Hydropower Licensing Transparency Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3657) to amend the Federal Power Act to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to annually submit to Congress a report on the status of ongoing hydropower relicensing applications, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material into the Record on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3657, the Hydropower Licensing Transparency Act, led by the gentleman from Idaho's First District and the gentlewoman from Washington's Eighth District.

Hydropower is critical to our Nation's energy mix, supplying power to approximately 30 million homes and businesses and accounting for 40 percent of the Nation's black start capacity.

However, the average age of a hydropower facility in the United States is 60 years. Therefore, hundreds of projects will be up for relicensing between now and 2035.

Hydropower developers must go through an extensive permitting process in order to license and relicense projects. While important, this process can significantly increase the cost and timeline of relicensing these important energy sources. In fact, the average permitting length of an original license process spans from 5 to 7 years, and the average relicensing process takes between 7 and 10 years.

To increase transparency surrounding the status of hydropower licensing and relicensing applications, H.R. 3657 would require an annual report from FERC to Congress detailing the status of projects that have filed a notice of intent for original or new licenses. This will better inform Congress on the status of applications and highlight obstacles to the efficient permitting and deployment of hydropower projects.

It is imperative that projects are relicensed in a timely manner to ensure clean and reliable hydropower dams remain online for years to come.

I thank the gentlewoman from Washington's Eighth District and the gentleman from Idaho's First Congressional District for their leadership on this very important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3657, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers on the bill. I am prepared to close if the gentleman is, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, all the reports that we have across this country state that we have been producing more power, not less, and hydropower plays an important role in our structure of energy in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage a ``yes'' vote on this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Pallone and Chairman Latta for their leadership.

I am from Washington State, and in the Pacific Northwest, hydropower makes up the majority of our energy mix. That is why I am very proud to lead this effort to enhance transparency and really help streamline the non-Federal hydropower licensing process with my colleague from Idaho, Representative Fulcher.

This bill will support the proper permitting of clean, abundant, and affordable energy by allowing Congress, Tribes, resource agencies, and ratepayers to better track the status of the relicensing process for new and existing hydropower license applications.

Every 30 to 50 years, hydropower dams must relicense their dams with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in order to continue operating a facility. Hydropower dams in my district are critical to keeping the lights on and keeping the power flowing, and several, including the Rock Island Dam at Chelan County PUD, are due for relicensing at the end of 2028.

The relicensing process is typically very lengthy, in part for good reason. The public comment period needs to be robust for all parties to weigh in. Without that input, we risk potentially devastating environmental consequences on regional ecosystems.

With relicensing activity set to double in the coming decade and the process typically taking 7 to 10 years to complete, there are crucial reforms that are needed to cut red tape without compromising careful consideration. Otherwise, we could risk not having the affordable power we need when we need it.

The bill also includes annual reporting to track progress on new hydropower licenses, which are the most sensitive to licensing costs and delays. Existing projects have a revenue stream to pull from that allows the licensee to fund these processes, but new projects are completely sourced by the developers.

This commonsense, bipartisan bill takes the first step by enhancing transparency and tracking progress on any given licensing process for all parties involved.

I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on comprehensive, bipartisan hydropower licensing reform, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 1020) to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to extend the time period during which licensees are required to commence construction of certain hydropower projects.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the legislation and to insert extraneous material on S. 1020.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of S. 1020, led by Senator Daines and, in the House of Representatives, by Representative Newhouse.

Hydropower is a critical part of our Nation's energy mix, supplying baseload power to approximately 30 million homes and businesses and accounting for 40 percent of our black start capacity.

S. 1020 authorizes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, to extend construction deadlines for critical hydropower projects licensed before March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global supply chains and halted many projects.

Current law requires hydropower projects to commence construction within 10 years of receiving a license. This legislation allows FERC to authorize an additional 6 years for certain projects to ensure fully licensed infrastructure is not permanently halted, depriving Americans of reliable energy.

There are currently 37 projects, across 15 States, that are at risk of losing licenses without the passage of this bill providing additional construction time.

These projects in limbo would provide energy that is imperative to power our communities, win the artificial intelligence race, and lower electricity prices for consumers.

I urge my colleagues to support S. 1020, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse).

Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on S. 1020, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3657, which will provide transparency into the hydropower licensing process at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC.

Today, FERC is responsible for issuing licenses for hydropower dams, but it is often dependent on other regulatory entities, such as the Army Corps, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, or State water agencies, to provide information and approvals that FERC relies on to issue licenses. It can also be dependent on the dam developer itself to give FERC necessary information.

With all these different entities involved in the process, it is often difficult to monitor from the outside and understand where things stand on a particular project.

This bill helps to bring more transparency to the process. It requires an annual report to Congress on the status of each license application and outstanding actions that are required of regulatory agencies or the applicants themselves. This is particularly important now because 15 percent of the electric capacity at hydropower dams will come up for relicensing in the next decade.

Forecasts for electricity demand also seem to be increasing by the day, and that is why it is critically important that we have transparency into where the hangups are in the hydropower licensing process.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Schrier for her hard work on this bipartisan bill. I also thank Representative Fulcher, Chairs Guthrie and Latta, and Republican committee staff for accommodating commonsense, bipartisan amendments to the bill, such as expanding it to cover new hydropower projects.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Schrier), who is the sponsor of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge bipartisan support for this important bill related to hydropower dams, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 1020, which will grant an extension to hydropower projects impacted by the COVID pandemic.

The Federal Power Act requires hydropower projects to start construction within 2 years of receiving a license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC. Subsequent amendments have allowed FERC to grant extensions of up to 8 years to a project's construction deadline.

While I think it makes sense to have a hydropower license expire if a project can't start construction within a decade of the license being issued, I recognize that the COVID pandemic and resulting supply chain issues wreaked havoc on the hydropower industry. Therefore, this bill would allow FERC to grant up to 6 additional years for projects whose licenses were issued prior to COVID to start construction and would allow FERC to reinstate the licenses of projects whose authorizations have since expired.

Madam Speaker, I will note that this authority is not a blank check to any developer with a license issued pre-COVID. The bill explicitly only allows FERC to grant an extension for good cause. I expect FERC to adhere to that restriction.

In addition, I will also note that while the House has been able to complete work on this bill, my colleagues from the Energy and Commerce Committee, Representatives Schrier and Fulcher, have another bill on hydropower, H.R. 3657, that has been sitting in the Senate for 9 months. I certainly hope our friends over in the Senate can pass that bill, which grants additional transparency into the hydropower licensing process as soon as possible.

Madam Speaker, in any case, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I close by saying, again, that our committee is always concerned about hydropower. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.