Sponsors (5)
The bill improves preparedness, local‑distribution reliability, supply‑chain resilience, and federal accountability for energy security, but it does so at the cost of added state and utility compliance expenses, a potential reduction in federal flexibility, a time‑limited authority that creates planning uncertainty, and tradeoffs between sharing sensitive security information and public transparency.
Utilities, state governments, and the communities they serve will face fewer and shorter outages because state energy plans must now address weather, physical attacks, supply‑chain, and cybersecurity risks—improving preparedness and response for energy‑supply disruptions.
End users served by local distribution (below 100 kV), especially in rural and some urban areas, should see improved reliability during disturbances because local distribution systems are explicitly added to planning scope.
Utilities, states, and small businesses benefit from stronger supply‑chain resilience for grid repairs and replacements because plans must coordinate with equipment suppliers and address supply‑chain risks.
State governments and utilities will incur additional planning, coordination, and compliance costs to update plans, engage suppliers, and respond to oversight—raising costs for ratepayers or state budgets.
The section sunsets on Sept 30, 2031, creating uncertainty for long‑term infrastructure planning and investment decisions by states and utilities.
Mandating DOE action and requiring GAO review could reduce federal flexibility and divert state and federal staff time to compliance and reporting instead of other priorities.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Expands State energy security plans to cover local distribution systems and new physical, supply-chain, weather, and cybersecurity threats and requires mitigation, response, and recovery planning.
Expands federal requirements for State energy security plans to explicitly cover local electricity distribution systems, add weather, supply-chain, physical attack, and cybersecurity threats, and require States to include mitigation, response, and recovery measures. Makes the Department of Energy role mandatory for a specified action, adds suppliers to coordination lists, and sunsets the amended authority on September 30, 2031. Directs the Government Accountability Office to evaluate State energy security plans and federal assistance used to implement them, reporting to congressional energy committees by September 30, 2030, with public and non-public annex provisions for protected information.
Official title: To amend the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to require States to include supporting the physical security, cybersecurity, and resilience of local distribution systems in State energy security plans.
Introduced January 27, 2026 by Robert E. Latta · Last progress July 13, 2026