By Steve Haner
“If we always keep as our focus what is best for consumers, in getting them reliable power for the least cost, then I think that’s the main guidepost we ought to follow.”
That was Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie’s opening quote on a PBS broadcast on energy issues due to air April 9, but the 26- minute program can already be found on the network’s website and Christie distributed it via X today.
I’ve seen only snippets so far, but that mission statement jumped out at me. It has been my guidepost in writing about these issues for years now. Christie continues to use his seat on the key regulatory body as a pulpit for the gospel of grid reliability, bolstered by continuing alarms from Virginia’s regional transmission organization that too much reliable power is set to close.
His concern for price and reliability should be the very tippy-top priority as an insider game begins down at the General Assembly to revisit Virginia’s energy transition mandates. The effort announced in January is now ramping up, despite indications that the 2024 session will soon be in a bitter budget and tax overtime.
The beginning has not been auspicious. Organizer David Marsden, a Democrat state senator from Fairfax, sent out written instructions this week to a group of stakeholders, intending to set the stage for a very secretive process. Documents sent to scores of folks by blast email tend to leak, and this one did. Read it yourself.
First Brandon Jarvis wrote something about it on his Virginia Scope outlet, and then Blue Virginia picked up on it. Bacon’s Rebellion readers are getting a link to the copy itself. In a bygone era such an open admission that the Assembly intends to exclude the public would be a major media story, and embarrassing. The media is dead.
This is a short post because I hope folks will visit the links, in particular the Christie interview, the Utility Dive report on PJM’s warnings, and the Marsden document itself. The Blue Virginia commentary is also important because it illustrates what “improving” the 2020 statute looks like to the left – faster and deeper abandonments of reliable coal and natural gas generation, exactly the opposite of PJM’s advice.
And review that list of stakeholders that Marsden and other legislators will hear from next week, perhaps behind closed doors. Identify which of them is there because their top priority is to “always keep as our focus what is best for consumers, in getting them reliable power for the least cost.” Most have other goals; goals they also ardently consider paramount.
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