This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, February 23rd,

2004. I'm Caleb Brown.

FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has a problem.

The agency might not have enough votes to do its job.

And for energy to cross state lines, whether it be through power lines or pipelines,

the problem has big implications for energy.

Cato's Travis Fisher explains,

what is the best case for Burke existing?

Well, my first answer is that it does exist. So it could be that the burden of proof is on removing it at this point.

It's had water authority since the Federal Water Power Act of 1920,

and so then it got a lot of its authority from the 1935 Federal Power Act and so it's

been in existence for that long.

Probably the best case for its continued existence is that you know we have a federalist case that you wouldn't want

states to be doing all of this stuff on their own we have a multi-state

transmission grid on electricity we have a multi-state pipeline system for gas and so FERC is sort of the federal oversight to those

multi-state markets.

Even with the narrowest conception of the Commerce Clause here, we have energy crossing

state lines and to make that process more regular, a regulator has a role.

That's right.

If we're being generous to FERC, we would say, yes, absolutely there's a case, especially

from the interstate commerce.

Describe the quorum problem at FERC and what does that endanger?

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