By Francisco “A.J.” Camacho
One of President-elect Donald Trump’s early campaign promises was to assert White House control over independent agencies.
“I will bring the independent regulatory agencies, such as the FCC and the FTC, back under presidential authority as the Constitution demands,” Trump said in April 2023. “These agencies do not get to become a fourth branch of government, issuing rules and edicts all by themselves.”
“We will require that they submit any regulations they are considering for White House review,” Trump said.
The five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is one of the vaunted independent agencies that could be a mark for Trump’s White House team. If Trump is taken at his word, FERC could be handled in a way that pierces its patina of stable nonpartisan oversight over gas and power markets — as electric grids expand and forecasts for energy demand spiral upward through the end of the decade.
While the past may not tell us a lot about the future, efforts in the first Trump administration to reverse the tide of coal and nuclear plant closures could offer clues about what’s ahead. And the way that played out underscores FERC’s fierce independence.
Since it created regional power markets a quarter-century ago, FERC has been seen as a bulwark in America’s fragmented power system, even as it draws on vastly different policy priorities each time a new president is elected and political control swings.
“FERC has been a beacon of stability in an otherwise volatile regulatory landscape,” said Neil Chatterjee, a former Trump-appointed FERC chair. “Did the commission go in a different direction under my leadership than under my predecessor’s administration? Sure, but it wasn’t a dramatically different direction.”
FERC Chair Willie Phillips in late November said he had no comment on the president’s authority to review FERC orders. He also discouraged any future effort to cut, restructure or weaken the agency.
“If any administration is interested in moving forward energy independence for Americans, if you’re interested in projects — whether that be natural gas projects or clean and renewable energy projects — the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is an agency that you would want to strengthen,” he told reporters after its latest open meeting.
POLITICO’s E&E News talked with former FERC members and chairs and legal experts eagerly watching Trump’s second-term approach to the commission, along with the array of independent agencies that regulate corporations and complex industries.
Here are some of what Trump could do to influence FERC:
Defunding FERC
A tried-and-true method for defanging agencies in Washington is throttling funds.
“FERC is self-funding, but there is an appropriations process that goes through Congress,” said Mark Templeton, an associate professor at the University of Chicago Law School.