Greentech Media covered Richard Glick’s appointment as chair to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, quoting AEE’s Jeff Dennis. Read excerpts below and the full story here.

President Joe Biden has named Richard Glick to chair the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, giving leadership and agenda-setting authority to the agency’s longest-running Democratic member, a key opponent to some of FERC’s most clean-energy-unfriendly decisions under the Trump administration. 

Thursday’s appointment was welcomed by clean energy groups as a critical early step to put a supporter of Biden’s energy and climate push in charge of setting the agenda of the federal agency that holds regulatory authority over interstate electricity transmission and natural gas networks… 

ERC retains a three-Republican majority with commissioners Danly, Chatterjee and its most recent addition, Mark Christie. That means that Glick and fellow Democrat Allison Clements will need to consider whether FERC policy proposals seeking to undo or replace these decisions would be able to be passed by the five-member commission, according to Jeff Dennis, managing director and general counsel at Advanced Energy Economy. 

“Were it to issue something on its own to pull back on the policy, it would need at least three votes,” Dennis said in a press briefing last week. “Right now, we don’t know where the third vote lies.” Chatterjee's term at FERC ends in mid-2021, which would give the Biden administration an opportunity to nominate a Democrat to fill his seat, a move that could change the political balance at the traditionally nonpartisan agency.

Read the full story here.