Sponsors (28)
The bill forces lower, more transparent returns and bars many corporate costs from rate recovery—lowering customer bills and curbing ratepayer‑funded corporate spending—at the risk of weakening utilities' ability to attract capital, increasing compliance burdens, and potentially delaying necessary grid investments and reliability improvements.
Millions of utility customers (residential, small businesses, taxpayers) could pay lower transmission rates because the bill requires a methodology-driven, generally lower ROE in filings, reducing utilities' revenue requirements.
Ratepayers (residential and commercial customers) are protected from subsidizing corporate political spending, lobbying, certain advertising, and executive perks because those costs are prohibited from recovery in rates.
Transmission customers, developers, and grid users gain fairer, more transparent interconnection and access processes and improved planning data sharing with RTOs/ISOs, which can reduce queue delays and help integrate renewable resources.
Prescriptive, lower ROE rules could make it harder for utilities to attract capital, risking delayed or canceled transmission and maintenance projects and potentially reducing reliability or raising long‑term costs for customers.
New compliance, reporting, audit, and data‑sharing obligations will raise administrative costs for providers; those costs could be passed to customers or slow project delivery.
Repealing section 219 removes statutory incentive and performance-based rate tools that some transmission projects rely on, which could reduce investment in needed upgrades.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Creates federal rules for transmission providers and investor‑owned utilities setting ROE calculation methods, requiring open access/data sharing, limiting cost recovery, and expanding FERC enforcement.
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
Sets new federal rules for electric transmission providers and investor‑owned utilities to promote non‑discriminatory interconnection, open access to transmission services and data, and to constrain returns and certain recoverable costs. It directs FERC to establish and enforce transmission provider duties, creates a prescribed method for calculating an ROE “range of reasonableness,” and requires investor‑owned utilities to use the lower end of a similar ROE range while barring recovery of many corporate and political expenses through customer rates. The bill increases federal oversight and enforcement authority (including audits and penalties), requires tariff filings, dispute resolution procedures, and implementing regulations, and defines covered entities and key financial data sources used to set allowed returns. It also requires public disclosures when utilities seek higher ROE alternatives and preserves collective bargaining agreements.