Politico reports:

President Joe Biden’s efforts to deliver on his ambitious climate agenda are getting a big boost from the leader of one often overlooked agency who has used his position to home in on the energy industry’s greenhouse gas impact.

Now that official, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Richard Glick, may see his efforts to put climate change at the forefront of federal energy policy cost him his job.

Glick, who was appointed to FERC in 2017 and elevated to the chair role last year by Biden, has pushed policies that angered prominent lawmakers, including many Republicans — and, most crucially, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who as the upper chamber’s swing vote has weakened much of Biden’s climate agenda. That’s put Glick’s future at risk after his current term on the commission ends in June.

Former FERC staff say Glick has launched perhaps the most far-reaching agenda of any leader ever at the commission, which regulates U.S. power markets and approves the siting of gas pipeline infrastructure. His efforts to reshape the agency’s mission include conducting closer examinations of the climate impacts of new energy infrastructure, as well as the effects of existing natural gas pipelines and fossil fuel facilities on low-income areas and minority communities where they are often located. [Continue reading…]