Hydropower bill sails through House

The House unanimously approved a bill 422-0 Wednesday that would remove barriers for small hydropower development and could eventually expedite permitting for other hydropower projects.

The Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act, H.R. 267, would exempt “conduits,” such as canals, aqueducts and tunnels, from the federal licensing process. It also would let hydropower projects that generate 10,000 kilowatts of power avoid licensing procedures, compared with the current 5,000-kilowatt limit.

It also would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to conduct a feasibility study on imposing a two-year cap hydropower permitting, which supporters say could unleash significant investment.

“H.R. 267 streamlines the hydropower permitting process, reducing the burdens impeding developments, and getting low cost power to communities faster,” bill co-sponsor Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said in a Wednesday statement.

The National Hydropower Association estimates expedited licensing would charge some of the nation’s nearly 80,000 non-powered dams, adding about 60,000 megawatts of hydropower by 2025.

Currently, obtaining federal permission usually takes hydropower developers more than five years, Kevin Frank, chief executive with York, Pa.-based Voith Hydro, told The Hill. That length of time has sapped investor interest for capital-intensive hydropower projects, he said.

“The shorter process brings more certainty and gets rid of the inefficiencies,” Frank said. “It’s a big, big barrier to entry right now.”

It’s a barrier that might not last much longer, if the bipartisan House vote is any indication of how the Senate might act.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is bullish on the bill’s prospects.

Murkowski told The Hill that the bill’s chances of passing the committee are “good,” noting Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) represents a state flush with hydropower potential.

While a similar bill also passed the House late last year and foundered in the Senate, Murkowski attributed the lack of action to the upper chamber “not taking up energy bills.” She said she is “optimistic” about the bill this time around.

Aside from the hydropower industry and the House, the bill also has support from the renewable energy advocates and some environmental groups.

Renewables backers like the measure because it would cap the permitting timeline for closed-loop pump storage, potentially fostering more construction of those systems.

The technology stores energy from intermittent power sources, such as wind and solar, that utilities could use throughout the day.

And environmental groups, such as American Rivers, give the bill an OK because it would encourage smaller projects that avoid disturbing aquatic and other habitats.

To that end, Murkowski said she would work to inform her Senate colleagues that the dams affected by the hydropower bill are not the “mega-dams” that the environmental community opposes.

“There are some that kind of view hydropower through the lens of the Hoover Dam, Tennessee Valley Authority — that they’re these huge, that hydropower has to be a big mega-dam. Hydropower does not,” she said.