Rulemakings

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On May 19, 2016, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in which it proposed to approve Reliability Standard BAL-002-2, Disturbance Control Standard—Contingency Reserve for Recovery from a Balancing Contingency Event (“May 19 NOPR”). In the May 19 NOPR, FERC described BAL-002-2 as designed to ensure that Registered Entities “are able to recover from system contingencies by deploying adequate reserves to return their Area Control Error to defined values and by replacing the capacity and energy lost due to generation or transmission equipment outages.” FERC also proposed in the May 19 NOPR to direct the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) to: (i) modify BAL-002-2 to address concerns related to the possible extension or delay of the periods for Area Control Error recovery and contingency reserve restoration; and (ii) address a reliability “gap” associated with NERC’s proposed definition of “Reportable Balancing Contingency Event.”

On March 17, 2016, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (“PHMSA”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) expanding regulations for gas transmission and gathering pipelines. Specifically, PHMSA proposes, among other things, to (1) enhance integrity management (“IM”) requirements, (2) create a new clarification applicable to gas pipelines entitled “moderate consequence areas” or “MCAs,” (3) require pressure testing for older pipelines that have not previously required testing, and (4) modify regulations regarding onshore gathering lines.

On June 18, 2015, the Commission issued two separate Notice of Proposed Rulemakings (“NOPRs”) in which it proposed to approve several mandatory Reliability Standards submitted by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”).  The proposed Reliability Standards broadly address the areas of Transmission Operations (“TOP”), Interconnection Reliability Operations and Coordination (“IRO”), Emergency Preparedness (“EOP”), and Undervoltage Load Shedding (“UVLS”).  If approved, the proposed Reliability Standards would replace several currently-effective NERC Reliability Standards.

On June 22, 2012, FERC released a final rule in the Integration of Variable Energy Resources (“VER”) rulemaking proceeding.  With the stated goal of removing barriers to VER integration, the final rule provides transmission customers the option of adjusting their transmission schedules at 15-minute intervals, and it requires VER generators to provide transmission owners with certain data on meteorological and forced outages in order to support power production forecasting.