Commission Information Collection Activities (FERC-519, FERC-520, FERC-546, and FERC-580) Comment Request; Extension

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <SUBAGY>Federal Energy Regulatory Commission</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. IC25-1-000]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Commission Information Collection Activities (FERC-519, FERC-520, FERC-546, and FERC-580) Comment Request; Extension</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of information collection and request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In compliance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission or FERC) is soliciting public comment on the currently approved information collection, FERC-519, (Application under Federal Power Act Section 203); FERC-520, (Application for Authority to Hold interlocking Directorate positions; FERC-546, (Certification of Qualifying Facility (QF) Status for a Small Power Production or Cogeneration Facility); FERC-580, (Interrogatory on Fuel and Energy Purchase Practices). The above four collections are a part of a combined notice only and are not being combined into one OMB Collection number. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on the collection of information are due February 3, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit copies of your comments (identified by Docket No. IC25-1-000) by one of the following methods: Electronic filing through <E T="03">https://www.ferc.gov,</E> is preferred. • <E T="03">Electronic Filing:</E> Documents must be filed in acceptable native applications and print-to-PDF, but not in scanned or picture format. • For those unable to file electronically, comments may be filed by USPS mail or by hand (including courier) delivery: ○ <E T="03">Mail via U.S. Postal Service Only:</E> Addressed to: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Secretary of the Commission, 888 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20426. ○ <E T="03">Hand (including courier) Delivery:</E> Deliver to: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 12225 Wilkins Avenue, Rockville, MD 20852. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions must be formatted and filed in accordance with submission guidelines at: <E T="03">https://www.ferc.gov.</E> For user assistance, contact FERC Online Support by email at <E T="03">ferconlinesupport@ferc.gov,</E> or by phone at (866) 208-3676 (toll-free). <E T="03">Docket:</E> Users interested in receiving automatic notification of activity in this docket or in viewing/downloading comments and issuances in this docket may do so at <E T="03">https://www.ferc.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kayla Williams may be reached by email at <E T="03">DataClearance@FERC.gov,</E> telephone at (202) 502-6468. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">1. FERC-519</HD> <E T="03">Title:</E> FERC-519, Application under Federal Power Act Section 203. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  16 U.S.C. 824b. </FTNT> <E T="03">OMB Control No.:</E> 1902-0082. <E T="03">Type of Request:</E> Three-year extension of the FERC-519 information collection requirements with no changes to the current reporting requirements. <E T="03">Abstract:</E> The Commission requires that public utility officers must seek authorization under amended section 203(a)(1)(B) of the Federal Power Act (FPA) to merge or consolidate, directly or indirectly, its facilities subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission, or any part thereof, with the facilities of any other person, or any part thereof, that are subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission and have a value in excess of $10 million, by any means whatsoever. In addition, as required by the Act, the Commission establishes a requirement to submit a notification filing for mergers or consolidations by a public utility if the facilities to be acquired have a value in excess of $1 million and such public utility is not required to secure Commission authorization under amended section 203(a)(1)(B). The information collected under the FERC-519 enables the Commission to meet its statutory responsibilities regarding public utility disposition, merger, consolidation of facilities, purchase, or acquisition oversight and enforcement in accordance with the FPA as referenced above. Without this information, FERC would be unable to meet these responsibilities. The required information includes descriptions of corporate attributes of the party or parties to the proposed transaction ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> a sale, lease, or other disposition, merger, or consolidation of facilities, or purchase of other acquisition of the securities of a public utility and the facilities or other property involved in the transaction), statements about effect of the transaction, and the applicant's proof that the transaction will be consistent with the public interest. It will enable the Commission to meet its statutory responsibilities regarding its FPA section 203 oversight of public utility dispositions, mergers, or consolidation of facilities, and associated oversight and enforcement responsibilities under the FPA as referenced above. The required information to be collected in the notification filing (established by the addition of 18 CFR part 33.12) for certain transactions includes descriptions of corporate attributes of the party or parties to the transaction and the facilities involved. FPA section 203 requires a filing on the occasion that a public utility proposes to dispose of jurisdictional facilities, merge such facilities, or acquire the securities of another public utility. Public Utilities consist of: • Corporate; • Information Technology Management; • General Accounting; • Personnel and Payroll; • Transportation; • Tariffs and Rates; • Insurance; • Operations and Maintenance; • Plant and Depreciation; • Purchase and Stores; • Revenue Accounting and Collection; • Tax; • Treasury; and • Miscellaneous. <E T="03">Type of Respondents:</E> Public utility officers regulated by the FPA. <E T="03">Estimate of Annual Burden:</E>   <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> The Commission estimates the total annual burden and cost  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> for this information collection as follows: <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  “Burden” is the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, or disclose or provide information to or for a Federal agency. For further explanation of what is included in the information collection burden, refer to Title 5 Code of Federal Regulations 1320.3. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Commission staff estimates that the industry's skill set and cost (for wages and benefits) for FERC-520 are approximately the same as the Commission's average cost. The FERC 2024 average salary plus benefits for one FERC full-time equivalent (FTE) is $207,786/year (or $100/hour). </FTNT> <GPOTABLE COLS="7" OPTS="L2(,0,),nj,p7,7/8,i1" CDEF="s50,11,13,15,xs76,xs100,xs56"> <TTITLE>FERC-519—Application Under Federal Power Act Section 203</TTITLE> <CHED H="1"> </CHED> 324.43 hr. <SU>5</SU> ; $32,443 </ENT> <ENT>43,473.62 hrs.; $4,347,362</ENT> <ENT>$32,443.</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">  Commission staff estimates that approximately 26 section 203 filings will change from full section 203 filings to the notification filing described above and will take one burden hour to complete. The number of respondents and responses is based on Commission staff's estimate that 13 percent of the approximately 200 section 203 filings received will be affected. This represents a significant reduction in burden hours. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  With this amendment each of the 26 affected entities and their related filings ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the entities that now only have to file the section 203 notification filings) is reduced to 1 hour. </FTNT> <E T="03">Title:</E> FERC-520, Application for Authority to Hold Interlocking Directorate Positions. <E T="03">OMB Control No.:</E> 1902-0083. <E T="03">Type of Request:</E> Three-year extension of the FERC-520 information collection requirements with no changes to the current reporting requirements. <E T="03">Abstract:</E> FERC Form No. 520 is an application requesting FERC authorization for officers and directors of regulated public utilities to simultaneously hold positions of officers and directors of certain other entities. Section 305(b)(1) of the Federal Power Act (FPA)  <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> prohibits the holding of specific interlocking positions unless the Commission has authorized the holding of such interlocks upon a determination that neither public nor private interests will be adversely affected. <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  16 U.S.C. 825d(b)(1). </FTNT> FERC-520 consists of three information collection activities. A “full application,” in accordance with 18 CFR 45.8, provides detailed information about the positions for which authorization is sought, including a description of duties. Submission of a more streamlined “informational report,” in accordance with 18 CFR 45.9, is a condition for an automatic grant of authorization to hold interlocking directorates. This automatic authorization is available only to certain types of officers and directors. Finally, a “notice of change,” in accordance with 18 CFR 45.5, is required within 60 days after an officer or director resigns or withdraws from Commission-authorized interlocked positions or if the applicant is not re-elected or reappointed to the interlocked position. However, no notice of change is required if the only change is: (1) a resignation or withdrawal from fewer than all position held between or among affiliated public utilities; (2) a reelection or reappointment to a position that was previously authorized; or (3) h ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━