CEII Admin Procedures NPRM Published

The Department of Energy published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) today in the Federal Register (83 FR 54268-54278) describing the DOE’s proposed procedures for the designation and control of Critical Electric Infrastructure Information (CEII) that would parallel the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s rules on CEII (18 CFR 388.113). This rule implements the CEII requirements set forth in §61003(d) of the 2015 FAST Act {PL 114-94, 129 STAT. 1773; codified at 16 USC 824o-1(d)}.

The NPRM would add 10 CFR 1004.13, Critical Electric Infrastructure Information. This would include sub-paragraphs for:

• Definitions;

• Authority to designate information as CEII;

• Coordination among DOE Office designators;

• Criteria and procedures for designating CEII;

• Protection of CEII (Note: This is apparently mismarked at ‘(6)’ not ‘(g)’ in the NPRM);

• Duration of designation;

• Request for Reconsideration;

• Sharing of CEII;

• Procedures for requesting CEII; and

• Unauthorized Disclosure;

Readers are reminded that CEII is a listed type of controlled unclassified information (CUI) under the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) regulations (32 CFR 2002). Where the requirements of this new DOE rule do not exceed the requirements of the ISOO regulation, the ISOO regulation supersedes these requirements.

DOE is soliciting comments on this NPRM. Comments must be received by December 28^th, 2018. Comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; RIN 1901-AB44).