EMP S2E19: The American Antitrust Institute's Diana Moss explains her view that FERC is "deprioritizing" pro-competition policies in its electricity transmission and natural gas pipeline certification proceedings.

Diana Moss, an economist and president of the American Antitrust Institute, says the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission appears to be stepping back from the bipartisan pro-competition policies that have defined FERC's approach to regulation of the electricity and natural gas industries for the last 30 years. FERC's electricity transmission rulemaking would cement monopoly control of grid expansions needed for reliability and clean-energy purposes by allowing utilities to exercise a "right of first refusal," or ROFR, in building new transmission expansion projects. And the commission's stalled natural gas pipeline certification proceeding, which was pulled back and reissued as a proposal after landing FERC Chairman Rich Glick in hot water with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., effectively permits "affiliate precedent" self-dealing to persist. 

"After 25 years of careful and largely successful efforts to weave competition principles into the oversight of energy markets, FERC’s commitment to promoting competition appears to be wavering," Moss concludes in a policy paper published on AAI's website.

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