The Commission shall have authority from time to time to make, issue, amend, and rescind such rules and regulations and such orders as it may deem necessary or appropriate to carry out the provisions of this chapter, including rules and regulations defining accounting, technical, and trade terms used in this chapter. Among other things, the Commission shall have authority, for the purposes of this chapter, to prescribe the form or forms in which information required in any statement, declaration, application, report, or other document filed with the Commission shall be set forth, the items or details to be shown in balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and surplus accounts, the manner in which the cost of all assets, whenever determinable, shall be shown in regard to such statements, declarations, applications, reports, and other documents filed with the Commission, or accounts required to be kept by the rules, regulations, or orders of the Commission, and the methods to be followed in the keeping of accounts and cost-accounting procedures and the preparation of reports, in the segregation and allocation of costs, in the determination of liabilities, in the determination of depreciation and depletion, in the differentiation of recurring and nonrecurring income, in the differentiation of investment and operating income, and in the keeping or preparation, where the Commission deems it necessary or appropriate, of separate or consolidated balance sheets or profit and loss statements for any companies in the same holding-company system.
In the case of the accounts of any company whose methods of accounting are prescribed under the provisions of any law of the United States or of any State, the rules and regulations or orders of the Commission in respect of accounts shall not be inconsistent with the requirements imposed by such law or any rule or regulation thereunder; nor shall anything in this chapter relieve any public-utility company from the duty to keep the accounts, books, records, or memoranda which may be required to be kept by the law of any State in which it operates or by the State Commission of any such State. But this provision shall not prevent the Commission from imposing such additional requirements regarding reports or accounts as it may deem necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors or consumers.
The rules and regulations of the Commission shall be effective upon publication in the manner which the Commission shall prescribe. For the purpose of its rules, regulations, or orders the Commission may classify persons and matters within its jurisdiction and prescribe different requirements for different classes of persons or matters. Orders of the Commission under this chapter shall be issued only after opportunity for hearing.
The Commission, by such rules and regulations or order as it deems necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors or consumers, may authorize the filing of any information or documents required to be filed with the Commission under this chapter, or under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (15 U.S.C. 77a et seq.), or under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78a et seq.), by incorporating by reference any information or documents theretofore or concurrently filed with the Commission under this chapter or either of such Acts. No provision of this chapter imposing any liability shall apply to any act done or omitted in good faith in conformity with any rule, regulation, or order of the Commission, notwithstanding that such rule, regulation, or order may, after such act or omission, be amended or rescinded or be determined by judicial or other authority to be invalid for any reason.