Neil Chatterjee

see Pembina Coos

2 XO by trump allows override of local and STATE regs?! FERC assist? chatterje?

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an 1 25

A frustrated Jim Acosta unleashed on a Republican operative for defending Donald Trump after the president-elect continued to tie the issue of illegal immigration to the New Year's Eve terror attack in New Orleans.

Neil Chatterjee, who served under Trump as commissioner and chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, spoke with Acosta on CNN Thursday.

Acosta referred to Trump's TruthSocial post from Wednesday where he wrote, "When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true. The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department.”

"I mean this this is a problem!" Acosta said. "And, you know, you were saying a few moments ago, you can't take him literally. The president — why — shouldn't you take the president of the United States literally? Isn't that isn't that sort of a baseline expectation that he should stick to the facts?"

ALSO READ:Trump is already walking back on his promises

Chatterjee answered, "I don't think he was saying that this individual crossed illegally, or if he was, it was based on initial reporting that was incorrect, that somebody had crossed at Eagle Pass —"

"We can show it up on screen again, I mean he's talking about, he's blaming Biden's 'open borders policy', and he's talking about that on Truth Social."

Acosta continued, "What he is saying in that Truth Social post is false! That is false!"

Chatterjee pushed back: "He's not saying that this individual crossed the border illegally, but there were 400 people on the terrorist watch list —"

"Of course, but when there's an act of terrorism in this country, the incoming president should tell the truth to the American people. I mean, that is just — isn't that what the president should do at all times?" Acosta asked.

"He's talking about securing the border, and he's been talking for years about securing the border. And I think the data bears out that he won the election, partially because —"

Acosta interjected, "I mean, i just have to say, here he goes again! He talks about everybody else being fake news, and he's the one peddling fake news."

Watch the CNN clip below or click here.

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ipaa conf 2019 while at FERC?!

wheeler (NERO)

amy cook

kudlow

infrastructure Challenges MODERATOR | Kurt Krieger, Steptoe & Johnson PLLC SPEAKER

Chairman Neil Chatterjee Chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Neil Chatterjee was nominated to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in May 2017 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in August 2017. He served as Chairman from August 2017 to December 2017, and was again named Chairman on October 24, 2018. Prior to joining the Commission, he was energy policy advisor to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

https://www.ipaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-IPAA-90th-Annual-Meeting-Schedule_members.pdf

grid security bs coal nuke

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12062018/ferc-no-power-grid-national-security-emergency-trump-perry-coal-subsidy-energy-regulators-congress

top regulators of the nation's power grid told Congress on Tuesday that they see no immediate national security emergency to justify propping up coal and nuclear power plants with a government order, as the Trump administration is considering.

All five members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, weighed in at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a debate that has been roiling the industry and its regulators for months. It was the first time in many years that the whole commission had appeared before the committee together.

Even though most of them were appointed by President Donald Trump, they seemed ambivalent or even hostile to his repeated attempts, along with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, to require grid operators to buy power from uneconomical coal and nuclear power plants.

Trump political supporters and influential fossil fuel companies, including the coal company Murray Energy and utility FirstEnergy, have pushed for a government-ordered bailout, while a diverse mix of environmental advocates, major grid operators and some public utility companies and natural gas suppliers have argued strongly against it.

The administration wants to keep coal and nuclear generators from being driven out of business by cheaper natural gas or carbon-free wind and solar. A few months ago, FERC rebuffed Perry's attempt to subsidize plant operators who keep 90 days of fuel on hand. Now, the White House has told Perry to use his own emergency powers under two laws to bail the industry out on grounds that plant closures are presenting a national security emergency.

But the idea that the grid is currently so frail as to present an urgent military crisis has received little support, and next to none at the commission.

FERC's chairman, Kevin McIntyre,reading a formal statement aloud, spoke of the deliberative approach the commission has adopted: opening a docket to solicit the views of all parties, especially the grid operators with the fingertip control of electricity supply. To Trump and his allies, this is bureaucratese for kicking the can down the road and risks providing too little assistance too late.

