President Trump announced Monday he will nominate Virginia State Corporation Commission Chair Mark Christie and clean energy activist Allison Clements to FERC.
Democrats have been pushing Clements’ appointment to a Democratic vacancy on the commission since last year, but Trump had refused to name her. (See Senate Confirms Danly to FERC.) The commission is currently controlled 3-1 by Republicans.
Christie presumably would replace Republican Commissioner Bernard McNamee, whose term expired on June 30. McNamee announced in January he would not seek a second term but agreed to remain on the commission pending a replacement. He is allowed to remain on the commission until the end of the current Congress at the end of the year. (See McNamee Declines to Seek Reappointment.)
Christie was elected to the SCC by the General Assembly in 2004 and re-elected in 2010 and 2016. He was president of the Organization of PJM States Inc. when it pressed FERC to protect the independence of the PJM Independent Market Monitor.
He also is a former president of the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Commissioners and served in the Marine Corps. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wake Forest University, he received his law degree from Georgetown University. He has taught regulatory law at the University of Virginia School of Law and constitutional law and public policy in a doctoral program at Virginia Commonwealth University.
President Trump will nominate clean energy activist Allison Clements (left) and Virginia State Corporation Commission Chair Mark Christie to FERC. | © RTO Insider
Clements is an adviser to the Energy Foundation, which seeks to accelerate “the transition to a clean energy economy by supporting policy solutions that create robust, competitive markets.” Clements was until recently the director of the foundation’s Clean Energy Markets program. She switched to consultant status and returned to D.C after several years in Salt Lake City.
She joined the foundation in 2018, after a year running a clean energy policy and strategy consulting firm, Goodgrid. That followed nine years with the Natural Resources Defense Council, including almost six as senior attorney and director of its Sustainable FERC Project, in which she worked on transmission planning, markets development and small generator interconnections.
Earlier, she was a member of the energy regulatory group at Troutman Sanders (now Troutman Pepper) and the project finance and infrastructure group at Chadbourne & Parke (now Norton Rose Fulbright).
She has a bachelor’s from the University of Michigan and got her law degree from George Washington University.
The announcement was cheered by clean-energy advocates.
“This is a welcome announcement, and we congratulate both Ms. Clements and Mr. Christie on their nominations,” said Gregory Wetstone, CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy. “ACORE has long called for a full, bipartisan complement of five FERC commissioners. We hope the Senate can swiftly confirm these two strong candidates, so FERC can be best positioned to achieve its mission of ensuring reliable, efficient and sustainable energy.”
“We think they will help the commission a great deal and hope they receive speedy confirmation from the Senate,” said Rob Gramlich, executive director of Americans for a Clean Energy Grid.
“A great FERC pairing with two well-regarded folks,” tweeted Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s energy program. “Both will do a great job.”
Todd Snitchler, CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA) also hailed the news. “A full commission benefits everyone. There are many important questions before FERC surrounding how our nation’s competitive power markets can continue to benefit Americans with cost savings, reliability and innovation.”
