The Trump administration is reshaping FERC. Democrat Commissioner Willie Phillips was pressured to resign with a year to go on his term. Highly-experienced and not-so-rigid Republican FERC chair Mark Christie is being jettisoned. And who have they nominated to replace Christie? Laura Swett.
Swett worked as an advisor to FERC Commissioner Bernard McNamee during Trump’s first term. McNamee is the primary author of Project 2025’s section on FERC, which called for downgrading renewables in favor of “coal, nuclear and natural gas to generate power.”
For years Swett has represented fossil fuel companies before FERC on a range of issues.
Any day now the US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (ENR) will hold a hearing on this nomination. People in the states where there are Democratic ENR members need to call or email that Senator and demand they vote NO! on Laura Swett!
Here are the states and the ENR Senators to contact:
Arizona: Ruben Gallego: 202-224-4521
California: Alex Padilla: 202-224-3553
Colorado: John Hickenlooper: 202-224-5941
Hawaii: Mazie Hirono: 202-224-6361
Maine: Angus King: 202-224-5344
New Mexico: Martin Heinrich: 202-224-5521
Nevada: Catherine Cortez Masto: 202-224-3542
Oregon: Ron Wyden: 202-224-5244
Washington: Maria Cantwell: 202-224-3441
People from all states should call Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at: 202-224-6542
Our message is very simple: Oppose Laura Swett for FERC Commissioner. Our disrupted climate and ecosystems, polluted environmental justice communities and ratepayers need a just and reasonable national grid regulator. Swett will support the Trump Administration efforts to drastically weaken solar, wind and clean energy and strengthen the fossil fuel industry. She should not be confirmed.
For climate justice,
Ted Glick and Roishetta Ozane
PS: Below is more information about Swett, Bernard McNamee and Project 2025
From E&E, Energy Wire, 6/3/25
https://www.eenews.net/articles/white-house-nominates-energy-attorney-laura-swett-to-ferc-seat/
Swett has a cumulative six years working at FERC, first as an enforcement investigator and later as an adviser to McNamee. McNamee’s section of the Project 2025 report laid out an energy strategy for the second Trump administration.
Under it, commissioners would be barred from favoring carbon-free power or justifying costs for “advancing vague ‘societal benefits’ such as climate change.” It called for an end to long-range grid planning, leaving it to states. And it called on FERC to focus exclusively on electric reliability by remaking the way markets price electricity, revaluing coal, gas and nuclear power so they compete with cheaper sources of wind and solar power.
The chapter further criticized FERC Order 2023, which would help clear backlogs of mostly renewable energy projects waiting to connect to power grids.
McNamee wrote that the order “will make it less economical for reliable, dispatchable resources like coal, nuclear, and natural gas to stay operational and support reliability.” |
