The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the six Regional Entities are committed to ensuring and promoting consistency across the ERO Enterprise.
The ERO Enterprise defines consistency to mean that “the approach, methods, and practices are the same across the ERO Enterprise and that the outcomes…are fair, reasonable, and without bias.” However, consistency does not mean “that each Regional Entity produce identical outcomes given a particular set of circumstances.”
http://www.nerc.com/AboutNERC/keyplayers/Documents/
ERO_Enterprise_Operating_Model_Feb2014.pdf
This NERC Consistency Reporting Tool (Reporting Tool) allows Registered Entities, or other relevant industry stakeholders to report any perceived inconsistency in the approach, methods or practices, implemented and executed by the Regional Entities. Report categories include the following:
NERC partnered with the third-party provider EthicsPoint to develop this reporting tool. Reports are entered and submitted directly on the EthicsPoint secure server. EthicsPoint provides these reports to NERC system administrators who has permission to receive the reports. The stakeholder submitting a report in the tool has the option to request to remain anonymous.
This Reporting Tool creates an open channel of communication to report perceived inconsistencies, and will augment efforts to ensure and promote consistency across the ERO Enterprise.
The Reporting Tool does not function as an appeal of a Regional Entity action or decision. Filing a report will not affect ongoing activities, including but not limited to, entity registrations, compliance audits, and enforcement actions.
The Reporting Tool is not associated with and does not replace the NERC Compliance Hotline or any Regional Entity Compliance Hotline. Each Regional Entity maintains a Compliance Hotline that can be found on each Regional Entity’s website.
The NERC Compliance Hotline is located at https://www.nerc.net/hotline/. The NERC and Regional Entity Compliance Hotlines remain the mechanism for any person to submit a complaint reporting a possible violation of a NERC Reliability Standard.
See the EthicsPoint FAQs for more information.