FERC Must Now Report on Hydropower Delays: New Rule Demands Annual Status Updates on Licenses Pending Three Years or More

The newly proposed Hydropower Licensing Transparency Act is essentially a mandate for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to clean up its administrative house and start being more transparent about long-delayed hydropower projects. This isn't about building new dams or tearing down old ones; it’s about making the government agency responsible for licensing them tell Congress exactly where things stand.

The Three-Year Rule: Where the Backlog Starts

This bill requires FERC to submit annual reports to Congress, starting within 180 days of the law passing. But the reports don't cover every application. They focus specifically on applications that have been stuck in the pipeline for at least three years. Think of it like this: if a utility company or a new developer told FERC they intended to file for a license three years ago, that application now gets flagged for mandatory reporting. This applies to both applicants renewing an existing license and those seeking an original license for a new project (Section 2).

What FERC Has to Disclose

For every flagged application, FERC can’t just say, “It’s still pending.” The report needs to be granular. It must include the date the applicant first notified FERC, the specific docket number, and whether the application has even been filed yet. Crucially, FERC must provide an anticipated date for when the license will actually be issued and list all upcoming meetings related to the case. This is the government equivalent of requiring a project manager to actually provide a realistic timeline, not just a vague “sometime next year” (Section 2).

Who’s Doing What: Tracking Agency Accountability

Perhaps the most important part of this reporting requirement is that FERC must detail the actions taken by everyone involved. That means listing the completed and ongoing actions required of the licensee or applicant, FERC itself, and any other relevant agencies—especially the fish and wildlife agencies that often weigh in on environmental impact (Section 2). This provision is designed to cut through the bureaucratic finger-pointing. If a license is delayed, Congress will now see clearly whether the hold-up is with the applicant, FERC, or another federal agency.

Why This Matters to You

While this bill sounds like pure regulatory paperwork, it has real-world implications for energy stability and costs. Hydropower is a key component of the energy grid, and lengthy, unpredictable licensing delays can stall projects, discourage investment, and potentially impact the reliability of local power supplies. By forcing transparency on these long-pending applications, Congress gains the oversight tools needed to push FERC to streamline processes. For the FERC staff, however, this means a definite increase in administrative workload, as they now have to compile and track detailed data on specific cases every single year, adding a new layer of mandatory reporting to their existing duties.