The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday advanced President Trump’s nomination of Bernard McNamee to join the Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission despite controversy over comments he made favoring fossil fuels.
All committee Republicans approved McNamee, along with one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, in a 13-10 vote.
He succeeded because Republicans stood by McNamee despite skepticism of his independence from the administration, after a newly unearthed video from earlier this year showed him criticizing renewable energy and supporting fossil fuels.
McNamee, who was working for the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, delivered a speech in February to Texas lawmakers in which he said fossil fuels are “key to our way of life,” but renewable energy “screws up the whole physics of the grid.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the committee’s chairwoman, said she found the comments to be “unfortunate,” but not disqualifying, because of his promises that he can separate his political views from decisions he would make at FERC, an independent agency that oversees wholesale power markets.
“I find that some of the comments he has made were unfortunate,” Murkowski said before voting to approve McNamee. “Based on conversations we have had, he understands FERC must be an independent agency.”
Democrats, however, said McNamee cannot be trusted. Critics fear that McNamee could be biased in favor of Trump because he formerly worked as head of the Energy Department’s Office of Policy, which has spearheaded consideration of potential action to save coal and nuclear plants.
“I find it hard to believe he will be an impartial reviewer of these issues,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the committee’s top Democrat. “[His] speech shows him to be neither fair or judicious.”
McNamee, in his confirmation hearing before the committee, said he “will be a fair, objective, and impartial arbiter” and that his “decisions will be based on the law and the facts; not politics.”
McNamee, if confirmed, would replace Republican FERC commissioner Robert Powelson, who vehemently opposed the Trump administration’s coal and nuclear subsidy plan, saying it would disrupt competitive power markets that reward the lowest cost resource and cause utility bills to increase.
He would fill a commission that has two Republicans, Chairman Neil Chatterjee and Kevin McIntyre, and two Democrats, Cheryl LaFleur and Richard Glick.
McNamee has been chief of DOE’s policy office since May. Before that, he led the Tenth Amendment center at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and was a policy adviser for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
He also has utility law experience, representing electric and gas utilities before state utility commissions in two stints at the firm McGuireWoods LLP.
The quick vote by the committee, just weeks after McNamee’s confirmation hearing, allows him to receive consideration before the full Senate by the end of the year. The committee also advanced on Tuesday the noncontroversial nominations of Raymond David Vela to be director of the National Park Service and Rita Baranwal to be an assistant secretary of Energy for nuclear energy.
