Neil Chatterjee’s critics say he has instituted a top-down management style they contend places a priority on feedback from political allies and appointees over the findings of career staffers at the agency. | Ben Hider/Getty Images for Concordia Summit Energy & Environment How McConnell's coal guy is helping Trump remake federal energy policy Critics say FERC, the independent overseer of power markets and pipelines, is at risk of becoming a tool of the administration.

Add the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to the list of technocratic regulatory agencies thrown into turmoil as President Donald Trump’s appointees seek to steer its agenda.

Current and former regulators, staffers and industry officials say Trump and his chosen chairman, former Mitch McConnell aide Neil Chatterjee, have politicized an independent agency typically known for nonpartisan rulemaking on issues including natural gas pipelines and regional power markets. The dissension has made it difficult to retain staff, fill a vacant commissioner post and issue rulings on critical issues facing the nation’s electricity supply.


The tension has escalated in the past two years as the White House and Energy Secretary Rick Perry have pressed FERC to endorse financial support packages for economically ailing coal and nuclear plants — many supplied with coal or owned by allies of the president.

The climate at FERC has become so politically charged that one Republican state regulator turned down a potential appointment to a vacant seat on the commission — normally a major honor — after being approached by someone on behalf of the White House, according to three sources familiar with the situation.

“The current state of discourse in Washington made me question whether I would be able to influence our national energy policy, or effect any change for that matter,” said the regulator, who asked not to be identified because of ongoing business with FERC.

Interviews with more than a dozen current and former FERC regulators, staff and industry officials reveal widespread concerns about the agency’s direction under Chatterjee, a former staffer for the Senate majority leader who critics say behaves more like a political operative than a regulator.

“We've had a few eyebrow-raising departures of senior staffers who were nowhere near retirement age that are a real loss,” outgoing Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur, a nine-year agency veteran nominated by former President Barack Obama, told POLITICO last month. “I think there's been a sense of increased politicization and partisanship that's had an impact on the culture.”

Anxiety over FERC’s increasingly politicized atmosphere extends to the chairman’s personal conduct.

The chairman sent a barrage of tweets criticizing an E&E reporter this evening, including a now-deleted one saying he “has no sources” and relies on “bloggers,” citing members of the FERC press “core” https://t.co/doOdUBoP6n — Gavin Bade (@GavinBade) June 15, 2019

In recent months, the chairman has engaged in public Twitter battles with reporters and ridiculed news articles critical of him at FERC open meetings. Early in his tenure, he invoked his work for McConnell — whom he called “the master” — to support a coal and nuclear bailout.

Chatterjee has also posted barbed content online, including telling one activist who disrupted a FERC meeting to “come at me, bro.” And he has recently lent support to the Trump administration’s energy agenda, tweeting his support for “freedom gas” — liquefied natural gas exports that rely on approval from his commission.

Some staffers said Chatterjee’s comments and conduct didn’t affect their work. But other senior officials said the rank and file took the tweets as the chairman aligning himself with the White House.

“The tweets about the freedom gas, freedom molecules and all that crap — that in my view is him [saying], ‘I'm working for the administration here. This is what I care about,’” said one former senior staffer, speaking anonymously to POLITICO because they, like other sources in this story, still do regular business with FERC.

Chatterjee called the criticism “unfair,” saying it ignores bipartisan achievements of his tenure, including new market rules for energy storage and the approval of five liquefied natural gas export facilities.

“I dispute the contention that our work is political and I will point to the over 1,000 orders that we have put out, our bipartisan vote on storage, our bipartisan vote on five LNG orders, our bipartisan vote on a number of pipelines,” and others, he said in an interview.

But Chatterjee’s critics say he has instituted a top-down management style they contend places a priority on feedback from political allies and appointees over the findings of career staffers at the agency.

In the past, technical staff would regularly arrange policy briefings for the chairman and other regulators to “get them up to speed” on critical market issues, said one former senior staffer. But since the beginning of the Trump administration, “we just had kind of stopped doing that almost entirely.”

“I do think there is a general sense of frustration now that the chairman just doesn't seem that involved or interested in the work,” said another former staffer. “He is very good at being external. That’s where he thrives. But the flip side of that is I think it’s harder to get his interest in the work unless it’s one of his pet things.”

Much of FERC’s electricity market policymaking falls under three of its eight main offices — Energy Policy and Innovation, Electric Reliability and Energy Markets and Regulation. All three have seen their leaders depart since Trump was elected.

Records from FERC and the Office of Personnel Management show that overall employment at FERC dipped to its lowest level at the end of last year since the beginning of the Obama administration, when the agency had staffed up to take on new responsibilities granted by Congress.

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One career FERC employee who departed during Chatterjee’s tenure told POLITICO it seemed that “politics became more important than actual policymaking.”

“It was frustrating being there and trying to get work done and not being able to get that work done,” said the former staffer. “We'd send something to [the chairman’s] office and wait months and months and months to hear back on anything. And then at the same time, he’s out there doing speeches, and it just seemed like the policy work and the regulation was not the priority.”

Chatterjee is quick to point out that the office heads left either before he arrived at FERC or during the chairmanship of Kevin McIntyre, who stepped down last year. McIntyre died of brain cancer in January.

“I can tell you, I walk the halls enough,” Chatterjee said. “I get a good feeling from the people I ride the elevators with and see in various meetings and to me what I've seen is positive morale here.”

Chatterjee’s allies point out that turnover is common at federal agencies, particularly among senior staff who can make more money in the private sector. His Republican colleague, Commissioner Bernard McNamee, defended the chairman and his staff.

