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B-360241 1 (2003-03-18)

handle is hein.gao/gaobacygd0001 and id is 1 raw text is: £ &GAO Accountability * Integrity * Reliability United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548 B- 360241 March 18, 2003 The Honorable Joe Barton Chair, Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality Committee on Energy and Commerce House of Representatives Subject: Draft Legislation Concerning an Electric Reliability Organization Dear Chairman Barton: This responds to your request of March 13, 2003, confirmed in your letter of March 17, 2003, for our opinion concerning Title VII, Subtitle C, of a March 17 draft Energy Policy Act of 2003.l Subtitle C would amend the Federal Power Act to authorize a private organization certified by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to establish and enforce reliability standards for the bulk-power electricity transmission system. You have asked whether this provision would be deemed a constitutional delegation of congressional authority. Due to the time constraints under which the Subcommittee is operating, it has not been possible for us to solicit the views of affected agencies (in this case, FERC), as is our normal practice in preparing legal opinions. We note also that we have not reviewed provisions of the draft bill beyond Subtitle C, and thus our opinion is explicitly based on the assumption that the other provisions do not affect or relate to the issues you have raised regarding Subtitle C. For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that Subtitle C would comply with the limitations contained in applicable case law concerning permissible delegations of congressional authority. The general proposition of the delegation doctrine is that Congress may delegate authority to a government agency where there are intelligible principles to govern its implementation. In the context of delegations of rulemaking and enforcement authority to private entities, courts have required that the private entity's implementation be subject to limiting standards as well as to agency review and control. Based on our analysis of the draft bill, the authority delegated in Subtitle C would comply with these limitations and thus would be constitutional. 'For clarity, we have enclosed a copy of Subtitle C of the March 17, 2003 Committee Print. The March 17 draft is materially identical to the draft we received from your staff on March 13. Citations herein to Draft Bill § _ refer to the draft's proposed new Federal Power Act sections.

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