Credit: fivethirtyeight[/caption]
Credit: Olympus
Neil Chatterjee, head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, is taking our nation back to pre-Enron days. That is when the commission was so weak it didn’t even explicitly prohibit manipulating energy markets.
Under Chatterjee, a former Mitch McConnell aide, the number of new investigations was 12 in fiscal 2019, compared with 24 the previous year. The commission reached just two settlement agreements for $14 million, a sixth or less of the annual average for penalties since 2007.
“Several recent actions seem to indicate that the commission may not be fully committed to finding, stopping, and punishing manipulative acts that can stifle competition and result in unjust and unreasonable prices,” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) wrote. The letter to FERC commissioners was joined by four other Democratic senators.
Chatterjee, who previously lobbied for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, told senators annual averages vary and dropped in part because of FERC’s effectiveness. “Our focus […]
