Administration’s Nominee for FERC Chairman’s Position, Norman Bay, Fends Off Critics of the Commission’s Enforcement Role

摘要

Norman Bay, quizzed in person on May 20 by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as the Committee considers passing along for confirmation Bay’s nomination to head the FERC, on June 2 delivered a lengthy written response to additional written questions posed by the Committee’s members. Acting Chair Cheryl LaFleur did the same. (see adjacent article). Bay had served as Director of FERC’s Office of Enforcement before accepting a position of U.S. Attorney for New Mexico. The gist of the senators’ prominent concern was a view that Bay, while at FERC, had overseen “a fairly aggressive enforcement posture.” Bay responded to some of issues associated with that perception as well as fallout from certain public criticism of the OE’s actions recently. One widely reported paper, published in the Energy Law Journal and titled, “The FERC Enforcement Process: Time for Structural Due Process and Substantive Reforms,” was authored by William Scherman, former General Counsel of FERC, and two others. In Bay’s view, the Scherman article is “fundamentally flawed.”