The Energy Industry Standards Board doesn't exist yet, but it's got regulators talking.
“Are we fractionating?" asked new commissioner Patrick Wood, in his best imitation of the splintered syntax of his mentor, President George W. Bush.
"Do we have a NERC bias?" asked Nora Brownell, Wood's republican stable mate on the newly filled-out FERC.
These comments, heard at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on June 19 at the "seams" conference on coordination between regional transmission organizations (RTOs), could herald a new phase in the business of electric utility reliability. They cast doubt on whether the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) still has the inside track on setting electric reliability standards, even if Congress should enact the legislation that NERC has drafted after its own image to ensure its survival as an industry institution.