For future
collections,FERC will provide a detailed explanation of burden hour
reduction/increase estimates in the supporting statement.
Inventory as of this Action
Requested
Previously Approved
09/30/2012
36 Months From Approved
09/30/2009
222
0
222
222
0
444
84,825
0
0
In accordance with the Natural Gas Act
(NGA), the Department of Energy Organization Act (DOE Act), and the
Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005), FERC regulates the
transmission and wholesale sales of natural gas in interstate
commerce, monitors and investigates energy markets, uses civil
penalties and other means against energy organizations and
individuals who violate FERC rules in the energy markets, and
administers accounting and financial reporting regulations and
oversees conduct of regulated companies. In order to carry this
out, FERC (in Orders No. 677 and 644) imposed record retention
requirement on sellers to retain, for 5 years, all information upon
which they billed prices charged for natural gas sold pursuant to
their market-based sales certificate and the prices reported for
use in price indices. Regulations were promulgated in 18 CFR
284.288 and 284.403. The requirement is necessary to ensure
consistency with the rule prohibiting market manipulation
(regulations adopted in FERC Order No. 670, implementing the EPAct
2005 anti-manipulation provisions) and the generally applicable
5-year statute of limitations where the FERC seeks civil penalties
for violations of the anti-manipulation rules or other rules,
regulations, or orders to which the price information may be
relevant.
The reduction in industry
burden and cost reflects the increased use, and less expensive
cost, of electronic records storage. The estimated change to the
burden for FERC-916 (reduction of 1 hour per respondent per year)
is due the following factors. 1. During the last clearance of the
FERC-916 for the final rule in FERC Docket No. RM06-14, FERC
increased the record retention period to 5 years from 3 years. That
required changes to the companies procedures (for paper and
electronic records that were retained), as well as programming
changes for electronic records. It might also have necessitated
changes to the companies off-site storage contracts to lengthen
the retention period. That work has been completed, and companies
have familiarity with the requirements. 2. Since the changes
required in 2006 (by RM06-14, no. 1 above) have been completed, no
substantive changes have been, or are being, made. 3. In the last
three years, the industry trend has been for companies to maintain
and retain their records electronically. 4. The cost of electronic
storage has gone down in the last 3 years. Therefore, companies
would have reduced cost and burden of record retention, due to the
economies of being able to retain a large amount of data on a small
electronic medium, when compared to paper with the associated,
required file cabinets, rental of storage space, etc. Therefore we
estimated a reduction of 1 hour per respondent per year.
$1,480
No
No
Uncollected
Uncollected
No
Uncollected
Patricia Morris 202
208-6990
No
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
burdendecrease explan.doc
FERC-916, Record Retention Requirements for Pipelines Providing Unbundled Sales Service, and Persons Holding Blanket Marketing Certificates