Kumbaya for Rs and Ds on the Western grid?

If that person were to crack open Project 2025 and read Page 404, they’d find a proposal to eliminate energy markets where intermittent resources, such as solar and wind, are sold. In its place would be “reliability” markets for things like natural gas, among other proposals targeting elements of regional markets.

Based on how FERC has operated, it’s a bit far-fetched to expect the commission to do something like that or to block the Pathways proposal, said Michael Giberson, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based, conservative-leaning R Street Institute.

FERC tends to let states figure out among themselves how they want to run energy markets and approves proposals so long as they comply with the law, he said. And in the West, energy regulators in both political parties seem happy with how things are going.

“They’ve seen benefits for their customers in their states,” he said. “There’s not a groundswell of Republican state commissioners in the West that are saying, ‘Let’s stop what’s going on.’”