Useful Links FERC, NERC, and Related Issues As of April 15, 2004
FERC
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (home page), http://www.ferc.gov/
Calendar of Events (including commission meetings, conferences, congressional testimony, court cases, site visits, speeches, and hearings), http://www.ferc.gov/EventCalendar/EventsList.aspx?CalendarID=0
Press Room (for recent press releases, congressional testimony, and speeches), http://www.ferc.gov/press-room/press-room.asp
About FERC (for commissioners' biographies, what FERC does and does not do, and strategic FERC documents such as budget requests, annual and financial reports, strategic plan, and performance reviews), http://www.ferc.gov/about/about.asp
FERC Staff Phone Directory, http://www.ferc.gov/contact-us/phone-dir.asp
Commission Offices (for a brief description of all offices within FERC, as well as links to more detailed information about each office), http://www.ferc.gov/about/offices.asp
Office of Market Oversight and Investigations (OMOI), "'the Cop on the Beat' overseeing and assessing the operations of wholesale electricity and natural gas markets and enforcing Commission rules and regulations," http://www.ferc.gov/about/offices/omoi.asp
Enforcement Hotline, an informal means "to complain about or report market activities or transactions that may be an abuse of market power, an abuse of an affiliate relationship, a tariff violation, or another possible violation by a FERC-regulated entity," http://www.ferc.gov/cust-protect/enforce-hot.asp
"State of the Markets" report and other market oversight surveys and remedies intended "to protect customers through understanding markets and their regulation," http://www.ferc.gov/cust-protect/moi.asp
Power Blackout Information, http://www.ferc.gov/cust-protect/moi/blackout.asp
Wholesale Electricity Regulation (for general information, industry activities, and forms), http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric.asp
Electric Reliability Activities "in the wake of the August 14, 2003, regional blackout and Congressional consideration of power-grid reliability legislation," http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability.asp
Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) Activities, including a listing by year of major Commission issuances on RTOs, http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/rto.asp. Also includes a map of RTOs in the U.S. and Canada, with links to their web sites. See especially the California ISO's market analysis report for February 2004, http://www.caiso.com/docs/09003a6080/2e/c6/09003a60802ec64b.pdf
RTO Best Practices, for examples of stakeholder processes and regional state committees in existing and proposed RTOs and ISOs, http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/ rto/matrix.asp
Western Energy Markets, quarterly by date (mid-2000 to the present), http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/wem.asp
Enron Investigation, http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/wem/pa02-2.asp
Standard Market Design and Structure (SMD), http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/smd.asp
Energy Infrastructure Activities, which "currently revolve around conferences to discuss regional infrastructure needs and issues with industry and state officials," http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/infra-midwest.asp
Generation Interconnection Activities, http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/gi.asp
FERC Online, "a set of applications for [customer] services that are accessible via the FERC website," http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/ferconline.asp
eRegistration, "an easy-to-use entry point … to receive a single user ID and password that allows you to transact all of your business with FERC," http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/eregistration.asp
eSubscription, to sign up for email notices about future docketed correspondence, FERC issuances, and press releases in specific dockets, http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/esubscription.asp
eLibrary (formerly FERRIS), FERC's records information system that contains over two million documents related to specific docketed proceedings, http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/elibrary.asp
eFiling, to electronically submit qualified documents to FERC in lieu of paper filings, http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/efiling.asp
Service List, to view and download the official mailing list (service list) for a docketed proceeding, http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/service-list.asp
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NERC/NAESB
North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) (home page), http://www.nerc.com/
NERC Committees, including descriptions and related files of NERC committees, subcommittees, working groups, and task forces, http://www.nerc.com/committees/
NERC Roster (current contact information for NERC executive and technical committees and for NERC staff), ftp://www.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/misc/roster.pdf
Meeting Agendas, Highlights, and Minutes for key NERC committees, http://www.nerc.com/committees/minutes.html
NERC News (monthly), http://www.nerc.com/~filez/nercnews.html, and Press Releases, http://www.nerc.com/~filez/pressreleases.html
NERC Regional Councils (includes NERC regional maps), http://www.nerc.com/regional/
NERC Operating Manual, http://www.nerc.com/~oc/opermanl.html
Reliability Standards, https://www.nerc.net/standards/ReliabilityStandards.aspx?tabindex=0&tabid=23. Using a new ANSI-accredited standards development process, NERC is developing a single set of reliability standards to replace its existing operating policies and planning standards. The new standards will address planning and operations, and will include compliance measures for each standard. NERC and NAESB have agreed to coordinate the development of reliability standards (by NERC) with wholesale electric business practice standards and communications protocols (by NAESB).
Operating Policies and Planning Standards (to remain in place until they are replaced by new Reliability Standards), http://www.nerc.com/standards/
Compliance Enforcement Program, for information about NERC's program, through its regions, to assess and enforce compliance with its reliability standards, http://www.nerc.com/~comply/
Reliability Assessment Reports (Ten-Year, Summer, Winter, and Special), http://www.nerc.com/~filez/rasreports.html
Reliability Legislation page, including bills introduced in Congress and NERC congressional testimony and letters to Congress, http://www.nerc.com/about/legislation.html
FERC-Related Documents, including NERC filings at FERC and key FERC orders, http://www.nerc.com/~filez/ferc.html
NERC Publications and Presentations, http://www.nerc.com/publications/
August 14, 2003, Blackout Investigation, http://www.nerc.com/~filez/blackout.html
Critical Infrastructure Protection, http://www.nerc.com/cip.html
Electricity Sector Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ES-ISAC), http://www.esisac.com/. Operated by NERC, the ES-ISAC facilitates communications between electric sector participants, the federal government, and other critical infrastructure industries. Its job is "to promptly disseminate threat indications, analyses, and warnings, together with interpretations, to assist electricity sector participants take protective actions." All entities in the electricity sector are participants in ES-ISAC.
