The FERC Audit Explorer is a static, public-interest tool that aggregates and analyzes findings from every published FERC utility audit — electric (Form 1), gas (Form 2), and oil (Form 6) — issued from 2014 to present. It surfaces common patterns of noncompliance and staff recommendations across years, utilities, and sectors, so analysts, journalists, and advocates can spot systemic issues without reading 100+ individual PDFs.
docs/data/*.json and llms.txtFERC audits surface the operational and financial compliance failures that affect utility ratepayers — improper cost allocations, missing documentation, policy violations. A single audit finding might note "$X million overcharged to customers" or "failure to implement required tariff." But finding those patterns requires reading hundreds of reports individually.
This explorer structures that corpus so you can ask:
The north-star feature (in development): "audit my filing" — given a company's Form 1 or other regulatory submission, flag the issues a FERC auditor would likely raise, using the pattern library mined here.
Read a report: Click any card to expand its thread — each finding of noncompliance, with the staff recommendations nested beneath, quoted verbatim from the original PDF.
Spot the trends: The "Top patterns of noncompliance" strip ranks the issues FERC raises most. Tap one to narrow the stream to reports with that issue.
Filter & search: Narrow by industry, FERC form, audit type, function, or year — or type a company or keyword in the Search box. Picks within one filter widen the results; picks across different filters narrow them.
Trace the source: Every card links to FERC's original PDF via View on eLibrary. All findings are quoted verbatim with a capture date so you can verify the source.
The explorer now spans three collections:
Each collection has its own browsable tab and baked statistics; all are metadata-only (findings fully quoted with source links) except FERC audits, which have structured findings extraction.
Data pipeline:
docs/data/*.json) → vanilla JS renderer. No database, no backend.Code: All CLI-driven, agent-verifiable. Re-runs are idempotent and cacheable.
The FERC Audit Explorer draws inspiration and lessons from these related tools and initiatives in the public-interest data & regulatory transparency space:
Open-source pipeline that aggregates energy data from FERC, EIA, EPA, PHMSA into analysis-ready databases. Covers operational/financial data (capacity, costs, generation).
Lesson: How to unify data from multiple agencies with different schemas and update cycles. If you want to cross-reference our audit findings against the Form 1 numbers being audited, PUDL is the foundational infrastructure.
github.com/catalyst-cooperative/pudlOfficial FERC searchable docket repository. The source for all our FERC audit PDFs and prudence reviews. Upstream of this explorer.
Lesson: Official archives need better discoverability and synthesis for end users.
FERC's open data catalog. Structured datasets (EQRs, annual reports). Complementary to our findings library.
Curated, fact-checked datasets from ProPublica's investigative journalism (e.g., IRS audit rates by county, hospital pricing).
Lesson: How to combine journalism + data to surface patterns. Connect findings to narrative impact, not just metrics.
Pacific Northwest nonprofit newsroom doing accountability investigations on energy, environment, and public health.
Lesson: Pattern-mining feeds investigative narrative. Help users go from a pattern to deeper investigation.
Tracks bills and legislation across all 50 states + Congress. Full-text search, status tracking, real-time alerts.
Lesson: How to track prospective (future) regulation. Complementary to our retrospective audit findings.
Reference for state and federal agencies and their audit authorities. Good for understanding which agencies audit; this explorer shows what they found.
State Public Utility Commission dockets (PA PUC, Texas PUCT, Oregon PUC, California CPUC, etc.) — The fragmented filing centers we're systematically harvesting. Each state's system is different, limiting cross-state analysis; that's why we've built unified access.
License: The extracted findings and patterns are available under CC-BY-4.0 (attribute to this explorer). Source documents (PDFs) remain under FERC's and the state PUCs' respective licenses (typically public domain as government works).
Cite this explorer:
FERC Audit Explorer. (2026). A browsable analysis of FERC utility audit findings, 2014–present. Retrieved from https://pranava0x0.github.io/FERCforms/
Machine-readable formats:
This is an independent public-interest tool built to serve analysts, journalists, and advocates. For questions, suggestions, or to report a data error:
Not affiliated with FERC. This explorer is an independent analysis tool; it is not an official FERC product and does not represent FERC's views.