Hydropower Licensing Transparency Act

The bill would amend the Federal Power Act to add a new section requiring the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to submit an annual report to Congress on the status of hydropower licensing proceedings. It would cover new licenses, subsequent licenses where certain procedural steps have been waived, and original licenses, in each case where the applicant notified the Commission of its intent to apply at least three years before the report but no license has yet been issued. Each report would have to include dates of notices of intent, docket numbers, whether an application has been filed, the Commission's anticipated issuance date, upcoming proceedings or meetings, and a description of pending or completed actions by the licensee, applicant, the Commission, fish and wildlife agencies, and other agencies. Information would have to be broken out by license type. The bill does not change substantive licensing standards or timelines themselves.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, existing and prospective hydropower dam licensees, and applicants such as states, tribes, municipalities, corporations, or citizen groups seeking hydropower licenses. Members of Congress and the public would gain visibility into the status of pending relicensing cases nationwide.

Hydropower relicensing can take years and involves multiple agencies and stakeholders; the required annual report would give Congress and the public a standardized way to track delays and pending actions on individual dam licenses, potentially increasing pressure on the Commission to move applications forward.

Within 180 days of enactment, and annually afterward, the Commission would compile and submit the report to Congress. It would track each qualifying license proceeding using notice-of-intent dates and docket numbers, document application status and anticipated issuance dates, list upcoming proceedings, and describe pending actions by licensees, applicants, fish and wildlife agencies, and other involved agencies, with data broken out by license type (new, subsequent, or original).