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The bill protects residential customers from short-term electricity rate increases and forces executive pay limits and reporting for utilities receiving DOE aid, at the risk of reducing utilities' access to federal funding and management flexibility which could delay grid improvements or shift costs elsewhere.
Residential electric customers (homeowners and renters) are protected from provider rate increases above their Jan 1, 2026 level for one year, preventing immediate bill spikes.
Utilities receiving DOE financial assistance must limit or reduce top executive pay, which aligns utility incentives with consumer affordability and could reduce excessive administrative costs.
Utilities are required to report baseline and post‑reduction executive compensation to the Secretary, increasing transparency for regulators and the public about executive pay tied to federal support.
Utilities and their customers (residential and commercial) may lose access to DOE financial assistance if utilities do not comply with the executive pay conditions, risking delayed grid upgrades or reliability projects that could increase outages or long‑term costs.
Short-term moratorium on residential rate increases could shift cost pressures onto businesses or cause regulators to delay necessary rate adjustments, creating financial strain for utilities and unequal cost distribution.
Tying federal assistance to limits on executive pay may reduce utilities' flexibility to attract or retain management talent, potentially affecting operations, investment decisions, or the ability to implement complex projects.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Prevents DOE from providing federal assistance to state‑regulated investor‑owned utilities that raise residential rates above Jan 1, 2026, with a 1‑year ban and a 2‑year conditional ban tied to top‑five executive pay limits.
Introduced March 12, 2026 by Haley Stevens · Last progress March 12, 2026
Prohibits the Department of Energy from giving federal financial assistance to state‑regulated investor‑owned electric utilities that raise residential rates above their January 1, 2026 levels. For the first year after the law is enacted there is an absolute ban on assistance to any such utility that charges residential customers above those 2026 rates; assistance already provided must be ended if a utility violates the ban. For the two years after that first year, assistance remains barred unless the utility keeps the total pay for its five highest‑paid employees at or below their January 1, 2026 levels, or—if the utility raised residential rates—reduces those five employees’ total compensation by twice the percentage‑point increase in the residential rate compared to January 1, 2026, and files a report documenting the compensation figures. Violations of the pay limits or the reduction rule trigger termination of federal assistance.