As of May 12, 2026, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Laura Swett spoke at PJM’s Annual Meeting, addressing the legitimacy crisis in the grid operator’s decision-making. [1] She asserted that the operator may be “too big to function,” with an “unacceptable” governance structure, with confidence in its decision-making having “completely eroded.” Swett stated that the 13 states in PJM and the District of Columbia have “fundamentally different regulatory structures, resource portfolios and politics,” with some states relying on competitive markets and others having utilities that own power plants. Despite this, FERC expects PJM to run power markets in a fair and efficient manner, “maintain reliability through extreme weather, shifting fuel mixes, and rapid technological change.” When describing its governance process, Swett suggested that the current stakeholder process is “slow where it must be fast, opaque where it must be transparent, and vulnerable to vetoes and agenda control exactly when the region needs immediate action.” Swett announced that FERC would hold a conference on July 23 to identify the flaws in PJM’s governance process, along with solutions to fix them.
