Industrial gas users want to “comment” on the revised and newGas Industry Standards Board’s (GISB) standards that FERC proposedfor adoption in December, but there’s only one problem – they don’tknow what they are. The Commission apparently doesn’t have a copyof the proposed changes on file, they said, and to get them fromthe standards-setting organization could cost up to $3,500.

FERC’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) gave only a”perfunctory” description of “Version 1.3” of the GISB consensusstandards that the Commission seeks to adopt, said the Process GasConsumers Group (PGC), [RM96-1-011]. It merely said “Version1.3…updates and improves the standards, with the principalchanges occurring in the areas of confirmation practices, furtherstandardization of the information provided on the pipelineInternet websites, and revisions to the data sets.”

“No further explanation was provided in the NOPR…” Nor wereany of the revised or new standards “appended” to the NOPR,available on the Commission’s electronic/on-line informationdatabases (such as RIMS or CIPS), or on file at FERC’s PublicReference Room, they said.

Such information is “apparently only available from GISB itselfat considerable expense – the GISB website indicates that to viewthe proposed standards on-line, a person must ‘subscribe’ to GISB’swebsite at the cost of $3,500…” A paper copy of the informationcan be ordered for $25, the industrials noted, but there’s noguarantee of when it would be received.

A Commission representative said FERC was restricted in itsrelease of information about the proposed standards because theyhave “copyright protection,” the industrials related. “If theCommission is not making the proposed standards available free orat a modest fee to the public because the material is subject to’copyright protection,” that is clearly an unconscionable abuse byGISB that should not be condoned and abetted by the Commission,”they said. “The Commission should make it clear to GISB that, ifGISB wants its proposed standards to become the law of the land, itmust release the material free of charge to the public or enablethe Commission to do it.”

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