By Michael Brooks

FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee on Thursday released an ambitious, star-studded agenda for the commission’s energy conference to be held Oct. 21 at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

Dubbed the EnVision Forum, the daylong conference will feature 12 panels, three at a time, with some moderated by former FERC Commissioners Colette Honorable and Robert Powelson.

Panels will include “Transforming Transmission: Investing Today in Tomorrow’s Grid,” featuring former Commissioners Jon Wellinghoff and Phil Moeller, and “Emerging Issues in Organized Electricity Markets,” with ISO-NE CEO Gordon van Welie, MISO CEO John Bear and interim PJM CEO Susan Riley.

Giving keynote addresses will be Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray, American Electric Power CEO Nick Akins, Energy Storage Association CEO Kelly Speakes-Backman and Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette.

“Launching the EnVision Forum in my home state of Kentucky, where we are seeing a wave of societal challenges due to the closure of coal plants and mines, was the logical first step for us to take,” Chatterjee said in a statement.

“We want to start some new conversations with new voices and create relationships and understanding among the range of interests that are affected by this energy transition.”

There will also be panels on the intersections between energy and telecommunications, water and the opioid epidemic (“Pain, Pills, and Police: The intersection of the energy industry and the opioid epidemic”).

“The law enforcement community is grateful for Chairman Chatterjee’s out-of-the-box thinking in also focusing this conference on the intersection of the opiate epidemic and the coal industry at both ends of our commonwealth,” panel moderator Russell Coleman, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, said in a statement.

Speaking to RTO Insider on Friday, Chatterjee said he has been “humbled and overwhelmed by how much interest there has been in this.” He estimates that, not including press and support staff, about 170 people have confirmed they will attend so far.

The event will be held “throughout” Kroger Field, the University of Kentucky’s 61,000-seat football stadium. Chatterjee said he has not yet done a site visit, but the stadium is home to the Woodford Reserve Club, used to host special events.

Chatterjee said the idea for the event took shape over the past six months. He said that as the industries that FERC regulates rapidly change, “the commission has clearly seen an increase in the visibility of its work,” but “a lot of people aren’t familiar with it.”

“It’s time people had a better idea of what FERC does,” he said. The forum will also give the commission the opportunity to hear discussions it wouldn’t normally be able to during its regular business hours, he said.

But Chatterjee also “liked the idea of getting out of Washington” and introducing stakeholders to Kentucky, a place that hasn’t felt the benefits of the energy transition as much as others, he said.

Prior to joining FERC, Chatterjee, a Lexington native, was an adviser on energy policy to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). But energy wasn’t his first choice when coming to Capitol Hill: He originally wanted to work on health care policy, he said, as both his parents were professors and cancer researchers at UK. (He attended St. Lawrence University in upstate New York, as he couldn’t stand the idea of taking classes from his parents and their friends, he said.)

It was only when working on energy issues on behalf of McConnell that, he said, he fully realized the importance of coal to Kentucky. “Coal wasn’t just part of the economy; it’s part of the cultural lifeblood of the state.”

It’s also a central part of politics there. McConnell, who faces re-election in 2020, has been attacked by his Democratic challenger, Amy McGrath, for not supporting legislation to strengthen coal miners’ pensions or a fund that supports miners with black lung disease.

Just after he joined the commission in August 2017, Chatterjee said in FERC’s “Open Access” podcast that as a Kentucky native, “I’ve seen firsthand throughout my life how important a contribution coal makes to an affordable and reliable electric system. … As a nation, we need to ensure that coal, along with gas and renewables, continue to be a part of our diverse fuel mix.”

A year later, after FERC unanimously rejected the Department of Energy’s NOPR Notice of Proposed Rulemaking calling for price supports for coal and nuclear plants, Chatterjee talked about how former Chairman Kevin McIntyre had “helped me grow in my role as I made the transition from formerly partisan legislative aide to independent regulator.” (See Returning Chair Pledges to Protect FERC’s Independence.)

The inclusion of a panel on the opioid crisis had some FERC watchers scratching their heads.

“It appears from the content of this event that the chairman is [planning to run] for political office in Kentucky,” said one FERC observer who agreed that Chatterjee appears more animated by politics than by many of his FERC duties.

“This is a purely substantive event with serious and diverse technical content that is not political in any way whatsoever,” Chatterjee said Monday when asked if any political ambitions in the state.

It’s apparent at least that he did not shy away from the controversial. One panel is titled “All of the Above vs. Green New Deal: How States Balance Costs, Carbon and Communities” and will feature several state utility commissioners. Another is a “Conversation on Climate,” to be moderated by Rich Powell, executive director of ClearPath, an organization that supports “conservative policies that accelerate clean energy innovation.” Jason Bordoff, director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, will be a panelist.

Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, who has been highly critical of FERC, said he agreed to participate as a panelist on “Empowering 21st Century Energy Consumers with Technology” after receiving assurances he would be able to make his points that “FERC has to do a lot more to ensure the public and the public interest has a meaningful seat at the table” on commission issues and on RTO governance.

Public Citizen and other groups have been pushing since at least 2016 to have FERC provide public funding for interventions before the agency, as they say was required by the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act. (See Citizens Groups Seek Public Funding for FERC Interventions.)

Rich Heidorn Jr. contributed to this report.