Cheryl LaFleur ’75, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) since 2010 and acting chair of the commission since November, officially took the helm as chairwoman last week. Her appointment had been approved in the Senate two weeks earlier by a 90-7 vote, and her term as chair runs through April 15, 2015. In a statement released by FERC, LaFleur said she was “very honored to lead the commission at such an important time for the nation’s energy infrastructure and markets.”
LaFleur spent part of the week on Capitol Hill, speaking on behalf of FERC, which oversees much of the nation’s energy infrastructure, including interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas, and oil. President Barack Obama’s push for stronger limits on carbon emissions has put LaFleur and her fellow commissioners in the spotlight. While the Environmental Protection Agency is at the helm of the Clean Power Plan, LaFleur said, “FERC can and should help the EPA understand the implications that such regulations may have on electric reliability and support utility compliance with those regulations where necessary and to the extent possible.”
A politics major at Princeton, LaFleur continued her education at Harvard Law School and later began work in the energy industry at New England Electric System and its successor, National Grid USA. She eventually served as executive vice president and acting CEO of National Grid before leaving the company in 2007.