Politico covered FERC's announcement to close its Market Oversight Division and quoted AEE's General Counsel (and former senior FERC staffer) Jeff Dennis on this announcement. Read excerpts below and the entire Politico PRO story here (sub. req.).  

FERC will close its Division of Energy Market Oversight, which oversees electricity markets and natural gas infrastructure, and transfer its responsibilities to other offices, an agency spokesperson said today. The Energy Market Oversight division is part of the agency’s Office of Enforcement, but has long included some policymaking functions that overlap with other FERC divisions. Under the reorganization, some of those responsibilities, such as crafting summer and winter reliability assessments, will be transferred to the Office of Energy Policy and Innovation, FERC spokesperson Mary O’Driscoll said in an email.

Market surveillance and compliance responsibilities will remain in the enforcement office, but will be transferred to the Division of Analytics and Surveillance and the Division of Audits and Accounting. Data management functions, meanwhile, will move to a new Data Governance Division within the Office of the Executive Director.

In all, 9 percent of enforcement staff will move to the OEPI, O’Driscoll said, while 2 percent will move to the Office of the Executive Director...

“The important analytical and trend-spotting work of [the Division of Energy Market Oversight] is fundamentally different from the surveillance, investigation, and enforcement mission of the Office of Enforcement,” said Jeff Dennis, a former senior FERC staffer who is now managing director and general counsel at cleantech trade group Advanced Energy Economy. “I expect we will hear on Thursday that the excellent and important work of [the division] will continue in other offices where it more strategically aligned."

Read the entire Politico PRO piece here (sub. req.).