Department of Energy May 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Recommendation 2005-1, concerning nuclear material packaging was published in the Federal Register on March 21, 2005 (70 FR 13482). In accordance with section 315(b) of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 2286d(b), and the Secretary transmitted the following response to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board on May 6, 2005.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is amending its regulations governing standards for conducting business practices with interstate natural gas pipelines. The Commission is incorporating by reference the most recent version of the standards, Version 1.7, promulgated December 31, 2003, by the Wholesale Gas Quadrant (WGQ) of the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB); the standards ratified by NAESB on June 25, 2004 to implement Order No. 2004; the standards ratified by NAESB on May 3, 2005 to implement Order No. 2004- A; and the standards implementing gas quality reporting requirements ratified by NAESB on October 20, 2004. These standards can be obtained from NAESB at 1301 Fannin, Suite 2350, Houston, TX 77002, 713-356-0060, https://www.naesb.org.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is proposing to amend its regulations to incorporate by reference standards promulgated by the North American Energy Standards Board's (NAESB's) Wholesale Electric Quadrant (WEQ) dealing with: Open Access Same-Time Information Systems (OASIS) business practice standards, including posting requirements for Order No. 2003 generator interconnection agreements and procedures; OASIS Standards and Communication Protocols and Data Dictionary; and business practice standards for Coordinate Interchange, Area Control Error (ACE) Equation Special Cases, Manual Time Error Correction, and Inadvertent Interchange Payback. Incorporating these standards by reference into the Commission's regulations is intended to benefit wholesale electric customers by streamlining utility business practices and transactional processes and OASIS procedures and by adopting a formal ongoing process for reviewing and upgrading the Commission's OASIS standards and other electric industry business practices that would benefit from the implementation of generic industry standards. In addition, the proposal to adopt business practice standards for Coordinate Interchange, ACE Equation Special Cases, Manual Time Error Correction, and Inadvertent Interchange Payback are intended to complement the Version 0 Reliability Standards of the North American Electric Reliability Council.