[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 8 (Wednesday, January 12, 1994)] [Unknown Section] [Page 0] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 94-682] [[Page Unknown]] [Federal Register: January 12, 1994] ======================================================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 18 CFR Parts 141, 375 and 385 [Docket No. RM93-20-000] Electronic Filing of FERC Form No. 1 and Delegation to Chief Accountant; Intent To Act and Response to Comments Issued December 30, 1993. AGENCY: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, DOE. ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking; notice of intent to act and response to comments. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has received comments on its proposal to amend its regulations to provide for the electronic filing of FERC Form No. 1, ``Annual Report of Major electric utilities, licensees and others''. The Commission intends to issue a final rule pending the development and testing of the necessary software, and anticipates that this will be completed for reporting year 1994. The Commission, in this document, is also providing comments on certain suggestions and recommendations made by interested parties concerning features they believe should be incorporated in the software. DATES: Form 1 is due on or before April 30, 1994, but no electronic filings. The Commission anticipates it will complete its final rule in 1994 in order to provide for the electronic filing of Form 1 for the reporting year 1994, due on or before April 30, 1995. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Richard Mattingly (Legal Information), Electric Rates and Corporate Regulation, Office of the General Counsel, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 825 North Capitol Street NE., Washington, DC 20426, (202) 208-2070 James G. Baird (Technical Information), Office of Chief Accountant, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 810 First Street NE., Washington, DC 20426, (202) 219-2613 SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In addition to publishing the full text of this document in the Federal Register, the Commission also provides all interested persons an opportunity to inspect or copy the contents of this document during normal business hours in room 3104, at 941 North Capitol Street NE., Washington, DC 20426. The Commission Issuance Posting System (CIPS), an electronic bulletin board service, provides access to the text of formal documents issued by the Commission. CIPS is available at no charge to the user and may be accessed using a personal computer with a modem by dialing (202) 208-1397. To access CIPS, set your communications software to use 300, 1200, or 2400 bps, full duplex, no parity, 8 data bits and 1 stop bit. CIPS can also be accessed at 9600 bps by dialing (202) 208-1781. The full text of the Final Rule will be available on CIPS for 30 days from the date of issuance. The complete text on diskette in WordPerfect format may also be purchased from the Commission's copy contractor, La Dorn Systems Corporation, also located in room 3104, 941 North Capitol Street NE., Washington, DC 20426. I. Introduction On July 23, 1993, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR)1 in which the Commission proposed to amend 18 CFR Parts 141 and 385 to provide for the electronic filing of FERC Form No. 1, ``Annual Report of Major electric utilities, licensees and others'' (Form 1). Under the proposed rule, in addition to paper copies, future Form 1 filings would also be made by means of a computer diskette incorporating software programming developed by the Commission. Electronic reporting of Form 1 was proposed to commence with reporting year 1993, due on or before April 30, 1994. No change was proposed in Form 1 itself. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\58 FR 40606 (July 29, 1993); IV FERC Stats. & Regs. 32,498 (1993). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Commission also proposed to amend 18 CFR part 375 to delegate to the Chief Accountant or his designee the authority to act on requests for waiver of the Form 1 and Form 1-F2 filing requirements.3 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \2\FERC Form No. 1-F, ``Annual Report of Nonmajor public utilities and licensees.'' \3\No party objected to the proposal to delegate authority to rule on requests for waiver of the Form 1 and Form 1-F filing requirements. The proposal is being implemented by a separate order issued concurrently with this notice. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interested parties were requested to submit written comments. Comments were received from 22 electric utilities,4 three industry associations5 and the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \4\American Electric Power System, Arizona Public Service Company, Carolina Power & Light Company, Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company, Commonwealth Edison Company, Commonwealth Energy System, Delmarva Power & Light Company, Duke Power Company, Florida Power & Light Company, Florida Power Corporation, Idaho Power Company, Iowa Illinois Gas & Electric Company, Kansas City Power & Light Company, Kentucky Utilities Company, Nantahala Power and Light Company, New England Power Service Company, Ohio Edison Company, PSI Energy, Inc., Pennsylvania Power & Light Company, Southern Company Services, Inc., UtiliCorp United, Inc., Wisconsin Public Service Corporation. \5\American Public Power Association, Edison Electric Institute, Wisconsin Utilities Association, Inc. