By Gavin Bade

November 22, 2017 - For Neil Chatterjee, acting chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, coal feels like home.

“Speaking as an individual who grew up in Lexington, Kentucky … I don’t think people outside of that region understand not just the economic but the cultural significance of coal-fired generation,” Chatterjee said during an interview at his Washington office last week. “It's not just about the direct and indirect jobs tied to the industry.”

The acting chairman, set to hand his gavel to incoming chair Kevin McIntyre in the next few days, said one of the clearest examples of that cultural significance comes from the basketball program at the University of Kentucky, which can count Chatterjee as a committed fan.

“I don't know if people realize this: The dorm that the basketball players live in at the University of Kentucky is called the Kentucky Coal Lodge,” Chatterjee said, referring to the luxury housing complex for Kentucky basketball players paid for by a coal magnate. “It is a boon to [head coach John] Calipari’s recruiting because he's able to go to these top recruits and say this is where you're going to live for the eight months that you're in [the university] before the NBA.”

The Kentucky Coal Association banner even hangs at the university’s basketball stadium, Rupp Arena, Chatterjee noted.

“It’s part of the culture in the Commonwealth and it doesn't mean that people in Kentucky aren't concerned about the environment, that they don't care about climate change,” Chatterjee said. “It's what they kind of grew up around in some of these Appalachian communities.”

In some of those communities, Chatterjee said, “there’s nothing else — there’s not a Burger King or Walmart for 30 miles.”

“So when the plants shut down and the mines shut down, the only asset these people have left are their pensions tied to their mining jobs or the value of their homes, which plummet because the economic center of the communities went away,” Chatterjee said. “That's what I think people don't get — the emotional toll, the cultural toll, and the significance of it.”

The chairman’s comments on coal came at the tail end of an extended interview in his FERC office. Chatterjee had just completed describing details of an interim plan to save coal and nuclear plants from retirement, but he stressed that his nostalgia for the resource does not play into his decisions as a regulator.

“That doesn't factor in to what I will do in my job here because I'm adamant that this independent agency operate in a fuel-neutral, technology-neutral way within the parameters of our statute,” Chatterjee said. “But as a human being … I think if more people would have exposure to what people's lives are like in a poor rural state like Kentucky, they might be more empathetic and not quite so absolute yet in their positions on some of these divisive issues.” 

Neil Chaterjee