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Hydropower projects could move faster through federal reviews
Rep. Cliff Bentz’s bill would speed federal approvals for hydropower projects, helping dams and other work reach repairs, upgrades and financing sooner.
Hydropower projects could move through Washington faster under a House proposal from Oregon Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz. The bill, H.R. 9337, would amend the Federal Power Act to modernize the licensing process that governs hydropower approvals, a change aimed at the paperwork and timing behind a project, not the dams themselves.
For developers, utilities and the communities that depend on them, that clock can matter as much as the water flowing through the turbines. When licensing drags, repairs, upgrades and financing can stall with it.
The approval clock
The bill does not rewrite hydropower policy from scratch. It targets the way licenses are handled, with the goal of making the process more workable for projects that need federal approval before moving ahead.
Bentz has 10 House Republican cosponsors on the measure. In the narrow world of hydropower, that kind of timing fix can shape whether a project sits on paper or gets to work.