Sponsors (24)
The bill aims to lower consumer electricity costs and curb ratepayer-funded corporate spending by forcing lower, methodology-driven utility returns and stronger FERC oversight, but it risks reducing investment incentives, raising compliance burdens, and creating reliability or legal‑uncertainty trade‑offs that could delay needed grid projects.
Ratepayers (homeowners, small businesses, and taxpayers) would likely pay lower transmission and utility bills because the bill forces regulators to use a lower, methodology-driven return on equity (ROE) when setting allowed utility returns.
Customers will no longer subsidize corporate political spending or many non‑regulated corporate expenses because the bill bars recovery of lobbying, political contributions, certain advertising, and other non‑regulated expenses through utility rates.
FERC would gain stronger enforcement tools, audit and penalty authority, and require public disclosures (including when states allow higher ROE and quantified bill impacts), improving transparency, deterring discriminatory behavior, and protecting consumers from improper charges.
Utilities and transmission developers may face reduced ability to attract equity and debt capital because the bill lowers allowed ROE and repeals certain incentive authorities (e.g., section 219), which could delay or reduce investment in new transmission and grid upgrades.
Mandated lower ROE and bans on recovering many costs could push utilities to defer maintenance or new investments, risking reliability, service quality, or emergency preparedness for customers.
New compliance, reporting, and data‑sharing requirements (rulemakings, filings, audits) will increase administrative costs for utilities, which may be passed through to customers in other ways or slow project timelines.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Adds new FPA transmission duties and requires FERC and investor‑owned utilities to set ROE using a three‑point market‑data range while barring many cost categories from rate recovery.
Official title: To amend the Federal Power Act and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 to require investor owned electric utilities and gas utilities and transmission providers to, when establishing or calculating a return on equity, establish or calculate the return on equity at the lowest return on equity in an established range of reasonableness, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 29, 2026 by Greg Casar · Last progress April 29, 2026
Creates new federal rules for transmission providers and investor‑owned utilities to lower customer bills by increasing FERC oversight, standardizing how allowed returns on equity (ROE) are set, and limiting what costs utilities may recover through rates. It adds a new statutory regime in the Federal Power Act defining transmission provider duties (non‑discrimination, open access, data sharing, cost allocation, dispute resolution, and FERC enforcement) and requires FERC and state‑level rules that set a three‑point “range of reasonableness” for ROE based on averaged market return estimates from academics, financial institutions, and large banks with downward adjustments for specified risk reductions; covered utilities generally must use the lowest ROE in that range and must not recover many specified categories of corporate or political costs through rates.