Laura Swett met with a bevy of senior Trump administration officials and electric utilities in the months after becoming chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, striking a more open-door policy with the White House and energy companies than her predecessors.
Swett — who began her tenure as FERC chair in October — met with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who chairs the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council, in addition to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins; Deputy Energy Secretary James Danly; and Jeff Clark, the former associate administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs who departed the White House post last month.
According to copies of her daily calendar from late October to early February obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News, Swett spent 2 ½ hours at the White House on her first day as chair on Oct. 23.
It’s not unusual for FERC chairs to meet with high-level officials across the government, or with energy companies. But Swett came to FERC at a key moment. The commission is under intensifying pressure from the Trump administration to assert federal authority over connecting large artificial intelligence data centers and industrial sources of power demand to the power grid.
