On February 25, 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) extended the implementation deadline for the critical infrastructure protection (“CIP”) version 5 Reliability Standards, from April 1, 2016 to July 1, 2016, granting a February 4, 2016 motion filed by several industry trade associations requesting the extension.

According to the motion, the trade associations requested the extension in order to align the implementation date with the effective date of the revised Reliability Standards approved in Order No. 822—a January 21, 2016 order that, among other things, approved revisions to seven specific CIP Reliability Standards, and required compliance on July 1, 2016 (see January 26, 2016 edition of the WER).

In its February 25, 2016 order, the Commission stated that it was “persuaded that the separate implementation dates in short succession create unnecessary administrative burdens with little or no commensurate benefit to reliability.”

A copy of the Commission’s order maybe found here.