Pipeline Project Developers are Flagging Quorum-less FERC as a Risk Factor

Event Driven Takeaways

• Energy industry investors and participants who are relatively unfamiliar with the antiquated processes and unwritten rules on Capitol Hill and elsewhere inside the Beltway need a roadmap to navigate the nomination and confirmation process for an agency such as FERC - which has been without an operational quorum since February.

• Natural gas infrastructure developers, prospective producer and consumer shippers, power market participants seeking future market structure guidance, and covered companies with merger or other transaction deadlines have all been left in the dark regarding when quorum will be restored and, subsequently, a full commission seated.

• All four of the nominees or intended nominees are widely considered to be professional energy industry or energy regulatory experts with a view assumed to be favorable to business and generally fuel-neutral, so the eventual quorum is currently considered to be a supportive event for infrastructure developers and those dependent on that infrastructure.

• Aside from the two nominees awaiting Senate confirmation being on the record as believing PURPA reform is an issue best left to Congress, where this full Commission would fall on wholesale power market rules reform, jurisdictional issues between states, RTOs and federal entities, or merger oversight remains unknown.

• With the Senate leadership extending its session into the traditional August recess - working through Aug. 11 - there is a hypothetical window to act on at least the two nominees favorably reported out of committee, but there appears to be procedural or tradition-type issues that have thus far been blocking Senate action.