Hoover Dam in March. Photo: Kevin Carter/Getty Images
The hydropower industry is shifting its strategy to try to advance a new dam licensing overhaul that could be more industry-friendly.
Why it matters: The industry had struck a grand bargain on licensing with environmental groups, but the legislation faltered last year.
Driving the news: Sen. Steve Daines told Axios he plans to revive his work with Sen. Maria Cantwell on licensing legislation.
- "It's a great source of baseload power," he said.
- The pair last Congress led the Community and Hydropower Improvement Act, which would have created a two-year process at FERC for adding power facilities to dams and tried to speed licensing.
- It also proposed to provide additional tribal consultation and consideration of fish passage and other environmental improvements.
Between the lines: GOP lawmakers who now control both chambers will have a fresh set of ideas.
- Whatever emerges is "probably going to look different," said Malcolm Woolf, CEO of the National Hydropower Association.
- "Rather than having a stakeholder-led process, we're following the leads of our legislative champions, and they want to have a legislative-led process," Woolf said.
Zoom in: Daines-Cantwell grew out of recommendations from the Uncommon Dialogue on Hydropower, River Restoration, and Public Safety, which brought together industry, NGOs and tribes.
- A Senate ENR subcommittee held a hearing on the bill, but it was never reported out of committee.
- Former House E&C Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers had her own proposal. But it didn't get much Democratic support, and environmentalists objected to parts of it.
- Hydro was ultimately largely left out of the permitting deal ENR was trying to move at the end of last year.
Zoom out: Everyone more or less agrees that the hydropower licensing process needs fixing.
- Hundreds of non-federal dams are set to have their licenses expire in the next decade. That represents a huge chunk of the nation's low-carbon power fleet.
- "To have 30- to 50-year licenses come up for relicensing creates a pretty great sense of urgency," said Leda Huta, vice president of government affairs for American Rivers.
- "We want to see that kind of strong language again," Huta said of Daines-Cantwell.
What we're watching: Lawmakers and industry boosters said the licensing push will have to wait until after reconciliation, likely as part of the broader permitting discussion.
- Daines introduced a separate bipartisan bill last month that would allow hydropower projects that secured a license before 2020 to petition for six-year extensions to start construction.
- That's essentially a stopgap that would let operators account for supply chain disruptions.
- In the meantime, we're seeing whether Sen. Lisa Murkowski's dam improvement tax credit makes it into the reconciliation conversation.
