An Energy Regulator Crossed Manchin, Now He's Gone

you can't survive making the wrong enemies. That's one of the lessons of the career of Richard Glick, who until recently was the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Click assumed this world shortly after President Biden took office, and the President renominated him to another term in May of two, but that nomination never even came up for a vote in the Senate Energy Committee because the chairman of that committee, West Virginia Democrat, Joe Mansion, was not

a Glick fan. In March, he hauled Click before his committee for a dressing down, and the issue was a proposal Click was pushing that would have made it harder for gas pipeline projects to win FIRK approval and it didn't go well. Did you all have a lengthy discussion and work about try to work your differences out at all as a group five of you? Yes, so a couple of things. First of all, yes, we did, as we do all the time. We did have a very

lengthy discussion. Um, this issue has been dispirited for a couple of years, so yes, it's been very spirited. I want to say that first of all, ultimately Mansion single handedly block clicks renomination, and now at the start of the new year, FIRK is moving on without him. Bloomberg Law reporter Daniel Moore actually spoke to Glick shortly before his time when the commission ended and asked him why

he thought things went south. I brought Daniel into the podcast to hear what Click told him, But first I started off by asking what exactly it is that FIRK. Does you know? FURK overseas um wholesale electric rates, It overseas the construction of certain natural gas pipelines, It reviews hydropower, damn licenses. It's got kind of this wide ranging regulatory oversight in the energy sector that's really really important. A lot of people don't know about it, but a lot

of this stuff does get baked into your retail utility bill. Uh. They you know, they have an Office of Enforcement that goes out and make sure that utilities and certain companies are following the rules and not manipulating the market. So it's got this really important role UM and its members are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. So there's this idea that you know, you want to make sure that firk is is somewhat insulated as much

as possible from political interference. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. You know, why does FIRK need to be this sort of independent body. Why can't we just have the Department of Energy do this? And it sounds like it's because the rationalities we don't want electric power generation policy to be politicized. Is that it? Yeah, I mean the idea is that it should be insulated

for a many political pressure. And you know, the Energy Department as a whole obviously spends a lot of money on research and development and sets energy policy in that way UM, which can kind of the political pendulum can swing back and forth pretty quickly depending on who's the Energy Secretary. And Firk doesn't in theory swing back and

forth as much. So let's get into click. He joined Firk in h and at that point the the commission was dominated by the Republicans, and I get the sense he was mainly known for writing these sort of very blistering dissents for the policies that Firk was enacting. Yeah, he was in the minority um and he was his own commissioner, and so when you're in the minority on one of these commissions, you're usually writing pretty fiery dissents

on a lot of issues and criticizing the chair. UM. One prominent issue that he was dissenting on over and over involved gas pipelines, and involved the mission's review of gas pipelines and you know, pressing for for strict reviews of some of these proposed projects. I mean, these are these are interstate pipelines that Furk overseas so often they're bigger projects. Not always, but you know, there's significant projects that result in the disruption of land and and right

away issues. And so you know, he he dissented on a lot of those cases. And so he did. He made his name, you know, as any minority commissioner would

opposing kind of the direction of the majority. But it's interesting you mentioned the gas pipeline issue because you actually spoke to another former commissioner on Firk, who worked with with Click, and he actually said he privately advised Click, like, hey, maybe sort of back off on, you know, writing these descents so forcefully, because you know you might be boxing yourself in even when you become in the majority. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. He was not only

in the majority, he was nominated to be chairman. Uh, and then he kind of what went really really hard against this gas pipeline thing. Can you you know, lay at the whole story here? Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of interesting and there are a couple of different UM theories and explanations I guess for it depending on who you talk to. But yeah, former UM, the former Firk chair Republican FIR chair Neil chatter Gee Um spoke with me a little bit about UM and he's been talking

with me over the last year about gas policy. You know, he's he's been critical of what the former chair Rich Click has been doing. And UM, Yeah, it's kind of an interesting point because you know, when you're in the minority. You're your own commissioner, you're writing for yourself, and then when you become chair you you know, you have a lot of power, and you are drafting kind of these initial orders and sending them around to other commissioners trying

to get support. But at the end of the day, you do need support, and you need at least three commissioners if you're on a five member commission, but ideally you want to get bipartisan support. And so you know

what ended up happening, essentially was that UM click. When he became chairman, started pursuing a number of different policies, but one of them was, you know, updating this more than two decade old Gas Policy Statement, which basically guides the Commission's review of gas pipelines, and he wanted to update it, he said, in response to recent court rollings where environmental groups had been successful in challenging Commission decisions

on pipelines. UM the gas industry saw it as you know, a political move, UM, an unfair move against their industry that would slow down projects. And basically, I mean it's essentially, you know, it's it's a very complicated proposal, but ultimately the one of the main effects of this would be slowing down the process of approving new pipelines to take natural gas from point A to point B. Yeah yeah, I mean it would. It would scrutinize these applications, um

and and require more of the applicants. It's it's fair to say. And and Glick's argument all along was, look, this is we're responding to court decisions. There have been there have been prominent cases in recent years that have vacated FIRS pipeline approvals, um that have then caused delays, right um. And so you know, Glick's argument was, I'm

I'm creating certainty for the industry. The industry should ultimately want this because you know, our approvals will be legally durable and you won't be as delayed in the long run. The industry, you know, often did not see it that way. That that's kind of a understatement, I think, right yeah, yeah, And you know there again there it's it's complicated. But um, you know, it didn't help that days after Click went forward with this and finalized this gas policy, Russia invaded Ukraine.

