Sponsors (16)
The bill increases transparency, consistency, and accountability for transmission planning and project performance—improving oversight, innovation, and potentially reliability—but does so at the cost of new compliance burdens, higher administrative costs passed to ratepayers, privacy/security risks, and disproportionate impacts on smaller utilities that could delay projects or complicate planning.
Millions of consumers, researchers, regulators, and utilities will gain regular, standardized, machine-readable transmission performance and project scorecard data, improving public transparency and accountability across regions.
Ratepayers and communities will see better identification and management of project delays, cost overruns, and at‑risk projects through quarterly scorecards and independent verification, improving prospects for more affordable and timely transmission upgrades.
Clear, uniform definitions and reporting standards will enable consistent regional planning and encourage deployment of grid-enhancing technologies that can increase transfer capacity or reduce losses without costly new lines, improving grid efficiency and reliability.
All ratepayers risk higher electricity costs because increased reporting, verification, and portal requirements impose administrative and IT costs on utilities and agencies that may be passed through in rates.
Publishing detailed operational and project financial data increases the risk of revealing commercially sensitive information or operational vulnerabilities that could harm grid security or competitive positions if not properly protected.
Smaller, municipal, and rural transmission owners face disproportionate compliance burdens and verification requirements relative to larger RTO/ISO members, risking higher relative costs or exclusion from processes.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Requires DOE and FERC to produce public, standardized transmission scorecards and a searchable portal, mandates biannual utility reports and grant-recipient project reporting with verification and penalties.
Introduced November 20, 2025 by Sean Casten · Last progress November 20, 2025
Creates a federal program that requires the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to collect standardized transmission performance and investment data, publish public scorecards and an online portal, and require biannual reporting from transmission owners and project-level reporting from recipients of federal transmission grants. The goal is to improve transparency, enable comparisons across utilities and regions, inform planning and investment decisions, and hold grant recipients accountable through verification and potential penalties for misrepresentation. The law sets detailed metrics (costs to customers, reliability, congestion, outages, permitting timelines, resilience, workforce and environmental justice indicators, hosting capacity, planned vs. actual project status, and financing details), requires regular publication and briefings to Congress, mandates stakeholder technical conferences and advisory groups, and defines covered entities and key terms for implementation. Timelines require the DOE to begin portal development within 12 months and have it fully available within 18 months, with recurring reporting cadence and periodic reviews.