Sponsors (7)
The bill lets utilities use emergency restoration funds to perform hazard mitigation that can reduce outages and speed recovery, but it raises federal costs and risks uneven or inequitable distribution of benefits (particularly for rural and low-income communities and past recipients).
Residents in affected communities (rural and urban) will face fewer prolonged power outages and faster long-term recovery after disasters because mitigation can be performed during emergency restoration.
Utilities and energy companies can fund cost-effective hazard mitigation while performing emergency §403 power restoration, reducing future outage risk for customers.
Facilities that receive emergency §403 restoration aid remain eligible for separate §406 mitigation grants, increasing the chances utilities have to secure additional resilience funding.
Low-income and rural communities may be deprioritized if utilities focus mitigation on higher-revenue or urban customers, worsening geographic and economic disparities in resilience.
Expanding eligible uses of §403 funds to include mitigation could increase federal disaster spending, resulting in higher costs for taxpayers.
Limiting the change to funds appropriated after enactment means facilities that already received restoration aid before the law won't benefit, creating uneven application across affected facilities.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Allows electric utilities to combine cost-effective hazard mitigation with FEMA §403 emergency power restoration and preserves §406 mitigation eligibility for such facilities, for funds appropriated after enactment.
Allows electric utilities to carry out cost-effective hazard mitigation work at the same time they perform FEMA-funded emergency power restoration under the Stafford Act and preserves utilities' eligibility for separate FEMA mitigation grants when they receive emergency restoration assistance. The change applies only to FEMA funds appropriated on or after the law's enactment.
Introduced April 10, 2025 by James Lankford · Last progress April 10, 2025