04/02/2025 at 10:00AM
The purpose of the hearing is to consider the nominations of Ms. Katharine MacGregor to be Deputy Secretary of the Interior and Mr. James Danly to be Deputy Secretary of Energy.
Nominees:
- Katharine MacGregor to be Deputy Secretary of the Interior
- James Danly to be Deputy Secretary of Energy
Kate MacGregor, who was Legislative Director for Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and also served as Professional Staff handling energy and public lands-related issues on the House Natural Resources Committee before being Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior in Trump’s first term, currently serves as the Vice President of Environmental Services for NextEra Energy.
“I don’t want to be too flippant about it, but they’re not fucking around,” said Joe Balash, who was Interior’s assistant secretary of lands and minerals management in the first Trump administration, about MacGregor. Balash was chief of staff for Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R).
James Danly is head of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP’s Energy Regulatory Group. Danly began his legal career as an associate in the energy regulation and litigation practice at Skadden in September 2014 and was admitted to the District of Columbia bar in 2015.
In that job, he worked on enforcement cases and other issues before FERC and represented clients such as Exelon Corp., FirstEnergy Corp., NextEra Energy Inc., PacifiCorp and Hydro-Québec, as well as two financial players with interest in energy, Barclays PLC and BlackRock Inc.
Two years later, in September of 2017, he was named general counsel at FERC by the Trump White House. He then served as a FERC Commissioner.