ACCOUNTING AND DISCLOSURE CHANGES

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2015

ACCOUNTING AND DISCLOSURE CHANGES

ACCOUNTING AND DISCLOSURE CHANGES

NOTE 2ACCOUNTING AND DISCLOSURE CHANGES

In May 2015, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued rules to remove the requirements to categorize within the fair value hierarchy all investments for which the fair value is measured using the net asset value (NAV) per share practical expedient.  The new rules also limit disclosures to investments for which the entity has elected to measure the fair value using that practical expedient, rather than for all investments that are eligible to be measured at fair value using the NAV per share.  These rules will be effective for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2015, and interim periods within those fiscal years, with early adoption of the rules permitted.  We do not expect the disclosure changes to have a significant impact on our financial statements.

In April 2015, the FASB issued rules to simplify the presentation of debt issuance costs by requiring that debt issuance costs related to a recognized debt liability be presented in the balance sheet as a direct deduction from the carrying amount of that debt liability, consistent with the presentation of debt discounts. These rules will be effective for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2015 and interim periods within those fiscal years, with early adoption of the rules permitted for financial statements which have not been previously issued. We early adopted the new rule in the first quarter of 2015 and retrospectively reclassified unamortized debt issuance costs of $68 million at December 31, 2014. The amount was previously reflected in other assets.