Kim Smaczniak

Special Counsel, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

2024 C3E Government Award Winner

Kim Smaczniak is Special Counsel at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), where she has shaped historic reforms to policies that better enable the grid to reliably and affordably sustain a transition to clean energy. She contributed to FERC’s successful issuance and to the legal durability of new federal transmission planning, transmission siting, and generator interconnection regulations. The buildout of infrastructure spurred by such reforms is expected to result in significant emissions reductions. She also played a pivotal role in the successful legal defense of market reforms to better accommodate state policies supporting clean energy technologies, reforms that will impact more than 44,000 MW of capacity by 2035.

Prior to FERC, Smaczniak led the Clean Energy Program at Earthjustice, a non-profit law firm. As Managing Attorney, she led and set the strategic direction to accelerate the power sector’s transition to clean energy, including by launching a new federal clean energy practice. She oversaw the program’s litigation strategy at the state and federal levels. Before joining Earthjustice, she served as a climate change negotiator for the U.S. State Department’s Office of Global Change, where she led the U.S. climate change mitigation portfolio, including international engagement and coordination with domestic agencies. In that role, Smaczniak helped shape ambitious diplomatic outreach to ensure the Paris Agreement’s timely entry into force, which ultimately manifested more rapidly and with greater support than seen in decades. She has also served as Counsel to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Smaczniak earned her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, her Master of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and her bachelor’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University.