Slaughtering the Independent Agency? What Trump v. Slaughter Means for FERC

The Supreme Court's June 29, 2026 decision in Trump v. Slaughter fundamentally restructured the relationship between the presidency and independent regulatory agencies by eliminating nearly a century of protection for commissioner tenure. The Court overruled Humphrey's Executor v. United States, which for 90 years had upheld for-cause removal restrictions in the Federal Trade Commission Act, permitting removal "only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." The case originated when the President removed a Democratic-appointed FTC commissioner without cause in 2025. The Court ruled that such for-cause removal protections violate the separation of powers and the President's Article II removal authority. The majority reasoned that because the FTC exercises executive power—promulgating binding rules, investigating and enforcing those rules through administrative adjudications, and bringing civil enforcement actions in federal court—its commissioners "must therefore be controlled by the Chief Executive, in whom such power is vested." The Court explicitly foreclosed any middle ground, stating that "if anything more is left of Humphrey's, we overrule it," effectively ending efforts by prior cases such as Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Collins v. Yellen to preserve limited protections.

The decision creates immediate exposure for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which operates under identical for-cause removal language in the Department of Energy Organization Act. FERC exercises the same categories of executive power the Court identified in the FTC—binding rulemaking, investigation, administrative adjudication, and civil enforcement—making its five-member commission structurally indistinguishable from the FTC under Slaughter's analytical framework. Although the Court cautioned that it did not determine "the fate of officials not before us" and left open the question of Federal Reserve removal protections in Trump v. Cook decided the same day, FERC commissioners appear vulnerable to similar at-will removal absent additional legislative action.

The institutional implications are substantial. Eleven former FERC commissioners filed an amicus brief arguing that eliminating removal protections risks "transforming FERC into a politically partisan body." They emphasized that FERC has historically achieved bipartisan consensus by allowing "economic and engineering expertise, rather than partisan politics," to guide decisions. Removal at will threatens this structure by making commissioners susceptible to political pressure and creating instability across administrations.

Evidence of shifting incentives already exists. Even before Slaughter issued, FERC initiated an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANOPR) in October 2025 on large load interconnections at the direction of the U.S. Secretary of Energy, which subsequently triggered a multi-pronged Federal Power Act section 206 investigation into all six of the country's FERC-regulated organized power markets launched last month. FERC has additionally proposed reforms to blanket certificate regulations for interstate natural gas pipelines to advance permitting of infrastructure regulated under the Natural Gas Act. With the Slaughter ruling expanding presidential leverage, these actions raise questions about whether outcomes reflect independent expert judgment or political interference, particularly given the executive branch's position that the President and Attorney General provide authoritative legal interpretations for the executive branch. Even with FERC already holding a Republican-aligned commissioner majority, unfettered removal authority provides an additional enforcement mechanism to compel agency cooperation with presidential policy objectives.