An executive at the University of Kentucky with connections to Sen. Mitch McConnell and Kentucky’s electric cooperatives will help lead a commission created by Kentucky lawmakers to review requests from utilities to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants.
The Energy Planning and Inventory Commission, or EPIC, announced last week it had appointed Eric King, the University of Kentucky’s assistant vice president of federal relations, as the commission’s executive director.
King in a statement provided by UK said he’s honored to “work with state leaders, energy experts, and communities to evaluate our energy landscape and chart a path forward that keeps the lights on and our economy competitive.”
“Energy policy touches everything — jobs, economic development, security and quality of life. EPIC’s role is to ensure Kentucky remains a national leader in providing reliable and adequate power across the commonwealth,” King said.
King previously worked for more than a decade in federal government relations roles for UK, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, he worked in a government affairs role for Kentucky Electric Cooperatives and served as a legislative assistant for Sen. Mitch McConnell working on energy, agricultural and environmental policy.
The origins of EPIC
The GOP-controlled Kentucky legislature created EPIC, housed at the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research, through the passage of contentious legislation in 2024, Senate Bill 349, over the veto of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
SB 349 requires utilities to file requests to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants, such as natural gas-fired turbines or coal-fired power plant units, with EPIC for review of the potential impacts of the retirements.
EPIC is then required to report to the Kentucky Public Service Commission, the state’s longstanding utility regulator, whether it recommends or opposes the retirement request. The Public Service Commission has final say, though the regulator is required by state law to cite the findings of EPIC in any order that rules on a retirement request.
Before state lawmakers created EPIC last year, retirement requests of fossil fuel-fired power plants would be filed directly with the Public Service Commission.
The passage of SB 349 sparked an expensive lobbying battle last year in which investor-owned utilities such as Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities joined environmental advocacy groups to oppose the Republican-backed legislation.
Critics of EPIC’s creation argued it was unnecessary bureaucracy that burdened ratepayers with costs and favored fossil fuel interests in a state that has long generated the large majority of its electricity through burning coal. Beshear in his veto of SB 349 wrote that utilities would “experience inordinate delays in authorizing new generation, which will jeopardize economic development.”
Republican lawmakers who touted EPIC said it was needed to address rising energy costs and energy reliability concerns that they attributed to burdensome federal environmental regulations on utilities. John Crockett, Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities president, had previously rebuffed assertions that Kentucky was in an energy reliability crisis.
Sen. Robby Mills (R-Henderson), the primary sponsor of SB 349, said in a statement that after “more than a year of delays” from Beshear, he was encouraged to see the appointment of King. The GOP-controlled Kentucky Senate would have to confirm King to his role when it convenes next year.
“When I sponsored Senate Bill 349, the goal was simple: Kentucky must have a comprehensive, long-term energy plan that ensures reliable, affordable power for our families and businesses,” Mills said. “The General Assembly overrode the Governor’s veto because we refused to let politics in Frankfort or Washington jeopardize Kentucky’s energy security.”
Beshear last year appointed to EPIC representatives from investor-owned utilities that had opposed the commission’s creation, including Crockett.
Scottie Ellis, a spokesperson for Beshear, in a statement said despite the veto of SB 349, the governor’s administration “met the constitutional requirements for appointments, solicited nominees and made appointments” to EPIC, including making the last required gubernatorial appointment to EPIC in February 2025.
“While the Governor cannot stop others from playing politics, he did his job and welcomes the new executive director,” Ellis said.
LG&E and KU’s coal-fired Mill Creek Generating Station in September 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)gy
A potentially powerful executive committee
King will be working with a five-person executive committee that wields EPIC’s statutory power to review retirement requests from utilities, request documents from those utilities and intervene in any case or proceeding before the Kentucky Public Service Commission.
The five members of the executive committee are:
- Ashli Watts, president and CEO of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, who was voted onto the executive committee by the broader membership of EPIC in a May meeting.
- Wesley Cate, a past president of the Kentucky Oil and Gas Association and a director at the natural gas supply company NGL Supply Co. Ltd., who was voted onto the executive committee by the broader membership of EPIC in a May meeting.
- Eston Glover, a former president and CEO of Pennyrile Rural Electric Cooperative and chair of the Pennyrile Regional Energy Agency that is trying to build a natural gas pipeline in Western Kentucky. Beshear appointed Glover last year to the executive committee, and the Kentucky Senate confirmed the appointment of Glover this year to the committee.
- Edward Holmes, president of EHI Consultants in Louisville. Beshear appointed Holmes last year to the executive committee, and the Kentucky Senate confirmed the appointment of Glover this year to the committee.
- Rodney Andrews, the director of the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research.
EPIC members who vied for spots on the executive committee but did not receive enough votes included Jeffery Brock, a business manager and engineer for a subsidiary of coal company Alliance Resource Partners, and Caryl Pfeiffer, a retired employee of utility LG&E and KU.
EPIC’s executive committee has only analyzed one retirement request so far: a request by Big Rivers Electric Corporation to retire a natural gas-fired turbine that had a “catastrophic mechanical failure that has rendered it inoperable.” EPIC’s report to the Kentucky Public Service Commission in July did not give a formal recommendation as to whether the turbine should be retired.
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