Senate votes to confirm McNamee to join FERC on narrow, party-line vote

摘要

The Senate voted December 6 to confirm DOE official BernardMcNamee to FERC in a 50-49 party-line vote that was unusually closefor nominees to the agency.The confirmation comes as FERC is facing difficult decisionsrelated to wholesale power capacity market redesign and as ambitiouspolicy reviews on natural gas pipeline permitting and grid resilience arepending. It brings to three the number of Republicans seated at FERC,but with Commissioner Kevin McIntyre having scaled back participationin orders because of health concerns, it could mean an effective 2-2split among the parties for the time being.