Document ID: FERC-2019-0952-0001
Agency: ferc
Document Type: Notice
Title: Staff Review of Enforcement Programs: North American Electric Reliability Corp.
Posted Date: 2019-08-19T04:00Z

[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 160 (Monday, August 19, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Page 42908]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-17723]

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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Docket No. RC11-6-009]

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 
Florida Reliability Coordinating Council Regional Entity (FRCC) from 
the survey, reducing the burden on FRCC as it focuses efforts on a 
planned and approved termination of its responsibilities as a Regional 
Entity. Commission staff reviewed a sample of 27 FFT possible 
violations out of 47 FFT possible violations posted by NERC between 
October 2017 and September 2018 and a sample of 37 CE instances of 
noncompliance out of 898 CE instances of noncompliance posted by NERC 
between October 2017 and September 2018.
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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 2018 program 
year indicated that the Regional Entities appropriately included 63 of 
the 64 sampled possible violations in the FFT and CE programs, with 
only one exception, and that 62 of the 64 sampled FFTs and CEs have 
been adequately remediated, with the remaining two FFTs to be 
adequately remediated once the ongoing mitigation is completed in the 
coming months. Commission staff's sample analysis indicated a 
decreasing number of documentation concerns, particularly with regard 
to the clear identification of root cause in the FFT and/or CE 
postings. Specifically, the identification of root cause in FFTs and 
CEs has improved significantly over the past five years, moving from 38 
percent missing an identification of root cause to all now being 
included in this year's sampling. Commission staff subsequently 
reviewed the supporting information for these FFTs or CEs and agreed 
with the final risk determinations for 62 of 64 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.

    Dated: August 12, 2019.
Kimberly D. Bose,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2019-17723 Filed 8-16-19; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6717-01-P