At its open meeting on November 21, FERC announced organizational changes to enhance the agency’s focus on cybersecurity threats and challenges to electric infrastructure. Commission staff unveiled five “focus areas” related to grid cybersecurity and announced organizational changes within the Office of Energy Projects (OEP) and Office of Electric Reliability (OER) designed to better position Commission resources to address cybersecurity concerns.
Power & Pipes
FERC, CFTC, and State Energy Law Developments
FERC Staff issued an October 4 report on Commission-led critical infrastructure protection (CIP) reliability audits completed during fiscal year 2019. The report provides lessons learned and identifies voluntary practices that FERC Staff observed during those audits that could improve the protection of electric infrastructure from cyberattacks.
Facing what it deems an “unprecedented number of FOIA requests” for nonpublic information related to utility violations of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) critical infrastructure protection (CIP) requirements governing cybersecurity compliance for critical electric infrastructure, FERC Staff has issued a white paper proposing to make publicly available additional information regarding those violations, including the names of the utilities involved.
On June 24, the US Supreme Court issued its opinion in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, expanding the scope of information protected under Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The US Department of Energy (DOE) issued Order No. 486.1 on June 7 prohibiting DOE employees and contractors from participating in the foreign government “talent recruitment programs” of countries designated by the DOE as a “foreign country of risk,” which apparently include China and Russia.