Mark Christie has been named the new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Christie was previously appointed as a FERC commissioner on January 4, 2021, after being nominated by President Trump in July 2020. Christie replaces former chairman Willie Phillips in the role. Phillips has held the role of acting chair since January 2, 2023.
Commenting on his appointment, Christie set out three priorities he will emphasize during his term in office: “First, the need for FERC to protect consumers from excessive power costs... Second, I have repeatedly warned that America is facing a reliability crisis driven by the dangerous pace of retirements of dispatchable generation units and failure to build sufficient new generation,” and “third, I have emphasized the critically important role of the states and their utility regulators in meeting these reliability and affordability challenges. A close partnership between FERC and the states is absolutely essential to address these problems.”
Before joining FERC, Christie was the chairman of the Virginia State Corporation Commission, on which he served for nearly 17 years.
During Christie’s time as a state regulator, he was elected president of the Organization of PJM States, Inc. (OPSI), an organization of utility regulators representing the 13 states and the District of Columbia that participate in the PJM transmission and markets organization.
He also served for more than a decade on the OPSI governing board.
FERC is the independent agency of the US government that regulates the interstate transmission and wholesale sale of electricity and natural gas, in addition to the prices of interstate petroleum transport by pipeline.
The agency has played a critical role in determining the regulatory landscape for power agreements between data centers and power generators. Last year, in a highly publicized move, it rejected a proposed interconnection service agreement (ISA) for the Susquehanna nuclear power station in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. The ISA would have supported an expanded colocated load at an Amazon Web Services data center connected to the 2.5GW plant.