Vigilance, but No Rush to Intervene

Commissioner Neil Chatterjee, a Kentucky native and former energy advisor to pro-coal Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), was the most receptive to some kind of action, if not on an emergency basis.

"In my view, 'no action' is like driving your car without a seat belt," he said.

Other commissioners echoed Chatterjee's call for "vigilance." But while they said it was important to keep the grid resilient during storms, heat waves, cold snaps or market upheavals, they looked askance at emergency federal intervention that would favor one fuel or another.

That, said Commissioner Robert Powelson, a former member of Pennsylvania's Public Utility Commission and past president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, would be "a real step back" from the benefits that have accrued to competing fuel suppliers and to consumers alike.

It would also retreat from the climate and other environmental benefits from wind and solar, as well as from storage technologies and smart metering that are helping to clean up the grid.

Commissioners Richard Glick, a former official with energy company Iberdrola, and Cheryl LaFleur, a former executive at National Grid USA who was appointed to FERC by President Barack Obama in 2010, were most hostile to the Trump plan.

"We cannot try to stop the natural evolution of this industry by claiming that there is a national security emergency unless there is evidence that suggests that an emergency actually exists," Glick said.

GOP Senator also Skeptical of Emergency Claim

After more than an hour of testimony, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) asked the question directly:

"Do any of you believe that in the wholesale power markets we are facing an actual national security emergency at the moment?"

"I do not," said LaFleur, the most outspoken of the commission's opponents of intervention.

"Would anyone answer that with a yes?" Heinrich inquired.

Nobody did.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the committee's chairwoman, also said she was skeptical.

"As with many controversies, with so much at stake in such a heavily regulated industry such as energy, the various interests are locked in," she noted. "This is battle, this is mortal conflict for some."

Murkowski is closely aligned with the oil and gas industry. Its lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute, has joined renewable energy advocates to strongly oppose the administration's efforts on behalf of coal and nuclear.

'FERC Does Not Pick Winners and Losers'

The committee's ranking Democrat, Maria Cantwell of Washington, said she found the idea of intervening in markets "mind-boggling."

The commissioners, in more measured words, seemed to agree with her.

"FERC does not pick winners and losers in the market," Powelson said. "Instead we create an environment where the market can pick the winners and losers." He called it a "moral hazard" to do otherwise.

"We need to be wary of people using the situation or a potential situation as a way to achieve market changes that they haven't been able to achieve otherwise," Glick said.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

one of their first major decisions on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), President Trump’s newly appointed commissioners Neil Chatterjee and Rob Powelson approved the controversial NEXUS natural gas pipeline.

Yet DeSmog has found that in the months leading up to the appointment of the new commissioners, the companies behind the pipeline engaged in a lobbying blitz to support their nomination and confirmation.

President Trump’s nominee to head the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has, as a corporate attorney, personally represented a host of energy and utility companies, many of which do business that is directly impacted by FERC’s decisionmaking. According to Kevin McIntyre’s financial disclosure — obtained by DeSmog and published here for the first time — these include major utilities, fracking companies, pipeline builders, and international energy corporations.

McIntyre is a lawyer who co-leads the global energy practice for the legal and lobbying firm Jones Day, and is currently awaiting final Senate confirmation of his appointment to the nation’s top energy regulatory body. That confirmation may come as soon as this week.

McIntyre’s financial disclosure, submitted recently to the Office of Government Ethics, reveals that in the past two years alone he has represented various energy and utility companies. Some of these companies are regulated by FERC or have projects seeking FERC approval.

