On June 17, 2010, Thomas Sheets, the General Counsel of FERC, announced a new unit at FERC to assist with legal issues regarding reliability. The announcement came during FERC’s June monthly meeting.
Sheets announced that the new legal team will be comprised of six lawyers in the Office of the General Counsel (“OGC”). The purpose of the new legal team is to enhance the reliability enforcement process at FERC. Sheets noted that advice from Norman Bay, Director of the Office of Enforcement (“OE”) and Joseph McClelland, Director of the Office of Electric Reliability (“OER”) led to the establishment of the new legal team. Sheets also announced that Jonathan First will lead the new team as Special Reliability Counsel.
Chairman Jon Wellinghoff stated at the June 17th meeting that the new legal team in OGC will provide assistance to OE and OER. A full transcript of the June 17th FERC meeting is available at: http://www.ferc.gov/EventCalendar/Files/20100623090235-transcript.pdf.