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Having considered these comments, the Commission is deferring issuance of a final rule at this time pending development and testing of the necessary software. Once that process is complete the Commission intends to issue a final rule providing for the electronic filing of Form 1. The Commission presently anticipates that that process will be complete in time for the electronic filing of Form 1 for reporting year 1994, due on or before April 30, 1995. However, there will be no electronic reporting of Form 1 for reporting year 1993. In the meantime, the Commission believes it useful to comment on certain suggestions and recommendations made by interested parties concerning features they believe should be incorporated in the software. II. Summary of Proposal The Commission is presently developing a personal computer (PC) based software package for Form 1 reporting.6 The software will be available on standard computer diskettes with instructions and documentation, and will be sent to each Form 1 respondent without charge. This package will display the Form 1, schedule by schedule, on a respondent's PC. The required data may then be manually key-entered on the respondent's PC. The program will also permit the respondent to ``import'' the required data from its PC or mainframe computer directly into the software package, thus avoiding the manual data-entry process. When the data entry process is completed, the respondent, using the software, will produce a data diskette that will be submitted to the Commission, along with the required paper copies.7 The data contained on the data diskette will be in a data base format for use by the Commission. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \6\An IBM compatible, DOS-based system. \7\The software package will also enable respondents to print paper copies of the form. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Commission has already initiated the process of procuring the necessary software package for automating Form 1 reporting. The Commission intends to test all aspects of the system, including data input, data output, and print capability. The Commission also intends to conduct a field test of the software package with volunteer Form 1 respondents. In the NOPR, the Commission stated that it expected the program to be complete and to have diskettes ready for distribution to each Form 1 respondent in time to allow reporting for reporting year 1993 by the April 30, 1994 filing deadline; that time frame is being delayed pending development and testing of the necessary software. Thus, there will be no electronic reporting of Form 1 for reporting year 1993. III. Discussion of Comments The commenters generally expressed support for the objectives set forth in the NOPR, although virtually all suggested a delay in implementation until at least reporting year 1994. The commenters also made numerous suggestions and recommendations concerning development and implementation of the proposal. It was the Commission's intention in initiating this proposal that the software would be developed by the Commission's staff and that modifications or revisions would be made as necessary based on the results of staff and field tests. Nevertheless, a number of commenters have offered specific suggestions as to features which they believe should be incorporated in the software, and the Commission has reviewed these various suggestions and is prepared to state its views on most of these suggestions. Additionally, the Commission's staff will continue to evaluate suggestions as the software is developed and the field test is undertaken. A. Effective Date of Electronic Reporting Requirement and Response to Comments on Software A majority of the commenters suggested that implementation be delayed from reporting year 1993; they variously suggest delays until, for example, reporting year 1994, or voluntary filing in 1994 and mandatory filing in 1995, or until one year after the software package has been fully tested. Based on the comments received, the Commission agrees that the electronic reporting requirement should not be implemented for the 1993 reporting year. Rather, we believe that the electronic reporting requirement should be delayed pending development and testing of the required software. As stated both in the NOPR and above, the Commission intends to conduct a field test of the Form 1 software with volunteer respondents and, to the extent needed, modifications will be made. This field testing will be in addition to testing by the Commission's staff. In order to allow sufficient time for development and testing, the Commission concludes that the most prudent course at the present time is to defer implementation. As noted above, the NOPR only addressed the adoption of an electronic filing requirement and the effective date for that requirement (and a delegation of authority). It did not address the specifics of the electronic filing, its development and implementation. The Commission believes that the details of such development and implementation are best done at the staff level in the first instance. Although not specifically solicited in the NOPR, many of the commenters nevertheless made recommendations on features they would like to see included in the software, or that they felt needed to be included in the software. We anticipate that many of the recommendations will, in fact, be included in the initial version of the software. There are others which appear to be worthwhile features which are not contemplated for the initial version software, although they may be considered and included in future updates. We believe that other recommendations are without merit in that they are at odds with the intent of the Form 1 as a whole (i.e., uniform reporting), or the purpose of electronic filing. It is presently anticipated that the following features suggested by commenters will be incorporated in the initial software program: 1. Edit checking within pages and across pages. 