Thomas C. Kirby is a senior associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.  He practices in the firm’s Energy, Regulation and Litigation Practice Group.  Mr. Kirby advises natural gas and oil pipelines, electric utilities, and energy market participants on a wide variety of issues in rate, certificate, and enforcement proceedings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

His recent experience includes:

• Representing a major refined products (i.e., gasoline, diesel, jet fuel) pipeline at a three-month hearing on eighteen consolidated complaints alleging that its indexed and market-based rates were no longer just and reasonable under the Interstate Commerce Act;
• Representing a natural gas pipeline and winning dismissal on jurisdictional grounds of a complaint regarding unpaid reservation charges during the February 2021 Texas cold weather event;
• Representing a natural gas pipeline in consolidated rate-case proceedings under Section 4 and Section 5 of the Natural Gas Act;
• Obtaining an order from FERC declaring that it lacks jurisdiction over a small-scale liquified natural gas facility that will export LNG in containers via ocean-going cargo vessels;
• Advising an electric utility on its annual formula rate update and responding to formal challenges to the update; and
• Conducting an internal investigation of trading activities and responding to multiple rounds of CFTC inquiries on behalf of a commodity pool operator.

Mr. Kirby has been named as “One to Watch” by The Best Lawyers in America® and is a past chair of the Energy Bar Association’s FERC Practice Committee.  Prior to joining Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, he was an associate at Steptoe & Johnson LLP, where he also focused on federal energy regulatory matters.  Before entering private practice, Mr. Kirby served as an Attorney-Advisor to the Hon. John P. Dring in FERC’s Office of Administrative Law Judges.

Mr. Kirby graduated cum laude from American University Washington College of Law in 2013.  He received his undergraduate degree from American University in 2006.

Mr. Kirby is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and Maryland.