External Interactions

Outreach to and collaboration with industry and regulatory organizations

WICF has established itself as an increasingly important organization in the electric industry. Since its inception, 
WICF has interfaced with the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) to provide WECC needed feedback and 
collaborate on issues that are important to WICF's members (Membership). WICF regularly attends WECC Board of 
Directors (BOD) meetings and provides reports to the WECC Compliance Committee (WCC). Now, the North American 
Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has recognized WICF as an industry trade organization and has invited WICF 
to participate in certain NERC Trade Group Forums. The guidelines set forth herein provide the basis for how the 
WICF Steering Committee (SC) will conduct business on behalf of its Membership when interacting with other industry 
trade groups or any regulatory organizations on behalf of its Membership.

    I. Pursuant to the WICF Charter, it is the intent of the WICF SC to represent the interests of its Membership. 
	However, it may not be practical to solicit the membership on every issue. Rather, the SC intends to conduct 
	business on behalf of WICF as set forth in this section.

Meeting attendance - For invitations sent to WICF in general, the SC shall ensure all WICF members are invited to attend. 
The invitation can be forwarded by email, conference call, WICF meeting, or any other mechanism deemed viable by the SC. 
For meeting invites extended only to the SC, the SC shall attempt to attend as seen fit by the SC. The SC member(s) in 
attendance will remember that they are representing the interests of WICF as a whole and not necessarily just their 
Registered Entity. Information from these meetings shall be communicated as allowed by the meeting host.

Request for comments and/or participation in projects - if an industry and/or regulatory organization has indicated that 
it intends to share ideas, solicit comments, offer projects, and other opportunities to a smaller audience to understand 
the industry position before launching large-scale efforts. The WICF SC will be part of this smaller audience and it is 
important that the SC be able to react in a timely fashion to the requests. Since WICF does not have established staff 
for conducting such work, the SC will continue to work on a volunteer basis to meet the needs of the industry and/or 
regulatory organization. Similarly, if other opportunities present themselves from any organization, the SC should be 
prepared to respond and this document establishes the process. It is hereby understood that the WICF SC use prudent
judgment to respond appropriately to these requests. To expand further, if a request is made from an industry and/or 
regulatory organization, the WICF SC shall be responsible to respond to the request. It will be the policy of the SC 
to consult with the membership as deemed necessary before submitting a product in response to the request. The submitted 
product shall be provided to the membership in written form such as: website posting, an email to the members, or a 
similar mechanism.

Specifically, the following guidelines will be followed to ensure that the interests of the Membership are responsibly represented:

    1. The Charter will be followed at all times
    2. The SC shall make information regarding its involvement available to the Membership unless such information cannot be shared.
    3. The SC shall respond to all requests for participation or provide a reason for not responding. If the SC cannot reach 
        consensus, a majority vote of the SC shall rule.
    4. If the SC reaches an even vote, then the SC Chair will cast the decisive vote.
    5. To the extent possible the SC shall reach out to the Membership to solicit its input. If more than one position develops, 
        the SC will represent all positions.
    6. The SC will commit to timely submissions to all requests. Information shall be quickly disseminated to the Membership where 
        possible in order to allow members adequate time to provide feedback, comments, data, etc.
    7. The SC shall organize comments/work performed to create the final product for submission. Final products shall be posted to 
        the WICF forum when possible.
    8. Any disagreements in process shall be brought to a SC vote, facilitated by the SC chair. A majority vote shall rule.


Rev.0         April 11, 2012   By: LM/EM/JE     Approval: MJ