2. Supplemental or continuation page feature. 3. Use of data base structure in ASCII format. 4. Compatibility with different types of printers, including laser printers. 5. Footnote references on schedules by line items and written columns, including headings. 6. View screen option. 7. Menu driven screens, including a help function. 8. Support function to provide assistance to users when implementing the new software. 9. LAN compatibility. Certain additional features suggested by commenters are not considered feasible for incorporation in the initial software, but may merit consideration in future software updates. These features include the following: 1. Submission by modem rather than diskette. 2. Electronic dissemination capability to others. 3. Incorporation of filings on a ``bulletin board'' accessible to the public. 4. Providing a diskette to update Form 1 schedules without reissue of the entire software package each year. 5. Providing a capability to carry over data from year to year in instances where there is no change in the data to be reported. 6. Providing a capability to extract portions of the program onto diskettes for distribution to various individual departments. Certain additional proposed features have been determined to be inconsistent with the basic Form 1 objective of uniform reporting by the electric utility industry, and are therefore rejected. These features include the following: 1. Providing a capability to insert user defined rows. 2. Allowing for center, left and right justification of data within columns. 3. Elimination of General Instruction II (use of whole numbers, dollars or MWH). 4. Providing compatibility of the software with Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet or Windows.8 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \8\However, the Commission's software will allow a user to export data files to ASCII, which can then be read by spreadsheets or other software; also, the Commission's software can be run in a DOS session within windows. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- American Electric Power System (AEP) and Utilicorp United, Inc. suggest that the Form 1 software should be made compatible with the Securities and Exchange Commission's Electric Data Gathering Analysis and Retrieval (EDGAR) system, or that a system should be adopted based on EDGAR. The Commission declines to adopt this suggestion. In developing requirements for the electronic filing of Form 1, a number of approaches were considered initially, including the EDGAR system. The approach chosen was based on the Commission's information needs, as well as the estimated costs of development and implementation. It was concluded that the software program should be consistent with the current information and data formats of Form 1. Consequently the EDGAR approach was not, and is not, adopted. Delmarva Power & Light Company and Edison Electric Institute (EEI) suggest that the software program be based on (or similar to) EEI's electronic Uniform Statistical Report (USR). The Commission declines to adopt this recommendation. Form 1 reporting is more extensive than that for the USR. Because of the unique information requirements of Form 1, compatibility with the USR program would be difficult to develop and maintain and would not be cost effective. CG&E suggests that, for combination gas and electric utilities, Form 1 reporting under the Federal Power Act should be compatible with Form 2 reporting under the Natural Gas Act. At this time, there are no plans to attempt to make Form 1 and Form 2 reporting electronically compatible. Florida Power & Light Company (FP&L), Florida Power Corporation, and EEI argue that, because of the emergence of competition in the industry, sensitive competitive data should no longer be required or publicly disclosed, citing as an example electric generating plant operating statistics. This issue is beyond the scope of this proceeding and the Commission will therefore not address it. FP&L argues that, before continuing with the electronic filing project, the Commission should review the actual data required to be reported on Form 1, and should eliminate obsolete or unnecessary information. The subject matter of this proceeding is the electronic filing of Form 1. It was not intended as, and is not, a forum for evaluation of the need for the data presently required to be reported. Accordingly, as the issue is beyond the scope of this proceeding, the Commission will not address it. Utilicorp United, Inc. argues that the existing systems used by the many Form 1 respondents are incompatible and that no product or program exists to convert them to a usable computer format. The Commission agrees that no comprehensive program exists to convert the various systems in use to the Commission's electronic software. The Commission anticipates, however, that the Form 1 software program will allow the respondents to develop and use such a conversion program. IV. Conclusion Accordingly, in light of the foregoing, the Commission hereby gives notice of its intent to defer issuance of a final rule prescribing the electronic filing of Form 1 at this time. The Commission expects that it will issue a final rule in 1994 to provide for the electronic filing of Form 1 for reporting year 1994, due on or before April 30, 1995. By direction of the Commission. Lois D. Cashell, Secretary. [FR Doc. 94-682 Filed 1-11-94; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6717-01-P