WASHINGTON, D.C. – During a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) underscored the importance of streamlining the overly-burdensome permitting process for hydroelectric dams, which is holding back states like Maine from taking greater advantage of hydropower.

“Any permitting program that takes seven to ten years and costs $50 to $100 million isn’t a permitting program. It’s an annuity for lawyers and consultants,” Senator King said. “…Hydro is an enormous resource in America – clean, renewable – and it’s one that I think we have to clear away some of these issues that make it such a lengthy and expensive process.”

Maine is home to hundreds of dams, many of which have hydroelectric facilities that must be licensed through a federal process that can be cumbersome, lengthy, and often-times, expensive. In fact, a recent report on hydropower in Maine cited regulatory hurdles as one of the greatest obstacles to hydropower development in the state, determining that “the length, cost, and uncertainty associated with permitting a new project (or, for that matter, a relicensing an existing project) were cited as major hurdles to new development.”

“We can talk about a $50 million process in seven years, but what we don’t know are the projects that never come forward because of that. It’s the opportunity cost of companies who say we can’t afford it – and by the way, that’s high risk money because you can do seven years, spend $50 million, not get one of the necessary permits and you have nothing,” Senator King continued. “And so I believe the country is losing potential resources because of the in terrorem effect of an uneconomic, unpredictable, and untimely process, particularly in the field of hydro.”

To address the problem, Senator King last week introduced the Small Hydropower Dependable Regulatory Order (Small HyDRO) Act of 2015. The legislation would streamline the licensing process for small hydroelectric dams and relicensed dams by requiring the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to render a decision on a license application within 180 days with a rebuttable presumption that the license will be issued. In effect, the bill would help eliminate unnecessary regulatory hurdles that stand in the way of generating clean, reliable electricity at existing dams with no additional environmental impact.

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