Danly appointed FERC Chairman

摘要

President Donald Trump appointed on November 5 James Danly to Chair the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Danly has served as a FERC Commissioner since March 2020; prior to that he served as general counsel to the Commission since joining FERC in 2017. He will replace Neil Chatterjee as head of the agency that regulates interstate transmission of electricity and natural gas. Chatterjee, who served as FERC’s Chairman since October 2018 will stay on the commission until the end of his term in June 2021. Many political analysts and former FERC employees speculate that Chatterjee’s demotion was prompted by his actions that others in the Trump administration considered too left leaning. “Just last month, Chatterjee took two significant steps to the political left – first to issue the final rule on distributed energy resources and then to host an allday, Commissioner-led technical conference on carbon pricing,” said former advisor to Commissioner Bernard McNamee Travis Fisher to Utility Dive. Danly, on the other hand, has been a staunch opponent of distributed energy orders and has previously opposed carbon pricing policy.