US agency seeks to keep energy plant info secret
Date: 09-Sep-02
Country: USA
Author: Tom Doggett
The changes by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would expand the agency's policy after last year's Sept. 11 attacks to halt public access to certain documents on existing energy facilities, and also would keep secret information about proposed energy projects.
"As we approach the Sept. 11 anniversary, there still appears to be a need to protect critical information from getting into the hands of terrorists," FERC staff said in a presentation to the full commission on the proposed rules.
Shortly after last year's attacks, FERC joined other agencies, like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency, in quickly withdrawing public information on critical energy facilities.
But FERC says its proposal makes it the first government agency to develop formal rules and guidelines on how to handle such sensitive records.
The type of information the agency would keep secret includes pipeline and electric grid flow diagrams that could reveal congested areas when moving energy supplies.
Other sensitive information would include pipeline inspection reports, detailed layouts of power plants and other energy facilities, and the emergency action plans at energy plants.
Under FERC's proposal, interested parties like landowners concerned about a pipeline project crossing their property could request access to the information.
In what could be the most controversial part of the proposed rules, FERC would use new authority granted to itself to question why a person or group wants any restricted information. If the agency decided to make the information available, it could require recipients to sign a nondisclosure agreement or restrict how they share it.
FERC could take action against somebody who violated such agreement, such as barring a lawyer - who gave sensitive information to a news reporter for example - from appearing before an agency judge in cases involving regulated energy companies that are clients.
Currently, when companies, journalists, state officials or advocacy groups ask FERC for documents under the federal Freedom of Information Act, the agency said it was not allowed to consider what the parties will do with those documents or restrict who they can be showed to.
Agency staff said they don't believe the new proposal would raise any freedom-of-the-press or other free-speech concerns, based on advice from the Justice Department.
The FERC proposal will be published in the Federal Register, and the agency is expected to take public comments on its proposed rules though mid-October.
Agency staff will then review the comments and possibly fine-tune the rules with suggested changes. The full commission could vote on the final regulations later this year.
