of my ability under the law to maintain the independence of FERC 100%.
03:01Okay because I just can't imagine and again this is not hypothetical we've seen the
03:05president threaten it and actually follow up on those threats in agency after
03:10agency both those directly under his jurisdiction and authorities and many
03:16though of those that are not so that is a significant concern. The last area do you
03:23want to bring up is transmission and generation. Obviously it's critical for
03:31fulfilling our growing needs as a country and as an economy. What we've seen since
03:37last Congress is continued delays and consistent projections of load growth as
03:44well as increasing energy costs. Those are the that's the data before us at this
03:49moment. So what specific steps should FERC take to accelerate the
03:53interconnection queue processing particularly for transmission level
03:57projects? I know Senator Quartz's master raised this but I want to be more
04:00specific and precise here. Specific proposals or ideas? Thank you Senator. First I want to
04:06acknowledge that we need more transit we need more transmission. That's that's
04:09beyond debate. I think that to meet the coming needs I've seen some of the growth
04:13projections and I've seen some of the need projections and I certainly
04:17understand where you're coming from in that. So transmission is going to be part
04:20and parcel to maintaining that growth and sustaining that growth over the long
04:24term. But it's important to note also we need to do so with protecting the
04:28ratepayers. It needs to be an important balance as I noted in my opening that
04:31needs to be done decision by decision and brick by brick. That is the way that
04:36policy is implemented at FERC and that's my commitment to you if I'm
04:39confirmed. So one follow-up comment and one follow-up question to that and then of
04:43course Mr. Swett I'll ask you to chime in. One, there are proposals being kicked
04:48around particularly as we've gone through our permitting reform negotiations
04:52here at this committee level. Standardized timelines and penalties for
04:57transmission owners who fail to meet those deadlines is certainly one
05:01balanced carrot and stick approach to move the ball forward. But the follow-up
05:06question my final question at this moment is do commit to doing that job and
05:12meeting those objectives regardless of resource type if we're in such need of
05:20additional energy on the grid. I know this administration is a big fan of
05:25fossil fuels but electrons are electrons whether they're natural gas plants that
05:31are generating the electricity, whether it is geothermal generating the
05:35electricity. We've talked about hydro in this hearing. I want an equal commitment to
05:39solar projects, to wind projects whether it's onshore or offshore. Yes or no Mr.
05:45Lissert and Ms. Swett. Thank you Senator. The Federal Power Act requires that a
05:50FERC Commissioner be neutral in such a thing. So I'm going to follow the law and maintain
05:54that neutrality. Thank you Ms. Swett. Thank you for the question Senator. I echo my
05:58colleagues sentiments here that FERC cannot unduly discriminate against any
06:03type of generation. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Chair.
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