DOE/FERC Agenda

DOE Launches Review Of $15 Billion In Recent Clean Energy Awards

The Department of Energy (DOE) is formally announcing a review of $15 billion in recently awarded grants for large-scale transmission, battery manufacturing, and other projects, in part because Trump officials would like to see if the projects align with their policy priorities. The May 15 announcement comes after Energy Secretary Chris Wright alluded to such a review earlier this month, while Democratic lawmakers express concerns that DOE is unlawfully pausing already awarded funds. DOE says it is reviewing 179 grant...

DOE Floats Repealing Slew Of Efficiency Standards, Setting Up Legal Fight

The Department of Energy (DOE) is proposing to rescind about two dozen energy efficiency standards and reset requirements to decades-old limits outlined in statute or end federal regulation of certain appliances altogether, moves that critics argue violate core elements of federal efficiency law. In a recent interview on Fox News , Energy Secretary Chris Wright touted the “straight out elimination of regulations on everything from your dishwasher to your stove to your washing machine to your microwave and, maybe biggest...

Wright Denies Democrats’ Claims That DOE Is Illegally Freezing $47 Billion

Energy Secretary Chris Wright is denying House Democrats’ assertions that his department is unlawfully freezing $47 billion in already-awarded grant funds, and is instead arguing that the Energy Department (DOE) is continuing to review various Biden-era low-carbon energy projects. “We have not frozen funding -- we don’t have a single unpaid invoice on a project, not one,” Wright testified at a May 7 hearing of a House Appropriations Committee panel on DOE’s fiscal year 2026 budget request. He sought to...

House Republicans Float Expanded FERC Authority Over EPA, Other Rules

Citing the need for an increased focus on grid reliability, House Republicans are proposing to give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authority to block EPA and other agency’s rules that affect power plants, while also imposing hurdles on states’ renewable power requirements. “No regulation affecting [facilities in the bulk power system] would be allowed to be finalized if FERC finds it would have a significant negative impact on the reliability or adequacy of the bulk-power system,” according to a...

DOE Seeks Input On AI Data Centers At National Labs, Other Federal Sites

The Energy Department (DOE) is seeking input about building data centers and related power facilities for artificial intelligence (AI) on federal lands, offering the latest indication of the Trump administration’s push to expand AI infrastructure including by building out the massive amounts of energy needed for data centers. DOE in a recent request for information (RFI) floats DOE-owned and managed sites including at 11 national labs and various other facilities like nuclear plants “that could be amenable” to hosting such...

FERC’s Phillips Departs At White House Request, Ending Democrats’ Edge

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) member Willie Phillips (D) is resigning from the agency, a move that is ending Democrats’ edge on the panel and will allow President Donald Trump to install a GOP majority at an agency with significant oversight of the electricity and natural gas sectors. Under a replacement for Phillips is confirmed, FERC will operate with four members evenly split, with two Democrats and two Republicans. Phillips, who is considered somewhat more moderate on climate issues than...

Low-Carbon Energy Groups Seek To Preserve DOE’s Loan Programs Office

Groups that support low-carbon energy are urging the Trump administration to preserve the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) amid department staff and budget cuts, highlighting projects benefiting from LPO financing that they say boost Trump priorities including energy security. LPO is a “pillar” of the Trump administration’s goal to achieve “American Energy Dominance,” argue 30 groups and companies -- spanning nuclear energy, renewables, and carbon capture -- in an April 14 letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright...

Nominees Offer Fossil Fuel-Heavy Policy Focus, Dodge IRA Fund Queries

The Trump administration’s picks for key roles at the Energy and Interior departments are offering early insight into their energy policy priorities, including a renewed commitment to advance offshore drilling, tepid support for renewables or transmission upgrades, and hedged responses to Democrats’ concerns about funding and personnel cuts. During an April 2 nomination hearing by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Deputy Energy Secretary nominee James Danly argued for an increase in “baseload generation” to meet projections of increased...

Industry Says DOE Can Use Biden LNG Study To Approve More Exports

Major oil and gas groups are asserting that a Biden-era study about the effects of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports actually supports a finding that additional exports are in the “public interest,” undercutting Biden officials’ interpretation of the study and likely providing justification for Trump officials’ approvals of new projects. DOE should “recognize and confirm that the study, despite its shortcomings, supports a determination that continued and additional LNG exports are not inconsistent with the public interest,” says a March...

House Democrat Warns Trump Could Reprise FTC Firings At FERC

After President Donald Trump fired two Democratic members of the independent Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as being out of step with the administration’s “priorities,” one House Democrat is warning that he could take similar steps at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FTC commissioners “enjoy basically identical statutory protections” as FERC, said Rep. Cathy Castor (D-FL), during a March 25 hearing of a House Energy & Commerce energy subcommittee. Therefore, “the president likely thinks he can fire the FERC and...

