Water, Power and Oceans Subcommittee discusses hydropower-relicensing reforms

The House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans held a hearing last week to discuss the relicensing process for hydropower facilities and opportunities for new hydropower development.

In the next five years, nearly a quarter of all U.S. hydropower facilities will require relicensing.

“Navigating through the federal bureaucracy necessary to obtain the proper licensing to get these new hydropower projects running is extremely complex and cumbersome,” Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) said. “The time and costs associated with obtaining or renewing hydropower licenses, coupled with mandatory conditions imposed by numerous federal agencies, has been a major road block to the affordability and growth of our nation’s hydropower infrastructure.”

The relicensing process can take up to a decade and cost millions of dollars, Bob Gallo, president and CEO of Voith Hydro, Inc., told the subcommittee.

“[T]he rising cost and the continuing regulatory uncertainty of the relicensing process creates real doubt about the future of many projects,” Herbie Johnson, president of the National Hydropower Association, said. “By reducing regulatory risk, cost and uncertainty, hydro developers will be encourage, and indeed motivated, to invest in new projects, develop incremental capacity at existing dams, create new jobs, and increase the amount of clean, affordable and renewable hydropower in our country.”

Last month, the Committee advanced a number of infrastructure bills including Chairman Lamborn’s Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) Pumped Storage Hydropower Development Act, which seeks to simplify regulatory permitting issues at existing BOR reservoirs.