I mean it was it was days after that happened. Um. And so there was this intense blowback for that reason. But you know, I think the I think the main reason was you have, um, you know, very powerful Senator a Mansion who is chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who um is very supportive of gas pipelines, and he saw for as essentially slowing things down when he wanted to for to speed things up, and and and the Biden administration in general to speed things up.

And and that was kind of the basis of you know, calling Click and the rest of the commission before his committee in March and haranguing them for doing this and urging them to pull back, which they ultimately did um just days after, you know, weeks after that that committee hearing. UM.

And so it was huge political blowback. Yeah. I mean, that's what I think is so interesting is that these are the kinds of things that happened when you have a Senate is that, you know, the most conservative member of the majority, who in this case arguably as Joe Manchon, can can do these kinds of things where he can single handedly block a nomination from from moving forward. I wonder what Glick thought of this, though, because you know, do you think he was surprised by all of this.

Do you think he was blindsided by what happened? Yeah. I mean it's a really good question because, uh, you know, Glick is not unfamiliar with how these things work. I mean, he came directly from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Um, he was a staffer on the committee. He one of his top advisors was hired from Mansion staff on that committee and was trying to shepherd his renomination through the process. I mean, it's it's one of those one of those

questions that that doesn't have an easy answer. But you know, I asked the I asked Glick last month, you know, do you have any regrets with how you approach it? And he said absolutely not. Um, I may have made these draft policies and to kind of soften the blow instead of just immediately finalizing it, but you know, we need to move We we needed to move on this because of these court orders and we can't defy the courts. Um.

So he's sticking by his decision. But you know, I just I think part of it is, Yeah, he was dissenting for a long time on these issues and felt a lot of pressure by what he had said in the past and maybe you know, some of the people who supported him to go out and and tackle gas policy right away and not you not wait for any anything else. Um, I think Ukraine, the Ukraine invasion at a field of the fire. But you know, ultimately it

seems like purely political reasons. Mansion is in cycle, he's running for he may run for re election in term is up. Um. It was days after Mansion eviscerated President Biden for making a comment about UM wanting to close down coal plants, and so it just it's it's strongly suggested that you know, Mansion really surprised everyone. I mean,

Glick wasn't the only person blindsided by this. A lot of people I've talked to follow for pretty closely expected Click to get his hearing, and it just was abruptly canceled in November. That's really interesting because sometimes I feel like, you know, having been reported on the Hill in the past, that a lot of the things that happened there that appear to be surprises really aren't. That everything kind of is planned out, even though it's sort of you know,

seems like it's not. You know a lot of times a markup or or a committee vote, it's pretty clear that the outcome of that has decided well in advance. But I guess every now and then there are surprises where, you know, things like this can happen, and you know, it sounds like Glick genuinely and click and the Biden

administration just genuinely didn't see this coming. Yeah, I mean I heard from Mansion's office first in November that they weren't going to support Chairman clicks renomination or hold a hearing. They weren't comfortable holding a hearing for him at that time. And it seemed like genuine surprise from everyone that I

was calling about it that day. And and yeah, I mean I've been surprised in a number of times this year, um, and most of it's have been in Mansion has been involved in most of those things, and including you know, pushing you know, the climate bill. Um, the climate bill was dead and then it came back and it was resurrected, and so it's yeah, it's been a very surprising year. But I think this is one good example of of where people were genuinely surprised and a few people really

expected that to happen. Well, let's move away from Glick himself and you know, I well, you know, his future I guess is uncertain, although I'm sure he'll land on his feet somewhere. UM and talk about the Biden administration's climate policy because you know, uh Glick was a footsoldier in implementing that policy. Do you think that the Biden administrations overall climate goals are threatened by this and that um, you know, this may actually prevent them from reaching their goals.

Or do you think that ultimately this is just a speed bump in you know, a much larger process. Yeah, I mean, certainly there's much, so much more to combating climate change beyond Firk and and who is the chair for UM. And you know, even in the Energy Department you have billions of dollars now being told out for clean energy technology that that could really move the needle

on climate change. UM. But you know, I would argue, you know, where firk is is most powerful is in actually getting projects in the ground, um, in the clean energy space. And so you know, the Firk chair such the agenda, they run the meetings as we know. UM. But and there's a there's a handful of really complex,

um somewhat controversial rulemakings involving transmission planning. It's a huge one, regional transmission planning, and the rules around that, the rules around connecting more generation to the grid, which you have a bunch of renewable energy and batteries just you know in theories sitting there waiting to connect to the grid. They're ready to go, they're ready to be developed, um,

but the grid can't support it quite yet. And there are a bunch of other rules too, and obviously the gas policy statements which are sitting there in draft right now and nobody expects those to move anytime soon. So so just as three examples, I mean, you have these rulemakings that um, you know, many would argue are are really crucial to getting like actual tangible projects connected to

the grid. So you have all this money coming out from the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Bill, but FIRK is kind of like that that permitting and regulatory piece that has been causing delays over the years for a

lot of these projects. So that's where that's where you may see you know, the needle move a odd and if you have a two to commission that's split between the parties, much like the sun it was, you may have you may have delays, or you may have final rules that are not you know, maybe as aggressive as climate advocates would like. All right, well that was Daniel Moore talking about the very bad, no good, horrible two for Richard glick Um. Be interesting to see where when

he winds up in the future. Daniel, thank you so much for talking. Yeah, thanks for having me on. And that's it for today's episode of Parts Brivilion. If you want more environmental news, check us out on our website news dot Bloomberg Law dot com. That webisode, once again is newstt Bloomberg Law dot Com. Today's episode of Parts B Billion was produced by myself, David Schultz. Parts Brivilion was created by Jessica Comba and Rachel Diggle and is

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