By Anthony Gnoffo

WASHINGTON — Colette Honorable, President Obama’s latest nominee for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, appeared headed toward Senate committee approval last week after a confirmation hearing that saw Republicans and Democrats praise her “moderate” views on fossil fuels and her pledge to put a high priority on grid reliability.

Less clear was whether the full Senate will vote to confirm Honorable before it adjourns. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who led the Thursday hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, promised “to do everything we possibly can to see if we can get you confirmed before Congress wraps up.” The 113th Congress is scheduled to close on Dec. 12, but Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he may extend the session by a week or more to assure votes on key measures.

A Democrat, Honorable has been a member of the Arkansas Public Service Commission since 2007 and its chairman since 2011. She recently concluded a term as president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Underscoring her bipartisan popularity was an introduction by Arkansas’ Republican Sen. John Boozman, who joined the state’s Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor in praising the nominee as a fair, hardworking and intelligent public servant. “It’s not just bipartisan support,” Pryor said of Honorable’s backing in Arkansas, “it’s from business, consumer groups.”

The committee announced it will meet Wednesday to vote on Honorable’s confirmation.

Some members of the energy committee pressed the nominee to pledge support for their policy views.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who will assume the committee chairmanship in January, prodded Honorable to criticize the Environmental Protection Administration’s proposed carbon emission rule. (See related story, RTOs Raise Concerns over Reliability, Schedule in EPA Clean Power Plan.) The senator said the proposed rules “could seriously challenge the reliability of our nation’s grid system and push more Americans into energy insecurity.”

Murkowski also read from comments on the rule jointly filed by the Arkansas PSC and Department of Environmental Quality. In the comment cover letter, Honorable and the interim head of the state environmental agency said that the EPA proposal is “technically flawed” and that its goals were “unobtainable under the current time frame.”

Honorable didn’t repeat those criticisms at the hearing, but she said the rule’s implementation would require EPA and other federal agencies to cooperate with the states and utilities. She pledged to Murkowski that “I will continue to be a proud participant in our mission to ensure reliability” of the grid.

‘Significant Overreach’

Wyden, who led the hearing in the absence of Chairman Mary Landrieu as she campaigned ahead of a run-off election in Louisiana, wanted Honorable’s assurance that she would oppose an expansion of FERC Order 1000. (Landrieu lost her bid for re-election on Saturday, giving Republicans a total of 54 seats in the Senate.)

Wyden, who represents a region served mostly by the Bonneville Power Administration and other government utilities not subject to FERC jurisdiction, described the order as a “significant overreach.”

FERC has long required federal power authorities and other non-jurisdictional transmission providers purchasing open access transmission service from utilities under FERC authority to reciprocate by providing those utilities access on their own systems. Order 1000 extends this reciprocity, allowing transmission developers outside of FERC jurisdiction to propose transmission projects in the regional transmission planning process as long as that developer “abides by the same requirements as those imposed on public utility transmission providers.”

Saying she was reluctant to comment on matters that may still be pending before the commission, Honorable said that any participation in RTOs or ISOs should be voluntary and that she has been impressed by “the ability of each state to plan what works best for them.’’

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, asked Honorable to address concerns about last winter’s polar vortex, which strained the grid’s ability to deliver power for heat. “How close are we to having a repeat?” he asked.

“I read somewhere that the grid bent but didn’t break,” she said. “We need to think not only of reliability but also resilience.”

Honorable also fielded questions about the reliability of freight rail deliveries of coal to generators, an issue she said should be addressed cooperatively by FERC and the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.