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Daniel Lauf

Program Director, Energy
NGA Center for Best Practices

Dan Lauf is an energy policy expert at the National Governors Association’s Center for Best Practices, where he serves as a trusted adviser to Governors and their senior staff on the challenges reshaping America’s energy landscape. He is a leader on NGA’s energy programming, grid planning, energy security, and resilience. Dan’s work sits at the intersection of energy planning, reliability, and economic competitiveness, helping Governors build the strategies and policies needed to stay ahead of an evolving energy landscape, preserve the affordability and integrity of our nation’s energy systems, and defend critical infrastructure against physical and cyber threats. He also works across state lines, supporting bipartisan groups of Governors on regional transmission, energy planning, and RTO governance, where interstate coordination is increasingly essential.

Over more than a decade at NGA, Dan built and led a wide range of initiatives. He grew the NGA’s Energy Policy Learning Network into a robust program supporting complex policy decisions for Governors across both parties. He directed the Federal Facilities Task Force — a network of state regulators overseeing cleanup of the nation’s defense nuclear sites — and launched the NGA Broadband Learning Network during the coronavirus pandemic, helping Governors develop policy strategies to close the digital divide. Nationally, Dan brings a state perspective to multiple industry working groups and task forces and has contributed to NGA’s published research, helping establish a comprehensive national picture of state-level energy policy.

Before joining NGA, Dan worked across the public and private sectors on energy policy and analysis. As a Policy Manager at the Maryland Energy Administration, he oversaw data analysis and program evaluation, tracking and reporting progress to the Governor’s energy policy goals. He also worked for a boutique consulting firm providing market research and technical support to the U.S. Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency on energy efficiency, building technologies, and state and utility program design.

Dan holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master’s degree in applied economics from Johns Hopkins University.