Dive Brief:
- Colette Honorable, President Obama's nominee to a vacant FERC spot, appears to have support across both sides of the aisle following meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee this week, Platts reports.
- Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), the top Republican on the committee, supported Honorable's confirmation, saying the commission needs regulators who can champion electric reliability and that honorable would be "an asset at FERC."
- Honorable, nominated in August, currently serves as commissioner and chair of the Arkansas Public Service Commission and until recently was president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
Dive Insight:
Honorable, a Democrat, appears to have an easy path to confirmation. "It's clear that you have seasoned experience that I believe will be an asset at FERC," Murkowski said at the Dec. 4 hearing.
But Murkowski also took the chance to slam the administration's energy policies, saying "it appears that the administration is intent on transforming the very nature of energy production and use regardless of costs or sometimes even feasibility."
She described new EPA standards as an "unrelenting onslaught" of regulations that will challenge the nation's grid reliability. “FERC must be a stronger voice for balance and stand up in interagency dialogues to guard against regulations that will make our electricity less secure and more expensive.”
Honorable, in prepared comments, said she has advocated for "infrastructure development to ensure safety and efficiency, increased reliability and resilience efforts, diversity of energy and of our energy workforce."
