FERC Chair Richard Glick announced his top aides Monday, promoting technical adviser Pamela Quinlan to acting chief of staff and naming legal adviser Matt Christiansen as general counsel.

Quinlan joined Glick’s office in 2017 after a stint in the Office of Energy Market Regulation. Before joining commission staff, she worked in energy policy and regulatory affairs at Consolidated Edison, often representing Con Ed’s Rockland Electric at PJM stakeholder meetings. (See Load, Supply Deadlock on MOPR Changes.)

She also worked at Standard & Poor’s and CPower Energy Management after earning an M.S. in sustainability management from Columbia University. She and her husband, Eric Vandenberg, deputy director of FERC’s Office of Energy Policy and Innovation, live with their son in D.C.

Christiansen joined Glick’s office in 2017 from the Office of the General Counsel. Before joining FERC, he served as a law clerk to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen F. Williams and Judge Jesse M. Furman of the Southern District of New York. He was an energy law and policy fellow at NYU Law School’s Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy and Land Use Law. He and his wife, Celia, live with their daughter in D.C.

A graduate of Yale Law School and Columbia University, Christiansen has been published — or will be — in the Harvard Law Review, the Texas Law Review and the Energy Law Journal of the Energy Bar Association (EBA).

Glick and Christiansen co-authored an article published in the April 2019 EBA journal that predicted FERC “is likely to become an increasingly important venue in the debate over how this nation will address climate change.

“The urgent threat of climate change does not necessitate a wholesale reinterpretation of the commission’s jurisdiction or a novel regulatory paradigm,” they wrote. “Instead, climate change increases the stakes of many commission actions, making it all the more important that the commission carry out its existing obligations.” (See
EBA Panelists Debate Role of FERC in Regulating Carbon.)

ClearView Energy Partners issued a note on Glick’s appointments, reminding its clients of “the important role of the general counsel in supporting a chairman’s policy direction.”

ClearView described Glick and Christiansen as “‘technicians’ and … progressive-leaning pragmatists.”

Glick announced Quinlan’s and Christiansen’s promotions in a statement, saying “both Pamela and Matt have served in my office … with great distinction. They both will play critical roles in advancing FERC’s essential mission as the nation transitions to the clean energy future.”

Glick said he was happy that David Morenoff, who had been serving as acting general counsel for the past year, will return to his position as deputy general counsel. “I’ve come to rely heavily on David since I arrived at FERC and greatly value his intellect and his dedication to the commission and public service,” Glick said.