Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Mark Christie will serve as founding director of the new Center for Energy Law & Policy at William & Mary Law School, the Virginia university announced Monday.
The center will convene policymakers, scholars and students to examine critical issues in energy regulation, including reliability, cost and the growing demands of data centers, with its first major conference planned for spring 2026.
Christie, drawing on decades of state and federal regulatory experience, will also join the faculty as the Lowance Fellow and a Visiting Professor of the Practice of Law after having talked with multiple universities. He emphasized that the center will foster practical, rigorous dialogue on the economic, environmental and consumer challenges facing the energy sector.
“I like to teach. I taught for 20 years until I got [to FERC], and then the White House Office of Government Ethics wouldn’t let me teach — which I thought was absurd,” Christie told POLITICO’s E&E News.
