By Michael Brooks

WASHINGTON — FERC last week issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to implement legislation enacted last year to protect the grid from terrorist attacks (RM16-15).

The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, signed by President Obama in December, was mainly a highway funding bill, but it also amended the Federal Power Act to require FERC to update its critical energy infrastructure information (CEII) regulations. (See Transportation Bill Includes Grid Security Measures.)

The NOPR details how the commission plans to update its procedures for designating CEII, sharing CEII with other government agencies and sanctioning employees for unauthorized disclosures.

“Obviously, maintaining the confidentiality of critical infrastructure information is absolutely essential to our work in this area, particularly on reliability,” Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur said. “The FAST Act contains important new authority for the commission that allows us to both protect critical information and confidentially share it with government and private parties.”

LaFleur in particular praised Congress’ exemption of CEII from Freedom of Information Act disclosure.

The sanctions for unauthorized release of CEII stemmed from former Chairman Jon Wellinghoff publicly discussing a confidential FERC analysis on the grid vulnerability to physical attacks. The NOPR says that any FERC employee who knowingly discloses CEII would be subject to termination and/or criminal prosecution. Commissioners who do so would be referred to the Energy Department’s Inspector General.

FERC Chairman Norman Bay would not detail what criminal statutes an employee would be prosecuted under, only saying that CEII is not the same as classified material.

Comments on the NOPR are due 45 days after its publication in the Federal Register.

NERC Databases

FERC also amended its regulations to require NERC to provide the commission and staff access to three of its databases (RM15-25).

The rule gives FERC access to NERC’s transmission availability data system, generating availability data system and protection system misoperations databases. (See FERC to Look over NERC’s Shoulders on Reliability.) It will not take effect, however, until the commission issues a final order implementing the FAST Act provisions.