Richard Glick, Chairman, Federal Power Regulatory Fee (FERC), talking at a Senate Power and Pure Assets Committee listening to on March 3.
Photograph:
Michael Brochstein/Zuma Press
Federal Power Regulatory Fee (FERC) Chairman
Richard Glick
denied taking orders from the White Home when he rushed via laws mandating local weather opinions for brand new pure gasoline pipelines and liquefied pure gasoline terminals. Paperwork shared with us increase questions on that reply.
The Institute for Power Analysis obtained Mr. Glick’s assembly calendar from Nov. 8, 2020, via this previous April 19 by way of a Freedom of Data Act request. Not surprisingly, it contains many conferences with utilities, power suppliers and FERC employees. However beginning final September, he started holding biweekly conferences with Deputy White Home Nationwide Local weather Advisor
Ali Zaidi.
That is notable as a result of Louisiana Sen.
Invoice Cassidy
requested Mr. Glick point-blank at a listening to on March 3: “Has anybody greater up within the Administration ever spoken to you with reference to someway slow-walking or in any other case impeding or in any other case accentuating coverage that might have the impact of impeding the event of pure gasoline pipelines?” Mr. Glick replied, “Completely not.”
Recall how Mr. Glick and his two fellow Democratic commissioners in February revised FERC’s long-standing coverage for allowing new pipelines and LNG exports by mandating an evaluation of the direct and doubtlessly oblique greenhouse-gas emissions from upstream gasoline manufacturing and downstream consumption. This was mere days earlier than
Vladimir Putin
invaded Ukraine.
Mr. Glick falsely claimed the coverage change was required by federal courtroom rulings. FERC is required by legislation to certify gasoline initiatives so long as they’re within the public curiosity and gained’t have a big environmental impression. The brand new coverage merely offered a regulatory pretext to veto enormously necessary gasoline initiatives akin to pipelines that trigger little or no direct hurt to the atmosphere.
After getting rapped by West Virginia Sen.
Joe Manchin,
the Democratic commissioners paused their new local weather coverage in late March. However President Biden final month appointed Mr. Glick for a second five-year time period, and the chairman is more likely to revive the coverage as soon as confirmed. That’s why his common conferences with Mr. Zaidi advantage scrutiny.
The conferences continued till at the very least early April. It’s inconceivable to know what Messrs. Glick and Zaidi had been discussing, and the Institute for Power Analysis tells us that its FOIA requests for the chairman’s correspondence with the White Home and out of doors teams appear to be getting slow-rolled. Nevertheless it’s arduous to imagine the 2 by no means talked about pipelines.
Mr. Glick may assist his affirmation probabilities by truthfully telling Congress what he mentioned with Mr. Zaidi. If he has nothing to hide, he has nothing to lose.
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