82 FR 30850 - North American Electric Reliability Corporation; Notice Of Staff Review Of Compliance Programs

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Federal Register Volume 82, Issue 126 (July 3, 2017)

[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 126 (Monday, July 3, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 30850-30851]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2017-13954]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Docket No. RC11-6-005]


North American Electric Reliability Corporation; Notice Of Staff 
Review Of Compliance Programs

    Commission staff coordinated with the staff of the North American 
Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to conduct the annual oversight 
of the Find, Fix, Track and Report (FFT) program, as outlined in the 
March 15, 2012 Order,\1\ and the Compliance Exception (CE) Program, as 
proposed by NERC's September 18, 2015 annual Compliance Filing.\2\ The 
Commission supported NERC's plan to coordinate with Commission staff to 
review the same sample of possible violations, thereby reducing the 
burden on the Regional Entities of providing evidence for two different 
samples. Commission staff reviewed a sample of 23 FFT possible 
violations out of 46 FFT possible violations posted by NERC between 
October 2015 and September 2016 and a sample of 100 CE instances of 
noncompliance out of 470 CE instances of noncompliance posted by NERC 
between October 2015 and September 2016.
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    \1\ North American Electric Reliability Corp., 138 FERC 61,193, 
at P 73 (2012) (discussing Commission plans to survey a random 
sample of FFTs submitted each year to gather information on how the 
FFT program is working).
    \2\ North American Electric Reliability Corp., Docket No. RC11-
6-004, at 1 (Nov. 13, 2015) (delegated letter order) (stating NERC's 
intention to combine the evaluation of Compliance Exceptions with 
the annual sampling of FFTs to further streamline oversight of the 
FFT and compliance exception programs).
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    Commission staff believes that the FFT and CE programs are meeting 
expectations with limited exceptions. Sampling for the 2016 program 
year indicated that the Regional Entities appropriately included 97.5 
percent of the sampled possible violations in the FFT and CE programs 
and that all 123 possible violations have been adequately remediated. 
Commission staff's sample analysis indicated a decreasing number of 
documentation concerns, particularly with regard to the quality of the 
information contained in the FFT and/or CE postings. For example, 
Commission staff found that a few FFT or CE issues still lacked some of 
the information requested in NERC's Guidance for Self Reports document 
and necessary for the posted FFT or CE.\3\ This includes information 
such as start

[[Page 30851]]

or end dates, or root cause. Specifically, the identification of root 
cause has improved significantly over the past three years, moving from 
38 percent missing an identification of root cause to less than 2 
percent. Commission staff subsequently reviewed the supporting 
information for these FFTs or CEs, which provided a majority of the 
missing information. Commission staff ultimately agreed with the final 
risk determinations for 120 of the 123 samples. Commission staff also 
noted a significant improvement in the clear identification of factors 
affecting the risk prior to mitigation (such as potential and actual 
risk), and actual harm, which was identified in all samples. In 
addition, Commission staff noted that the FFTs and CEs sampled did not 
contain any material misrepresentations by the registered entities.
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    \3\ North American Electric Reliability Corp., 138 FERC 61,193, 
at P 60 (2012).

    Dated: June 27, 2017.
Kimberly D. Bose,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2017-13954 Filed 6-30-17; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6717-01-P