In committee
Reliable Power Act
This bill aims to protect the power grid by giving energy regulators oversight over federal rules that affect power plants. If electric reliability monitors warn of an energy shortage, cabinet agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency must submit upcoming power-sector regulations to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for review. Agencies are barred from finalizing those rules until the Commission officially determines they will not threaten electricity reliability.
People affected—not determinable from the text provided; the bill governs interagency administrative review procedures and reliability assessments rather than enumerating an affected population.
Fiscal magnitude—not determinable from the text provided; the bill authorizes no appropriations and specifies no fees or funding levels.
Reach62provisional · pending reviewrigor: heuristic llm
What this bill touches.
Pollution & development−30Energy sources−20Greenhouse-gas policy−15Regulation (cross-sector)−30
Who it helps · who it burdens.
Who it helps
- Federal Energy Regulatory CommissionGains review authority over other federal cabinet agencies' rules affecting electric generation, with the power to require written responses to its comments and condition the finalization of those rules on its finding regarding power grid reliability (Sec. 2(3)(h)(3)-(4)).
Who it burdens
- Federal cabinet agencies (including the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy)Must submit any proposed or developing rules affecting electric power generation to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for review, respond in writing to FERC comments, publish those exchanges, and wait for FERC to find that the rule will not likely harm power supply reliability before finalizing it (Sec. 2(3)(h)(2), (4), and (5)).
- Designated Electric Reliability OrganizationMust conduct annual long-term reliability assessments evaluating power grid capacity under normal and extreme weather conditions, and must publicly notify FERC whenever electric supply shortfalls are projected (Sec. 2(1)(B)(2)-(3)).
- Bulk-power system users, owners, and operatorsAre subject to data and information collection requests by the Electric Reliability Organization to support annual grid reliability assessments (Sec. 2(1)(B)(4)).