Sean Aasen

Having split his career between serving in the federal government and representing private clients at large law firms, Sean has a deep and well-rounded insight into how to best achieve wins and solve problems. He concentrates his practice in administrative law, antitrust, and litigation, and serves as the co-chair of the firm’s Regulatory and Administrative Law Practice Group.

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The jurisdictional collision over large loads and data center interconnection

By Sean Aasen on July 9, 2026

Part 3 of 3 — What it means for stakeholders, and what comes next

This is Part 3 of a three-part series. Start with Part 1 and Part 2.

Data center demand is straining the electric grid faster than the system was built to absorb, and the resulting pressures have revived a 90-year-old question about regulatory authority: when a very large customer connects directly to the high-voltage transmission system, does the federal government or the state control the terms? In October 2025 the Department of Energy directed FERC to claim that authority for itself, at least for loads above 20 MW.

The jurisdictional collision over large loads and data center interconnection

By Sean Aasen on June 25, 2026

Part 2 of 3 — The statutory divide and FERC’s PJM Co-Location Order

Part 1 described the surge in data center demand pushing very large electricity consumers onto the transmission grid, and the Department of Energy’s October 2025 direction ordering FERC to write rules for connecting them. The direction is an aggressive one. It tells FERC to assert authority over a kind of customer the Commission has historically left to the states, and it does so while a reliability crisis makes a quick federal answer attractive to almost everyone.

That ambition runs into a problem of power. FERC cannot regulate large-load interconnection at all unless the Federal Power Act authorizes it, and the Act draws a hard line between the parts of the electricity system FERC controls and the parts reserved to the states. Where large data centers fall on that line is the central question, and it is also where FERC, in its first concrete action, found a way to move without answering it.

The statutory framework: The federal-state jurisdictional divide

The DOE direction’s fate depends on three things: the statute’s text, the two Supreme Court decisions construing it, and the analogy at the heart of DOE’s claim.

The jurisdictional collision over large loads and data center interconnection

By Sean Aasen on June 12, 2026

Part 1: The demand surge and the DOE’s Section 403 direction

Over the past six months, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) have each taken major steps that challenge the 90-year-old boundary between federal and state authority over the electric grid. FERC regulates the interstate wholesale electricity market and the high-voltage transmission system that supports it; state public utility commissions regulate retail sales to end-use customers and the local distribution infrastructure that delivers power to homes and businesses.