Trump appoints FERC chairman

President Donald Trump appointed Mark Christie as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Christie, 71, has served as a board member of FERC since 2001.

“I am honored to be apptd FERC Chairman by Pres Trump,” Christie wrote on the social media platform X. “For 4 yrs I have emphasized protecting consumers from excessive power bills, meeting the reliability crisis driven by losses of dispatchable generation and failure to build new generation, in the face of rising demand.”

Mark Christie

Christie now leads an agency that issues permits for gas pipelines and the construction of liquefied natural gas infrastructure.

Immediately before joining FERC, Commissioner Christie was the Chairman of the Virginia State Corporation Commission (Virginia SCC), on which he served for nearly 17 years. He was elected to the Virginia SCC, which regulates utilities, insurance and banking, three times by the Virginia legislature on bipartisan votes.

In a separate move, the White House said Trump would withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, which was designed to fight climate change.

The U.S. would join Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only four countries not part of the agreement.