House approves bill to expand hydropower

The Republicancontrolled House has approved a bill aimed at expanding hydroelectric power, an action supporters said would boost a clean source of renewable energy, but opponents denounced it as a giveaway to large power companies. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, would define hydropower as a renewable energy source and streamline the way projects are licensed, with primary authority granted to a single federal agency. Lawmakers approved the bill Wednesday, 257-166. Power from rivers and streams makes up nearly 70 percent of electricity generated in Washington state and accounts for more than 50 percent of power in Oregon and Idaho and 36 percent in Montana. Hydropower accounts for 7 percent of electricity nationwide. McMorris Rodgers, the fourth-highest ranking Republican, said that figure could be doubled without constructing a single dam. While it takes an average of 18 months to license a new natural gas plant, it can take up to 10 years or longer to license a new damor relicense an existing dam, she and other Republicans said. Only 3 percent of the nation’s 80,000 dams now produce electricity. Electrifying some of the larger sites — primarily locks and dams on the Ohio, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas Rivers that are operated by the Army Corps of Engineers — would generate electricity for millions of homes and create thousands of jobs, an Energy Department report said. The bill would make the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission lead agency on hydropower licensing and require states, tribes and other federal agencies to defer to the commission.