Washington, DC — NHA applauded the Senate’s unanimous passage of the Hydropower Licensing Transparency Act (H.R.3657/S. 3500). It now heads to President Trump’s desk to become law.
The bill would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to submit an annual report to Congress on the status of relicensing for every facility undergoing it. This is meant to create more visibility into a process that often takes over a decade and millions of dollars to complete, threatening hydropower at a time when Americans need it most.
The legislation is led by Representatives Kim Schrier (D, WA-08) and Russ Fulcher (R, ID-01) in the U.S. House, where it already passed unanimously, and Senators Daines (R-MT) and Cortez Masto (D-NV) in the U.S. Senate.
Over the next decade, 348 hydropower permits representing over 12,000 megawatts (MW) of capacity are due for relicensing, and they face a gauntlet of mandatory conditions unrelated to project effects, bureaucratic red tape, and unnecessary delays. This disproportionally harms smaller facilities, which have served their communities for decades.
“Hydropower is key to meeting growing demand and ensuring affordable, reliable power, and its recent momentum in Congress proves lawmakers are taking notice,” said NHA’s President and CEO, Malcolm Woolf. “This legislation is a great step toward fixing our broken permitting process by guaranteeing more accountability between Congress and FERC and compelling greater action to fix this problem. Hydropower generates more than 100 GW of clean, reliable power; it provides the flexibility that other sources of energy need when grids are stressed; and it also offers other services like flood control, irrigation, and recreation. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle should be doing all they can to support this resource, and I commend these lawmakers for leading the charge.”
To read NHA’s new report on hydropower mandatory conditions, please click here.
