Title: A bill to amend the Federal Power Act to modernize authorizations for necessary hydropower approvals.
Policy area: Energy

Summary:
This bill amends the Federal Power Act to authorize the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to issue a preliminary permit to a hydropower construction license applicant for up to four years, instead of three.
FERC may extend a preliminary permit once for no more than four years and may issue a new permit after the end of an extension if it determines there are extraordinary circumstances that warrant the issuance of an additional permit.
Additionally, FERC may extend the time a licensee has to commence construction on a project for up to eight years.	Under current law, FERC may extend the license for no more than two years.

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 724 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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115th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 S. 724

    To amend the Federal Power Act to modernize authorizations for 
                    necessary hydropower approvals.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             March 27, 2017

 Ms. Murkowski introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
       referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
    To amend the Federal Power Act to modernize authorizations for 
                    necessary hydropower approvals.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. MODERNIZING AUTHORIZATIONS FOR NECESSARY HYDROPOWER 
              APPROVALS.

    (a) Preliminary Permits.--Section 5 of the Federal Power Act (16 
U.S.C. 798) is amended--
            (1) in subsection (a), by striking ``three'' and inserting 
        ``4''; and
            (2) in subsection (b)--
                    (A) by striking ``Commission may extend the period 
                of a preliminary permit once for not more than 2 
                additional years beyond the 3 years'' and inserting the 
                following: ``Commission may--
            ``(1) extend the period of a preliminary permit once for 
        not more than 4 additional years beyond the 4 years'';
                    (B) by striking the period at the end and inserting 
                ``; and''; and
                    (C) by adding at the end the following:
            ``(2) after the end of an extension period granted under 
        paragraph (1), issue an additional permit to the permittee if 
        the Commission determines that there are extraordinary 
        circumstances that warrant the issuance of the additional 
        permit.''.
    (b) Time Limit for Construction of Project Works.--Section 13 of 
the Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 806) is amended in the second sentence 
by striking ``once but not longer than two additional years'' and 
inserting ``for not more than 8 additional years,''.
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