DOE Publishes CEII Admin Final Rule

Today the Department of Energy (DOE) published a final rule in the Federal Register (85 FR 14756-14772) concerning “Critical Electric Infrastructure Information; New Administrative Procedures”. The rule establishes procedures for the designation of critical electric infrastructure  information (CEII) under section 215A(d) of the Federal Power Act (16 USC 824o-1). The notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for this action was published in October 2018. OMB approved this final rule on January 28^th, 2020.

Changes from NPRM

Changes that were made in the final rule include:

• Added definition of ‘confidential business information’;

• Added definition of ‘CEII Coordinator’;

• Specified that the CEII Coordinator or Coordinator's designee can designate certain information sought by DOE as CEII;

• Expanded the coordination of implementation of DOE's CEII authority to include all CEII Coordinators;

• Updated the marking of CEII as “CEII-CRITICAL ELECTRIC INFRASTRUCTURE INFORMATION—DO NOT RELEASE”;

• Added dual marking requirement for material that is both confidential business information and CEII;

• Clarified that a conference call will be scheduled within five days of when the CEII submitter is notified of the request;

• Added DHS and NRC to the list of federal agencies that the CEII Coordinator will meet with annually to discuss CEII issues;

• Added requirement that the designation decision be communicated “promptly” to the requestor;

• Removed all references to “pre-designation” in the Final Rule;

• Clarified that there are two methods for initiation of the re-designation process;

• Clarified that  reconsideration requests can be made through a secure electronic submission or by mail;

• Clarified that inadvertent disclosure does not affect the disclosed material's CEII status

Effective Date

The effective date on this rule is May 15^th, 2020.