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Biden loses a key climate ally

By ARIANNA SKIBELL

President Joe Biden has made combating the climate emergency a major focus of his agenda. Yet a crucial agency for realizing his clean energy future is losing its like-minded leader.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (sometimes called the most important agency you’ve never heard of) is tasked with greenlighting major natural gas pipelines and regulating the nation’s energy markets.

As a commissioner, Richard Glick spent years arguing for a more robust assessment of how pipeline projects would affect the nation’s greenhouse gas output.

His vision never came close to reality during the Trump administration. Glick made another push after Biden made him chair of the five-member commission. But after nearly two years of battling, Glick’s efforts have been defanged and his tenure cut short, writes POLITICO’s E&E News reporter Miranda Willson.

The reason can partly be traced to a frequent thorn in Biden’s side: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

In February, Glick proposed establishing a metric to help determine whether a project's greenhouse gas emissions would have a "significant impact" on the environment.

Glick and the two other Democratic commissioners also updated FERC’s natural gas policy statement for the first time since 1999, adding more focus to environmental issues and scrutiny of whether new projects are needed.

Both decisions faced strong objections from the two Republican commissioners, who said they went beyond FERC’s legal authority. Following more pushback from Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and from natural gas pipeline groups and others, FERC turned the policies into unenforceable “drafts.”

That has rankled the natural gas industry and environmental groups alike.

“Everyone is frustrated,” Neil Chatterjee, who chaired the commission during much of the Trump administration, told Miranda. “It’s been a mess.”

Manchin later torpedoed Glick’s hopes for another term by refusing to hold a hearing on his renomination, which means the commission will face a 2-2 stalemate after Glick leaves at the end of the year.

The question now is whether and how the commission will handle greenhouse gas reviews next year. Biden will need to nominate a new commissioner, whose confirmation could likewise be stymied by — you guessed it — Manchin.