An independent US-Canadian task force set up to determine how and why the August14 US blackout took place has laid the blame largely on Ohio utility FirstEnergy.It also attributes some responsibility to the midwest independent system operator(Miso), which coordinates power transmission in the region. A separate reportby Michigan regulators earlier in November also put most of the blame on FirstEnergy,but also criticised Ohio-based American Electric Power (AEP).

The November 19 interim report