The list includes the following entities:

Ameren Corporation, a St. Louis, Missouri-based utility and power generation company. Ameren delivers electricity and distributes gas to over 1 million customers in Missouri and Illinois. The company owns several power-generating plants running on coal, gas, and oil. It also operates nuclear, hydroelectric, and renewable facilities.
American Electric Power Service Corporation (AEP), a large Columbus, Ohio-based electric utility supplying customers throughout the Midwest and Southwest US. The company owns about 60 power generating facilities, of which coal-fueled plants account for approximately 47 percent of AEP’s generating capacity, while natural gas represents 27 percent and nuclear 7 percent.
Lakeside Energy LLC, a Chicago-based energy holding firm that targets independent power generating and renewables industries.
Navajo Transitional Energy Company, a Farmington, New Mexico-based coal mining company owned by the Navajo Nation. The company supplies coal to the nearby Four Corners power plant.
SCANA Corporation, a Cayce, South Carolina-based energy holding company engaged primarily in electric and gas utility operations in the Carolinas and Georgia. The company also owns nuclear, hydroelectric, coal, and renewable power generating facilities.
TECO, a Tampa-based electric and gas utility providing services to customers in Florida and New Mexico. TECO is a subsidirary of Canadian energy and services giant Emera, which owns $29 billion in assets in North America and the Caribbean.
Traverse Midstream Partners, an Edmond, Oklahoma-based pipeline company with stakes in the Rover pipeline and Ohio River System pipeline. In both pipelines, Traverse partners with Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline.
Ascent Resources, an Oklahoma City-based oil and gas exploration and production company that focuses on fracking in the Utica and Marcellus shales in Ohio and West Virginia.
Enable Midstream Partners, an Oklahoma City-based oil and gas gathering, processing, and transmitting company with operations in Oklahoma and Arkansas. One of Enable’s current proposed pipeline projects, the Central Arkansas Pipeline Expansion (CAPE), will require FERC approval.
EDF Energy Services LLC, a Houston-based subsidiary of French utility EDF, the company provides electricity, natural gas products and services to large-scale, energy-intensive commercial and industrial consumers in the US and Canada.
PT. Xintia Indonesia, an Indonesian company providing drilling equipment and services to the oil and gas industry.
SOCAR Trading S.A., a Geneva Switzerland-based company which is the marketing and development subsidiary of SOCAR, the state oil company of Azerbaijan. SOCAR Trading markets the bulk of Azeri crude exports.
Total Petrochemical & Refining USA, Inc., a Houston-based subsidiary of French oil and gas major Total involved in the production of various petrochemical materials with facilities in Texas and Louisiana.
Iberdrola Renovables Mexico S.A. de C.V., a Mexican subsidiary of Spanish electric utility giant Iberdrola, focusing on renewable energy investments in Mexico.

Screenshot from McIntyre's financial disclosure.

Concern Over Industry Ties

After a number of resignations and term expirations, as of this past June the FERC's bench had dwindled down to one single commissioner. The Trump administration has nominated four new candidates to restore the quorum needed for FERC to make key decisions.

Industry representatives lauded the reestablishment of a quorum on the commission, which can now approve the logjam of pending energy projects.

Critics, however, have sounded the alarm about some of the new appointees’ industry ties. Protesters with the group Beyond Extreme Energy had disrupted two Senate confirmation hearings in recent months.

They’ve pointed out that the newest FERC appointees Neil Chatterjee and Rob Powelson have ties to fossil fuel companies and utilities. While Chatterjee previously worked as an energy policy advisor to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Powelson developed a close relationship with the industry as a state utilities regulator.

As DeSmog recently reported, Powelson received gifts from industry in his previous regulatory position.

Kevin McIntyre’s financial disclosure adds fuel to these concerns. McIntyre did not respond to a request for comment.

Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at the government watchdog group Public Citizen, says the disclosure is cause for further concern. “I do think FERC has had problems of not accommodating the public interest as much as is spelled out in its statutory requirements,” Slocum says. “And McIntyre's list of clients does not appear to include public interest clients, whereas today there is much opportunity for lawyers to represents such clients as well.”

Slocum adds that as co-lead of Jones Day's energy practice, McIntyre is probably privy to other kinds of key information about energy clients, beyond those entities listed as the ones he personally represented at the firm.

“This complicates the question of potential conflicts beyond the list he provided in the disclosure since there's uncertainty as to that kind of information he may hold,” Slocum says.