DOE Organisation Act

Section 403 of the Department of Energy Organisation Act became operationally significant in the data-centre grid-connection debate when Energy Secretary Chris Wright invoked it in October 2025 to direct FERC to act on large-load interconnection standards — Docket RM26-4-000. The provision authorises the Secretary of Energy to request FERC to undertake specific rulemakings, and sets a 30-day window for FERC to respond. FERC acknowledged the direction but moved roughly two months past the DOE's preferred 30 April 2026 deadline for the order.

The Department of Energy Organisation Act was signed into law by President Carter in 1977 (Public Law 95-91), creating the Department of Energy as a cabinet-level agency and consolidating energy policy functions previously scattered across other departments. The act also gave DOE supervisory authority over FERC's predecessor, the Federal Power Commission, and defined the relationship between the executive branch and FERC as an independent regulatory agency — including the Section 403 direction mechanism.

Section 403 is used infrequently: its invocation signals that the executive branch considers a FERC proceeding sufficiently important to place on the public record as an administration priority. The Trump administration's use of it for RM26-4-000 is read by energy-law practitioners as a deliberate signal that AI data-centre infrastructure is a national security and competitiveness priority — an alignment with FERC's eventual "quick, efficient, and legally durable" framing.