WASHINGTON - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued a proposed rulemaking that will approve 83 new reliability standards for the U.S. power grid. The rulemaking is part of an effort to create mandatory and enforceable reliability standards for the nation's electrical transmission system before next summer.

Back in July, FERC named the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) as the nation's official Electric Reliability Organization. In its new role, NERC proposed 107 new standards to FERC, which accepted 83 of them. However, FERC noted that many of those 83 standards require additional work or clarification. Regarding the other 24 standards, FERC said they require regional reliability organizations to first develop regional standards before FERC can fully evaluate them.

This reliability effort is mainly a response to the massive 2003 power outage that affected the northeastern United States.