RE: Announcement Regarding Self-Certifications for CIP-002 through CIP-009 Reliability Standards and Supplemental Questions due February 1, 2010

Dear Registered Entities:

The filing due date for the CIP-002-1 through CIP-009-1 Self-Certification, including the Supplemental Questions (please see attached), will be February 1, 2010. The forms will be posted to the Texas RE Portal. Entities can begin inputting data and will be able to submit the forms via a signed certification statement beginning January 1, 2010.
 
Balancing Authorities, Generator Operators, Generator Owners, Reliability Coordinators, Transmission Operators and Transmission Owners are responsible for completing the Critical Infrastructure Protection – Supplemental Questions (“Supplemental Questions”) which are due February 1, 2010. No information will be collected regarding the identity of any specific facilities and the responses to the Supplemental Questions will not be used to determine compliance with CIP-002-1. Nevertheless, because this information is important to develop an overall picture of the industry’s progress toward compliance with the CIP Reliability Standards collectively and each individual entity’s compliance specifically, entities in receipt of these supplemental questions are required to respond to all applicable questions.

The Supplemental Questions have been revised to 1) direct many of the questions to the Owner rather than Operator, 2) collect additional detail regarding the number of Critical Assets that have associated Critical Cyber Assets, 3) separate blackstart cranking path questions from blackstart units, and 4) target the Control Center questions to BA, GOP, RC, TOP, and TO functions only. The instructions included as Attachment 1 include instructions concerning facilities that are owned by multiple entities to avoid double-counting.