Department of Energy October 27, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Paducah. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of this meeting be announced in the Federal Register.

In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, as amended, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976, as amended, the Department of Energy (DOE), which includes the Western Area Power Administration (Western) and the Loan Guarantee Program (LGP), the California Energy Commission (CEC), and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), have prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Staff Assessment (SA), which may require a California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) Plan Amendment, as a joint environmental analysis document for the proposed Rice Solar Energy Project (Project), in Riverside County, California, and by this notice are announcing the opening of the comment period. Western, on behalf of DOE, and CEC are joint lead agencies for purposes of satisfying the requirements of NEPA and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), with the BLM acting as a cooperating agency. The Draft EIS/SA is available on the Internet at: https://www.energy.ca.gov/ sitingcases/ricesolar/.

Under section 215 of the Federal Power Act, the Commission hereby remands a revised regional Reliability Standard developed by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council and approved by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which the Commission has certified as the Electric Reliability Organization responsible for developing and enforcing mandatory Reliability Standards. The revised regional Reliability Standard, designated by WECC as BAL-002-WECC-1, would set revised Contingency Reserve requirements meant to maintain scheduled frequency and avoid loss of firm load following transmission or generation contingencies.

Under section 215(d)(2) of the Federal Power Act (FPA), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposes to approve a regional Reliability Standard, BAL-502-RFC-02, Planning Resource Adequacy Analysis, Assessment and Documentation, developed by ReliabilityFirst Corporation (RFC) and submitted to the Commission by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). The proposed regional Reliability Standard requires planning coordinators within the RFC geographical footprint to analyze, assess and document resource adequacy for load in the RFC footprint annually, to utilize a ``one day in ten year'' loss of load criterion, and to document and post load and resource capability in each area or transmission-constrained sub-area identified.