The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will hold a conference/workshop in Houston, TX, on May 10 to provide industry guidance on implementing the new standards of conduct that will regulate the relationships between jurisdictional natural gas/electric transmission providers and their affiliates.

The Commission on rehearing earlier this month fine-tuned its final rule on the affiliate standards, and pushed back the deadline for regulated companies to implement the requirements of the rule to Sept. 1 of this year.

The conference, which will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., will focus on compliance, training and best practices for implementing the standards of conduct. The morning session will include panel discussions on the duties and responsibilities of a company’s chief compliance officer, training requirements and best practices, while the afternoon session will be less formal and will allow individuals to break into smaller groups to discuss related issues.

FERC urges interested parties to e-mail specific questions that they believe should be addressed at the conference, ideas on particular subjects or other suggestions to Demetra.Anas@ferc.gov.

The conference will be held at the Doubletree Hotel — Allen Center in Houston. Parties can reserve rooms at the hotel under the code “FED” until April 28 by calling (713) 759-0202.

There is no registration fee to attend the conference. But FERC has asked that those planning to attend register online on the Commission web site at https://www.ferc.gov/whats-new/registration/comp-0510-form.asp.

In the 200-plus page final rule, which was issued last November, the Commission combined the standards of conduct for both jurisdictional gas pipelines and transmission-owning public utilities, and significantly expanded the scope of the existing Order 497 regulations that prohibited preferential treatment by transmission providers to just marketing and wholesale merchant affiliates.

The rule extended the FERC restrictions against preferential treatment, information disclosure and employee sharing to a wider universe of affiliates of regulated pipeline/transmission providers, including traders, power generators, distributors, producers, gatherers, processors, intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines, and any affiliate making a sale for resale of natural gas or electric energy in interstate commerce.

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