North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) (home page), http://www.naesb.org/
NAESB WEQ (Wholesale Electric Quadrant), for committee, subcommittee, and task force lists and related material, http://www.naesb.org/weq/default.asp
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Federal Agencies
Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/index.html
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), http://www.cftc.gov/cftc/cftchome.htm
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), http://www.energy.gov/
Office of Electric Transmission and Distribution (OETD), a DOE program office established in 2003 "to lead a national effort to modernize and expand America's electric delivery system," http://www.electricity.doe.gov
DOE's page on the August 2003 Blackout, http://www.electricity.doe.gov/news/blackout.cfm?section=news&level2=blackout
Energy Information Administration (EIA) for "official energy statistics from the U.S. Government," http://www.eia.doe.gov/
EIA Historical Data, http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/historic/historic.htm
Federal Trade Commission (FTC), http://www.ftc.gov/
FindLaw site for U.S. Court of Appeals decisions, http://www.findlaw.com/10fedgov/judicial/appeals_courts.html
FindLaw site for U.S. Supreme Court opinions, http://www.findlaw.com/10fedgov/judicial/supreme_court/index.html
Internal Revenue Service, http://www.irs.gov
U.S. Department of the Treasury, http://www.treas.gov/index.html
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), http://www.nrc.gov/
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), http://www.sec.gov/
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Associations and Organizations
Electricity Consumers Resource Council (ELCON), the national association of large industrial consumers of electricity, http://www.elcon.org/
Edison Electric Institute (EEI), "the association of U.S. shareholder-owned electric companies, international affiliates and industry associates worldwide," http://www.eei.org/
Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA), "the national trade association representing competitive power suppliers, including independent power producers, merchant generators and power marketers," http://www.epsa.org/
Large Public Power Council (LPPC), "an organization of the nation's largest locally owned and controlled power systems [that] works to develop and advance consumer-oriented positions on national energy issues," http://www.lppc.org/
National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), "a nonprofit organization of governmental agencies engaged in the regulation of utilities and carriers in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands," http://www.naruc.org/
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), the national trade association representing "the interests of cooperative electric utilities and the consumers they serve," http://www.nreca.org/
Transmission Access Policy Study Group (TAPS), "an informal association of publicly and privately-owned transmission-dependent electric utilities … [whose] members support vigorously competitive wholesale electric markets," http://www.tapsgroup.org/
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Economic Research and Advocacy
American Antitrust Institute (AAI), "an independent education, research, and advocacy organization … dedicated to the vigorous use of antitrust as a vital component of national competition policy," http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/
Center for Research in Regulated Industries (CRRI), Rutgers University, http://www.crri.rutgers.edu/
Congressional Budget Office, http://www.cbo.gov/index.cfm
Harvard Electricity Policy Group (with links to William Hogan's Web page), http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/hepg/
HEPG's 2003 Blackout (Northeastern US/Ontario) Reference and Analysis, http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/hepg/Blackout.htm
McCullough Research, http://www.mresearch.com/
NRGStream, for "real time coverage of de-regulated power markets," including an interactive map linking various regional OASIS web sites, NERC regions, and trade associations, http://www.nrgstream.com/tu_mapframe.htm
PSERC (Power Systems Engineering Research Center), a university consortium with papers on power system engineering and economic engineering/modeling, http://www.pserc.wisc.edu/
PSERC's Resources for Understanding the Blackout of 2003, with links about the European blackouts as well, http://www.pserc.wisc.edu/Resources.htm
Steven Stoft's Power System Economics (PSE) home page, http://www.stoft.com/
Stoft's PSE Library: Searchable Card Catalog, http://stoft.com/p/S2.html
UCEI CSEM Working Papers (University of California Energy Institute's Center for the Study of Energy Markets), http://www.ucei.berkeley.edu/pubs-csemwp.html
10x Group, "a market data services company" that offers timely market information such as the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Power Index Methodology and index data, http://10xgroup.com/indc/?id=indc_napp_mtod
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General References
Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/index.html. Title 18, Chapter 1, contains the regulations applicable to FERC. Each volume of the code is updated once each calendar year, with Title 18 updated every April 1. Between updates, the CFR is kept current by the individual issues of the Federal Register.
Federal Register On-Line (database for the 1994-2004 Federal Registers), http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html
Regulations.gov, U.S. Government-wide portal for members of the public "to find, review, and submit comments on federal rules that are open for comment and published in the Federal Register," http://www.regulations.gov/
FERC's Acronyms, for the "most commonly used acronyms at the Commission," http://www.ferc.gov/help/acronyms.asp
FERC's Glossary, for "brief definitions of certain terms used by the Commission," http://www.ferc.gov/help/glossary.asp
LPPC's Public Power Glossary, http://www.lppc.org/glossary.htm
NARUC's Glossary of Utility Terms, http://www.naruc.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=275
NERC's Glossary of Terms, which "provides a list of terms and their definitions describing various aspects of interconnected electric systems planning and operation from a reliability perspective," http://www.nerc.com/glossary/
RefDesk (general reference), with links to newspapers, encyclopedias, dictionaries, phone directories, and many other resources, http://www.refdesk.com/
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