Supporters of President Trump’s expected pick to fill an empty seat on a panel of independent energy regulators say he won’t be a rubber stamp for the administration’s unpopular mission to save failing coal and nuclear plants, as critics fear could be the case.
At first glance, opponents of subsidizing uneconomic coal and nuclear plants would have reason to worry about Bernard McNamee, the presumed nominee for a spot on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, an independent agency that oversees wholesale electricity markets and reviews interstate pipeline applications. McNamee currently leads the policy office of the Energy Department, the very agency that Trump tasked to devise a plan rescuing coal and nuclear using rarely invoked emergency powers.
But in conversations with nearly 10 energy policy experts, conservative allies, and politicians who’ve worked with McNamee — all of whom oppose subsidizing coal and nuclear plants — they describe a principled, serious, independent figure who would approach his new job without a bias in favor of Trump’s agenda.
“If the Trump administration’s goal is to politicize FERC, they picked the wrong person,” Kenny Stein, director of policy and federal affairs for the American Energy Alliance, said of McNamee, who friends and colleagues call Bernie. “Bernie is not going to do that,” Stein told the Washington Examiner. “He has decades of experience doing filings with FERC, going before FERC. He is very familiar with independent role of the commission. So I won’t expect him to try to upend the commission, or its process or goals.”
Stein worked with McNamee when they were both policy advisers for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, from 2013 to 2014.
Allies say his work for Cruz, and in other stops, reveal McNamee to be a supporter of free-market principles, who dislikes subsidies and would oppose efforts to favor coal and nuclear over other energy sources.
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, a conservative think tank that opposes propping up coal and nuclear plants.
He also has utility law experience, representing electric and gas utilities before state utility commissions in two stints at the firm McGuireWoods LLP.
But McNamee got his start as a policy adviser from 1995 to 1998 for Virginia Gov. George Allen, a Republican who credits McNamee for helping reshape the state’s government to model “conservative principles” in its welfare programs, criminal justice system, and public schools.
“Bernie is so studious, he is very principled, he’s a conservative, and he likes applying the law and constitution, rather than inventing it,” Allen told the Washington Examiner. “If confirmed to FERC, he would decide issues based on merits and facts and would be constrained by whatever the evidence is. He may have his personal opinions, but he is committed to the rule of law.”
FERC, including three commissioners nominated by Trump, has already said the facts do not support the need to aid coal and nuclear plants.
In January, FERC’s five members unanimously rejected a proposal from Energy Secretary Rick Perry to provide special payments to coal and nuclear plants for their ability to store fuel on-site for 90 days.
Now, the Energy Department, on the orders of Trump, is considering a new proposal that may come before FERC, potentially using executive national security powers to force wholesale power operators to buy power from a list of coal and nuclear plants deemed “critical” to the grid.
FERC, in rejecting Perry’s original plan, has since launched its own process to craft a definition of “grid resiliency” and alter how power generators could be compensated for providing it.
McNamee skeptics note that he helped draft the Perry plan and has defended it in testimony before Congress.
“A lot of the organized markets have distortions in them that aren’t representative of an actual free-serving market, so the thought is you need to remove some of those distortions and get some more parity,” McNamee said at a July 19 Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing.
McNamee, during his time working for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, also wrote an Earth Day op-ed supporting fossil fuels as good for health and the environment.
The pro-fossil fuels commentary struck some observers as awkward because Texas, where McNamee has spent part of his career, is known for its competitive, deregulated power system that has allowed wind energy to thrive because of its abundance.
“To me, the question is, will we see more of the central-planner DOE perspective from McNamee or more of the pro-market Texas viewpoint?” Devin Hartman, electricity policy manager at the R Street Institute, told the Washington Examiner. “Hopefully his policy agenda is to uphold competitive markets. I’d expect senators on both sides to press him firmly on this.”
McNamee’s supporters say it’s unfair to criticize him for advocating Trump administration policy priorities at the Energy Department.
“I would raise a distinction between his personal views and what he says at DOE,” said Stein, McNamee’s former Senate staff colleague. “He is good lawyer and advocate. He is advocating a position that he is employed to advocate for.”
Allen said McNamee is a good soldier who would follow directions, even if he disagreed with the governor’s decisions.
“Once you break the huddle and say this is the play you are going to run, he is a dedicated, trustworthy, and very loyal team player,” Allen said.
But others said it’s impossible to project how McNamee would approach being a commissioner at FERC.
McNamee, if nominated and confirmed by the Senate, would replace Robert Powelson, a Republican FERC commissioner and Trump nominee who resigned effective Friday.
Powelson, who has been in office for about a year, quickly established himself as a fierce defender of competitive markets and was especially outspoken against coal and nuclear subsidies. Without Powelson, the current commission has two Republicans, Chairman Kevin McIntyre and Neal Chatterjee, and two Democrats, Cheryl LaFleur and Richard Glick.
“I would hope whoever goes into FERC is someone who believes the integrity of markets should be preserved, and ultimately makes decisions based on substantial evidence or a record supporting their decision,” Jon Wellinghoff, FERC’s former Democratic chairman from 2009 to 2013, told the Washington Examiner. “But you never know how someone does until they become a commissioner.”
McNamee’s supporters say they have seen enough.
“The coal subsidy scheme was already defeated at FERC and adding Bernie to FERC won’t defeat that status quo,” Stein said.