“I see, on all the issues, great leadership from Chairman Chatterjee,” McNamee told POLITICO, “especially in a difficult situation where we don't have a full complement of members and where there has been some dramatic change in this building.”

As the ranks of career staffers have thinned, some at FERC have noticed an uptick in the number and influence of political staff. In particular, critics are skeptical of General Counsel James Danly and former chief of staff Anthony Pugliese, neither of whom had substantial energy experience before Chatterjee chose them.

“My background is different than others who have served at this commission. I have been in Washington Republican circles for a long time and I get recommendations from people I know and trust,” Chatterjee said. “I was not pressured. I was not told I had to hire anybody on. I got recommendations from people that I know and trust and I happen to be in a position where I know a lot of people throughout political Washington, but that doesn't influence the people that I'm bringing into the agency.”

The chairman declined to detail those recommendations or who supplied them.

As Chatterjee draws the commission closer to White House priorities, industry officials are increasingly concerned it may soon return to one of Trump’s central energy priorities — keeping uncompetitive coal and nuclear plants from closing.

Perry proposed a financial support plan for the generators in 2017. Though Chatterjee voted against the plan in a unanimous January 2018 decision, he included a concurring statement that made clear he would have preferred a short-term bailout for the plants, many owned by allies of the president.

Since then, Chatterjee has turned the commission to focus on the subject of “fuel security” — the ability of plants to store fuel onsite. Coal and nuclear owners say that capability gives their fuel sources important national security advantages over wind, solar and natural gas, the alternatives that have been gaining ground in power markets around the country.

The coal and nuclear companies and their allies at DOE and on Capitol Hill have been clear they see the fuel security discussion as a second chance to help the plants.

In June, a senior DOE official told FERC it should “recognize the spirit” of the rejected DOE plan by enacting fuel security measures. And last week, two coal state senators piled on, calling on Trump to nominate new FERC regulators so the commission can take steps to benefit the at-risk plants.

“Then we can try to find some ways to allow them to think creatively within the law in a way that’s maybe more realistic than what Secretary Perry put forward,” North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer told POLITICO. “Not that what he put forward was bad — I supported it — but it evidently made them too uncomfortable. So we have to kind of thread the needle.”

“I wish whoever [Trump] has in charge of that would either do their job or get someone else to do it,” added West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who has long called for FERC to support coal.

Many people who follow FERC, however, are concerned that the agency won’t wait for the addition of new regulators to move on fuel security. LaFleur is set to step down at the end of August, leaving Chatterjee a 2-1 majority to advance the plan with McNamee, who helped craft the original bailout plan at DOE before he joined the commission.

Not all industry officials are confident FERC will move ahead, but many expect regulators will advance the issue in a piecemeal fashion, slowly instituting market-by-market changes to help coal and nukes.

“DOE is very much looking to have more direct influence over FERC,” said a senior industry official who participates in one of the regional power markets that the commission oversees. “You’re going to see that first hand when they try to move some of that fuel security nonsense."

Chatterjee called those concerns “absurd” and said the fuel security discussion is not connected to the rejected DOE plan.

“People are connecting dots and then making inferences and speculating” on fuel security, he said. “I'm not gonna comment on something that has no basis in anything we're doing before the commission.”

As Chatterjee’s FERC has turned to White House priorities like LNG exports and fuel security, critics say it is ignoring a more important obligation: making sure power markets function effectively.

Last June, FERC threw out rules for the 13-state electricity market that serves much of the East Coast and Midwest, ruling that state-level subsidies for renewables and nuclear were unfairly putting coal- and gas-fired plants at a disadvantage. More than a year on, FERC has been unable to come up with a replacement, and the delay has twice forced the regulators to delay a multibillion-dollar auction meant to ensure adequate power supplies.

Chatterjee’s allies blamed the impasse on a commission that has been deadlocked 2-2 since McIntyre’s death, but others cite what they say is the chairman’s unwillingness to work for compromise with his colleagues.

In the past, regulators and staff would have “mind numbingly long conversations” about a single paragraph to arrive at a unanimous decision, said one senior staffer. But Chatterjee “has more of a [Capitol] Hill mentality of I’m going to write the order, I’m going to shop the order and if people will vote for the order I’ve written, then great.”

Others say the chairman is simply stalling — waiting for LaFleur to step down so he and McNamee can push through rules friendlier to fossil fuel plants.

Though Chatterjee has frequently denied political influence throughout his tenure, critics say his behavior has changed little since he first took the reins of the commission.

As recently as May, the chairman posted a photo to his personal Instagram wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “cocaine Mitch” — a derisive nickname for McConnell coined by coal magnate Don Blankenship that the majority leader’s allies have reclaimed as an admiring nickname. The photo was accompanied by a caption that read “proud cartel member.”

While FERC regulators have had Senate allies in the past, commissioners have typically avoided such an overt sign of political allegiance, said Alison Silverstein, an aide to former Republican FERC Chairman Pat Wood III.

“Morale would have been very low in our day had we done something like this,” she said, “but this administration is not normal. Most of the people who have been appointed by this administration seem to be perfectly comfortable with inserting personal views and politics into the management of agencies which have heretofore been apolitical and strictly professional.”

When asked about the post, Chatterjee replied with a reference to a sarcastic tweet that McConnell’s team had sent out after Blankenship lost his West Virginia Senate primary.

“Thanks for playing, Gavin,” he emailed.

Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.