Trump Announces LNG Export Approval As GOP Attacks Biden-Era Study

Trump officials are approving a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project, continuing their sweeping efforts to bolster the fuel, as House Republicans are attacking a Biden-era study about LNG exports’ greenhouse gas emissions that the prior administration argued showed that additional exports might not be in the “public interest.” The Energy Department (DOE) on March 19 conditionally approved exports from Venture Global’s facility to export LNG to non-free trade agreement (FTA) countries. The approval of the project, known as...

DOE Launches Rule Expected To Set New Hurdles For Efficiency Standards

Trump officials at the Energy Department (DOE) are beginning a rulemaking expected to set multiple new hurdles to issuing stricter energy efficiency standards for appliances, an effort that will likely revive a similar “process” rule from the first Trump administration that Biden officials largely reversed. The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs says in a notice that it began reviewing March 4 a “prerule” titled, “Procedures, Interpretations, and Policies for Consideration in New or Revised Energy Conservation Standards...

Conservatives Pitch ‘Reliability’ Value, In Echo Of First Term Trump Coal Plan

Conservative energy advocates are pressing Congress to require or encourage EPA, federal energy regulators and other agencies to explicitly value “reliability” in their decisions, a move that carries echoes of an aborted proposal from the first Trump administration to create new subsidies for coal and nuclear plants. “Baseload energy is the most important part of a stable energy grid. Policy leaders must consider ways to account for the value of baseload energy,” said Mandy Gunasekara, who served as EPA chief...

Trump Order Seeks To Align FERC’s Rules With White House Policy Goals

President Donald Trump is declaring that he will exert greater supervision and “control” over multiple federal agencies that Congress created to be independent from direct White House influence, a move that could shape energy-related policies at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and other agencies. “All executive departments and agencies, including so-called independent agencies, shall submit for review all proposed and final significant regulatory actions to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Executive Office of the...

DOE’s Wright Pledges Focus On ‘Baseload’ Power, Eased Appliance Rules

Newly confirmed Energy Secretary Chris Wright is pledging to ramp up his department focus on “baseload” power and initiate a “comprehensive review” of its energy efficiency program for appliances, signaling plans to loosen efficiency rules and likely boost supports for fossil fuel and nuclear generation. Wright outlines those goals as part of a broader Feb. 5 “ Secretarial Order ” that highlights nine planned “initial actions” and broadly criticizes “net zero carbon policies.” While many of the planned Energy Department...

Companies Seek Grid Plans To Account For Ongoing Clean Power Demand

A coalition of businesses seeking to procure clean energy is emphasizing its members’ ongoing demand for significant levels of zero-emissions power, arguing that regional grid officials must account for this demand when planning new transmission projects. The Jan. 30 findings from the Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) contrast with the Trump administration’s emerging policy agenda that hopes to boost traditional fuels like oil and gas, while pausing federal approvals of wind power and otherwise downplaying renewables’ role in the electricity...

DOE Extends Comment Deadline On Biden LNG Export ‘Public Interest’ Study

The Energy Department (DOE) has extended its comment period for a key Biden-era study to inform liquefied natural gas (LNG) export approvals, with energy experts arguing Trump officials are likely seeking to bolster the administrative record in support of future export approvals that are likely to face court challenges. The comment period on the study was set to close Feb. 18, but the Trump DOE extended the deadline until March 20 to “ensure such public interest determinations receive appropriate stakeholder...

Industry Says Trump’s EJ Order Revocation Should Reinstate LNG Approval

A liquefied natural gas (LNG) developer in a new letter to the D.C. Circuit is arguing that President Donald Trump’s revocation of a landmark environmental justice (EJ) executive order (EO) issued three decades ago scraps the basis of a three-judge panel’s decision vacating federal approval of its Texas LNG export project. The developer, Rio Grande LNG, makes the argument in a Jan. 23 letter to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, as part of its...

Trump Takes Aim At Efficiency Rules, Promises To Guard Consumer Choice

President Donald Trump is taking aim at a slate of Biden-era energy efficiency standards, in an attempt to sharply reverse course on the Energy Department’s (DOE) efficiency policy after Biden officials issued dozens of standards that prompted fierce pushback from the fossil fuel industry and sometimes appliance manufacturers. In a Jan. 20 executive order , (EO) Trump pledges “to safeguard the American people’s freedom to choose from a variety of goods and appliances, including but not limited to lightbulbs, dishwashers,...

D.C. Circuit Declines To Reverse Panel’s Vacatur Of FERC Pipeline Approval

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is rejecting requests to overturn a three-judge panel’s ruling that vacated the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) approval of a natural gas pipeline, upholding a decision that required FERC to determine if the project’s greenhouse gases are “significant.” The court in two Jan. 21 per curiam orders in New Jersey Conservation Foundation, et al. v. FERC, et al. , rejected Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Co.’s petition for rehearing...

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