83 FR 37494 - North American Electric Reliability Corporation; Notice of Staff Review of Enforcement Programs

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Federal Register Volume 83, Issue 148 (August 1, 2018)

[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 148 (Wednesday, August 1, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 37494-37495]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2018-16398]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Docket No. RC11-6-007]


North American Electric Reliability Corporation; Notice of Staff 
Review of Enforcement 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. Furthermore, NERC and Commission staff agreed to exclude the 
Southwest Power Pool Regional Entity (SPP-RE) from the survey, reducing 
the burden on SPP-RE as it focused efforts on a planned and approved 
termination of its responsibilities as a Regional Entity. Commission 
staff reviewed a sample of 26 FFT possible violations out of 76 FFT 
possible violations posted by NERC between October 2016 and September 
2017 and a sample of 100 CE instances of noncompliance out of 740 CE 
instances of noncompliance posted by NERC between October 2016 and 
September 2017.
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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 2017 program 
year indicated that the Regional Entities appropriately included all 
but two of the 126 sampled possible violations (98.4 percent) in the 
FFT and CE programs and that all but one of the 126 possible violations 
(99.2 percent) have been adequately remediated, with the remaining CE 
to be adequately remediated once the ongoing mitigation is completed. 
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 or end dates, or root cause. Specifically, the 
identification of root cause in FFTs and CEs has improved significantly 
over the past four years, moving from 38 percent missing an 
identification of root cause to less than 1 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 124 of the 126 
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

[[Page 37495]]

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: July 25, 2018.
Kimberly D. Bose,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2018-16398 Filed 7-31-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6717-01-P