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Abstract: The business practice standards under FERC-549C are required to carry out the Commission’s policies in accordance with the general authority in Sections 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 14, 16, and 20 of the Natural Gas Act (NGA) (15 U.S.C. 717c-717w), and sections 311, 501, and 504 of the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 (NGPA) (15 U.S.C. 3301-3432). The Commission adopted these business practice standards in order to update and standardize the natural gas industry’s business practices and procedures as well as to improve the efficiency of the gas market and the means by which the gas industry conducts business across the interstate pipeline grid. In various orders since 1996 , FERC has adopted regulations to standardize the business practices and communication methodologies of interstate natural gas pipelines in order to create a more integrated and efficient pipeline industry. In general, when and if NAESB-proposed standards (e.g., consensus standards developed by the Wholesale Gas Quadrant (WGQ), an accredited standards organization under the auspices of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)) are approved by FERC, the Commission incorporates them by reference into its approval. The process of standardizing business practices in the natural gas industry began with a Commission initiative to standardize electronic communication of capacity release transactions. The outgrowth of the initial Commission standardization efforts produced working groups composed of all segments of the gas industry and ultimately, the Gas Industry Standards Board (GISB), a consensus organization open to all members of the gas industry was created. GISB was succeeded by the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB). NAESB is a voluntary non-profit organization comprised of members from the retail and wholesale natural gas and electric industries. NAESB’s mission is to take the lead in developing standards across these industries to simplify and expand electronic communication, and to streamline business practices. Core to its objective is to lead to a seamless North American marketplace for natural gas, as recognized by its customers, the business community, industry participants and regulatory bodies. NAESB has divided its efforts among four quadrants, including two retail quadrants, a wholesale electric quadrant, and the WGQ. The NAESB WGQ standards are a product of this effort. Industry participants seeking additional or amended standards (including principles, definitions, standards, data elements, process descriptions, technical implementation instructions) submit a request to the NAESB office, detailing the change, so that the appropriate process may take place to amend the standards. The Final Rule in RM96-1-041 requires interstate natural gas pipelines to make a one-time tariff filing to reflect the changes in the updated NAESB standards in FERC-545. The Commission reviews the FERC-549C materials to determine whether proposed transportation and sales rates and terms and conditions of service are just and reasonable. The Commission uses the information to monitor rates and terms and conditions of service related to jurisdictional transportation, natural gas storage, and unbundled sales activities of jurisdictional companies. In addition to fulfilling the Commission’s obligations under the NGA, the information enables the Commission to monitor the activities and evaluate transactions of the natural gas industry to ensure competitiveness and improved efficiency of the industry’s operations.

ICR Summary of Burden

	Total Approved	Previously Approved	Change Due to Agency Discretion	Change Due to Adjustment in Estimate
Annual Number of Responses	545	495	-25	75
Annual Time Burden (Hours)	48,250	46,943	-11,990	13,297
Annual Cost Burden (Dollars)	0	0	0	0

Burden increases because of Program Change due to Agency Discretion: Yes

Burden Increase Due to: Changing Regulations

Burden decreases because of Program Change due to Agency Discretion: Yes

Burden Reduction Due to: Miscellaneous Actions

Short Statement: The Final Rule in RM96-1-041 amends the Commission’s regulations at 18 CFR 284.12(a) to incorporate by reference the latest version (Version 3.1) of seven business practice standards applicable to interstate natural gas pipelines adopted by NAESB’s WGQ. By incorporating these standards by reference into the Commission’s regulations the Commission has made compliance mandatory and enforceable. Non-compliance, absent a specific waiver, violates the Commission’s regulations as well as the terms of each pipeline’s tariff. The final rule revises and replaces the existing incorporated business practices standards (the Version 3.0 standards) to make two substantive revisions to its Nominations Related Standards, one to establish a standard rounding process for elapsed-prorated-scheduled quantity calculations, and a second to revise the specifications for the information to be included in a nomination request. NAESB also adopted three revisions to the Quadrant Electronic Delivery Mechanism Related Standards. First, it has increased the allowable field length in ASCII Comma Separated Value Files to 3000 characters. Second, it has adopted new Standard 4.3.106 to allow checkboxes and radio buttons in the Transmission Service Providers’ Electronic Bulletin Boards. Third, NAESB modified its standards to update the operating systems and web browsers that entities should support on behalf of users. Additionally, clarifying language was added to the Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security protocols. Other changes adopted by NAESB to the business practice standards included changes to the NAESB WGQ data sets and other technical implementation documentation as well as revisions to the Flowing Gas Related data sets and technical implementation. Further, NAESB revised the Imbalance Trade data set and revised two Senders Option data elements. In addition, NAESB adopted revisions to the Capacity Release Related data sets and technical implementation. NAESB also revised Standard 6.3.1 (i.e., the NAESB Base Contract for Sale and Purchase of Natural Gas) to add language directing users to NAESB’s copyright disclaimer posted on the NAESB website. Identical language was added to three additional NAESB WGQ Contracts. Lastly, NAESB added a self-identification provision that assists end users in determining whether counterparties are commercial market participants as defined by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As mentioned in Question #12, FERC staff is removing a one-time requirement that is outside of its implementation period, has been completed, and should no longer apply the FERC-549C reporting burden: • Implementation of New Standards and 1 Added Intraday Nomination Cycle: 80 responses and 13,200 hours annually (averaged over Years 1-3) FERC subject-matter experts revised the organization and labelling for the reporting requirements based on their actual organization in FERC regulations. This more granular approach allowed a more thorough review of the FERC-549C information collection. The existing FERC-549 reporting burden experienced changes: 1) a small decrease in annual filers (5 less responses per year) and 2) revised burden per response as related to each reporting requirement (which resulted in an additional 13,297 hours per year industry wide). Also, in ROCIS, the IC containing this one-time requirement also contained ongoing requirements in the amounts of 250 responses and 30,113 hours annually.

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