WATCHING WASHINGTON MYSTERIES OF FERCESE

with Patrick Crow In many ways, FERC is the quintessential federal bureaucracy. Although it has only 1,500 employees-small by federal standards FERC governs the pricing of 4-5% of the GNP. Yet most Americans have never heard of it. Like other well established bureaucracies, over the years FERC has expanded its paperwork and procedures to a level most outsiders find perplexing.

Nov. 5, 1990

3 min read

In many ways, FERC is the quintessential federal bureaucracy.

Although it has only 1,500 employees-small by federal standards FERC governs the pricing of 4-5% of the GNP. Yet most Americans have never heard of it.

Like other well established bureaucracies, over the years FERC has expanded its paperwork and procedures to a level most outsiders find perplexing.

It has taken the specialized jargon it inherited from the old Federal Power Commission and embellished it. With embarrassed pride, FERC staffers say that jargon has developed to the point of being a language: FERCese.

In the last 5 years period FERC has tried to reform the gas transmission industry. Regulations have been compounded upon regulations. And the body of working FERCese has at least doubled.

FERCESE DEFINED

What is FERCese? Howard Shafferman, the agency's chief of staff, says, "it seems to consist mostly of acronyms and numbers."

The language is so large it almost begs for a dictionary. Its foundation is numbers, such as 451, 436, and 500-1, that usually refer to commission orders. Then there are terms like demand charge, Hinshaw pipelines, and such. Other terms refer to FERC processes, like Form 549-ST and "doing a 311." And there are a host of acronyms like TOP and GICs and PDCs.

Shafferman tells a story which illustrates the mysteries of FERCese. When some Spanish speaking visitors recently toured the agency, attempts to explain FERC's procedures failed because their translator couldn't understand and translate FERCese into Spanish. FERC officials had to find a trilingual FERC staffer-one who spoke English, Spanish, and FERCese-to penetrate the language barrier.

Susan Court, FERC's associate general counsel for oil and gas, thinks FERCese transcends even just the acronyms and numbers. "It's almost like Chinese, where different intonations seem to imply different things."

FERCese may be frustrating to outsiders, but it clearly serves a need. It is a working shorthand of a sizable body of regulation.

Some critics complain FERCese is only a shield FERC bureaucrats have erected to protect their careers, making already complex issues even more impervious to logic.

Others say FERCese is one of the reasons Washington lawyers charge so much to weave clients' applications through the FERC regulatory maze.

DISCRETION ADVISED

Oil and gas producers may resent FERCese, swear at it, laugh at it. But they should do so discreetly.

Over the decades the oil industry has developed its own colorful and cherished nomenclature, like tank thieves, doglegs, updip wells, go devils, and fat oil.

One man's nomenclature is another's Chinese.