“Now let’s be clear what President Obama is asking the Senate to do. The President is asking the Senate to demote Cheryl LaFleur, demote her from being Chairman. She is a highly qualified woman, a Democrat with over 25 years of experience in energy”
Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s speech.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) urged Senators to vote against Norman Bay’s nomination to serve as a Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). President Obama has announced his intention to elevate Mr. Bay—if confirmed—to the position of Chairman of FERC. Barrasso specifically highlights Mr. Bay’s lack of experience and opposes President Obama’s decision to demote the qualified, acting FERC Chairman, Cheryl LaFleur.
Excerpts of his remarks:
“I rise today to discuss the nomination of Norman Bay.
“President Obama has nominated Mr. Bay to be the Commissioner, or a Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission called FERC.
“The President has announced that if Mr. Bay is confirmed, this his plan is to elevate Mr. Bay to the position of Chairman of FERC.
“Over the last few months, there has been much discussion about whether the President should have nominated Mr. Bay to be Chairman.
“I think there is very good reason for us to ask whether the President should have nominated Mr. Bay at all.
“In my view, Mr. Bay is not qualified to be a Commissioner—let alone to be Chairman of FERC.
“Mr. Bay has only 5 years working in the energy sector—a total of 5 years.
“This is less time than the Keystone XL pipeline has been pending with the Obama Administration.
“During his nomination hearing, I specifically asked Mr. Bay about his lack of experience.
“In response, he cited his summer internship at a Department of Energy research facility during college—a summer internship during college.
“With all due respect, this man does not have the background, the qualifications and certainty experience to take on this important role.
“The President has nominated Mr. Bay to replace the FERC’s current Chairman. Her name is Cheryl LaFleur.
“Now in contrast to Mr. Bay, who the President has nominated to replace Ms. LaFleur, well Ms. LaFleur has over 25 years of experience in the energy sector. That includes 4 years as a Commissioner of FERC, and 7 months as the Chairman of FERC.
“Now, I don’t often agree with Ms. LaFleur’s policies, but you cannot deny that she is qualified to serve.
“Mr. Bay’s lack of experience is not the only reason I oppose his nomination. There are a number of outstanding factual disputes about Mr. Bay’s tenure as the FERC’s Enforcement Director.
“For example, there are serious allegations that the Enforcement Staff—during the time Mr. Bay has been in charge—has violated basic principles of due process.
“These allegations include the withholding of exculpatory evidence from subjects of FERC investigations.
“In May, the Energy Law Journal published an article by William Scherman, who’s a former General Counsel at FERC, and by two other attorneys familiar with the situation.
“And they write that: ‘there is a wide-spread view that the FERC enforcement process has become lop-sided and unfair.’
“They said that: ‘one need only to observe the fact that Enforcement Staff denies, in case after case, the existence of exculpatory or exonerating materials, only to produce a subset of those materials too late in the process to be of use in raising defenses.’
“The authors explain that: ‘One of the fundamental principles of due process is that the government is not permitted to hide information from the accused that may aid in his or her defense.’
“But—they say: ‘[FERC] Enforcement Staff routinely fails to produce exculpatory documents.’
“During Mr. Bay’s nominating hearing, I asked him about these allegations. At first, he denied that the allegations were true but then stated that he was: ‘not aware of any instance in which Enforcement Staff has failed to produce exculpatory materials.’
“So I asked him to clarify his remarks—I asked him whether the allegations were true or not.
“He plead ignorance.
“With all due respect, his answer is inexcusable. This is his staff, doing his work, under his direction. He should know whether or not they withheld the evidence from defendants.
“Now, there are not only questions about his commitment to due process. There are also questions about the President’s nominee on whether someone else at FERC suggested that an enforcement action be settled in return for the approval of a merger.
“The Ranking Member of the Energy Committee asked all about this during the nomination hearing. The Ranking Member of the Committee asked Mr. Bay about the connection between FERC’s enforcement settlement with Constellation Energy and FERC’s approval of Constellation’s merger with Exelon.
“The Ranking Member noted that FERC settled with Constellation the day before—one day before—it approved a merger between Constellation and Exelon.
“In fact, the enforcement settlement—which Mr. Bay himself signed—specifically mentions the merger between these two.
“The Ranking Member of the Energy Committee asked Mr. Bay whether he is concerned about the appearance of a quid pro quo between the settlement agreement one day, the merger approval the next.
“Now, he admitted that he would be concerned.
“The Ranking Member then asked if he or others at FERC suggested to Constellation that it should settle the enforcement action in order to get its merger approved.
“In response, he said ‘[t]o the best of [his] recollection,’ he did not make such a suggestion and that he did not know what others at FERC—including his own staff—may have suggested.
“With all due respect to Mr. Bay, his answer is—at best—hard to believe.
“At the time, FERC’s enforcement settlement with Constellation was the largest enforcement settlement in the history of the agency completely.
“So they make this settlement, it is the largest enforcement settlement in the agency’s history—and the next day, they allow a merger which has created one of the nation’s largest utilities.
“Are we really to believe that Mr. Bay doesn’t remember what he or others at FERC
said to Constellation? Can we really believe that?
“Now, I believe the Energy Committee—or some other independent entity—should get answers to these and the other questions surrounding Mr. Bay’s record before we decide, this Senate, to promote him.
“Now, I know that some Senate Democrats are nervous about voting for Mr. Bay—and, I believe, rightfully so.
“These Senate Democrats have said they will vote for Mr. Bay only because they believe that a deal was cut, or a so-called deal was cut with President Obama specifically.
“They say the President will allow Ms. LaFleur to continue serving as Chairman for 9 months after her confirmation.
“But the President hasn’t put it in writing—hasn’t really told all of the Members that. And even if the President had, this is no way for the Senate to be able to enforce it.
“The truth is this is a gimmick. And it’s a gimmick invented by specifically by Senate Democrats so they can—once again—avoid standing up to President Obama and the Senate Majority Leader.
“Now let’s be clear what President Obama is asking the Senate to do.
“The President is asking the Senate to demote Cheryl LaFleur, demote her from being Chairman. She is a highly qualified woman, a Democrat with over 25 years of experience in energy, 4 years of experience as a Commissioner of FERC—in order to promote an unqualified man.
“Why should the Senate do this?
“Well the Senate Majority Leader put it this way in the Wall Street Journal, he said: ‘I don’t want her as chair’…he said, ‘She has done some stuff to do away with some of [Chairman] Wellinghoff’s stuff.’
“In short, the President and the Majority Leader want a rubber stamp. By all indications, they will get that with Mr. Bay.
“On May 20th, during his confirmation hearing, Mr. Bay admitted that he wasn’t even ‘following’ EPA’s regulations and their impact to electric reliability in this country.
“Two weeks later on June 4th—in response to written questions, he stated the EPA’s regulations are ‘manageable.’
“Well either he’s an exceptionally quick study or he doesn’t take electric reliability seriously.
“FERC is an independent agency. It needs a highly qualified leader—a leader whose record is beyond reproach—a leader who will resist political interference from the White House and the Majority Leader.
“And Mr. Bay is not that individual.
“For these reasons, I’m voting against Mr. Bay and urge all members to do the same.”
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