Countering LaFleur, Chatterjee rejects notion of a partisan split at FERC

摘要

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Neil Chatterjee is once again pushing back hard against the notion that partisanship is coloring the agency’s work under his watch or that the White House exerts more influence than it once had. His comments follow a speech to the Energy Bar Association in which Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur lamented what she described as the spread of political division to the independent agency. She suggested unusually high turnover and uptick in the number of partisan splits on votes have taken a toll at 888 First Street. “I wholeheartedly and respectfully disagree,” Chatterjee said in an interview with S&P Global Platts. “I don’t believe that the agency is going through any kind of partisan period that’s different from what it’s gone through in the past.” To make his case, Chatterjee said he had staff quickly crunch the numbers, comparing dissents and orders under his 11 months as chairman to the time period in which LaFleur led the agency. “In the 11 months I’ve been chair, [there were] more than 1,000 orders, maybe 20 dissents. That’s a miniscule portion,” he said. During LaFleur’s period as chair, the number of orders vis-à-vis dissents is “almost identical,” he said.