FERC Chair Mark Christie’s tenure running the commission is coming to an end, as President Donald Trump on June 2 nominated Laura Swett of Vinson & Elkins to replace him.

“I learned this evening from a media inquiry that President Trump has appointed Laura Swett to replace me when my term expires,” Christie posted on X. “I congratulate Laura and wish her the best. I will remain in office for a few weeks after June 30 to help get key orders out.”

Christie’s term ends June 30; if confirmed, and depending on when she is sworn in, Swett would be able to serve a full five-year term. Another seat remains open since former Chair Willie Phillips stepped down earlier this year, but that term would extend only into 2026. Any new commissioner in that seat effectively would need to be nominated and confirmed twice to serve longer.

Swett’s nomination has been referred to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. She has previous experience at FERC serving on the staff of Chair Kevin McIntyre and former Commissioner Bernard McNamee, both Trump nominees in his first term. She also worked at the Office of Enforcement, according to her LinkedIn page.

Former FERC Chair Neil Chatterjee, who overlapped with both Swett and Christie on the commission, called the news bittersweet on X.

“I adore Laura Swett and believe she will be an excellent FERC chair (if given the chance by OIRA and OMB),” Chatterjee said, referencing the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and Office of Management and Budget. “But Christie is a patriot; all he did was run the agency well. He’s a veteran who has dedicated his life to serving America. He deserved better.”

The Trump administration has been skeptical of independent agencies generally, reportedly telling Phillips it would fire him if he did not step down, leading to his resignation. Trump issued an executive order in February trying to bring FERC and other similar agencies more under its control. (See Trump Claims Authority over Independent Agencies in Executive Order.)

Christie spent his first press conference as chair addressing that executive order and has repeatedly answered questions on it since. While he put some of it in the context of normal relations between a president and FERC, he also made it clear he had to follow the laws that govern FERC. (See FERC’s Christie Says Existing Policies Can Align with Trump’s Order.)

One area Christie made clear then that FERC could not tolerate was ex parte communications on cases pending before it.

“We do not allow ex parte communications; that would violate the [Government in the] Sunshine Act,” Christie said at the press conference in February. “It would also violate everything I know about due process in contested proceedings going back to being a state regulator. We didn’t allow it in Virginia, so we’re not going to start allowing ex parte communications.”

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“I think it’s great that Laura has been nominated by the president,” McNamee said in an interview. “I think she’ll do a fantastic job as a commissioner, and I knew that because she provided great and sound advice to me when she was my attorney adviser, when I was a commissioner.”

Swett advised McNamee on pipeline issues when she was his staffer, and much of her work at Vinson was in that area.

The issue of environmental assessment in pipeline permitting has caused some partisan splits among commissioners in the past decade, especially around how much attention FERC must pay to the downstream greenhouse gas emissions.

Former Chair Richard Glick’s efforts to update the pipeline approval process after some losses in the courts wound up sinking his renomination in 2022, but a recent Supreme Court decision means those debates likely are coming to an end regardless of FERC’s composition.

In Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, issued May 29, the majority found that the U.S. Surface Transportation Board was right to not consider upstream and downstream effects from approving oil shipments over rail. In a post on X, Christie called the decision “the most important permitting reform in decades.”

Trade associations and other groups active before FERC released statements on June 3 congratulating Swett for the nomination.

Americans for a Clean Energy Grid Executive Director Christina Hayes offered congratulations in a statement and argued for continued action on transmission.

“In her previous stints as a senior leader at FERC, she worked on policies that emphasized grid reliability,” Hayes said. “At a time when American energy demand is set to skyrocket, no policy area is as essential to our energy dominance as transmission planning reform. ACEG’s coalition of transmission policy advocates across the political spectrum looks forward to working with Swett in her new role and urges continued FERC leadership in implementing the bipartisan consensus behind Order No. 1920. America’s energy dominance depends on it.”

In addition to congratulating Swett, Electricity Customer Alliance Executive Director Jeff Dennis thanked Christie for his service and for keeping reliability at the top of FERC’s priorities.

“We look forward to working with her and the rest of the commission to advance customer-centric solutions that support the power system expansion our nation needs to meet the demands of a growing digital economy while keeping energy affordable for all customers,” Dennis said.