Comment Form-June 1- Proposed Revisions to Reliability Sta.

Comment Form for First Posting ofProposed Revision to Reliability Standards Process ManualThis form is to comment on the first posting of a proposed revision to the ReliabilityStandards Process Manual, which is posted athttp://www.nerc.com/~filez/standards/Amend-SPM.html.Email this form no later than July 16, 2004, to: sarcomm@nerc.com with “Comments” in thesubject line.If you have any questions about this Comment Form, please contact the Director ofStandards — Gerry Cauley at 609-452-8060.BackgroundThe NERC Reliability Standards Process Manual was developed to incorporate the essential principles ofthe American National Standards Institute (ANSI) of openness, fairness, balance and inclusiveness. TheANSI process stresses the importance of building consensus on standards. Several features were addedbeyond those required by ANSI, such as the use of a Standard Authorization Request (SAR) to achieveconsensus on the need for and scope of a proposed standard, and the use of drafting teams.The August 14, 2003, blackout points to the need for a more streamlined standards process that isresponsive to the reliability needs of industry. The issue of streamlining the standards process isaddressed as Recommendation 25 of the U.S./Canada Power System Outage Task Force final report.NERC is also in the process of translating its existing operating policies, planning standards, andcompliance templates into a “Version 0” set of reliability standards. This large ...