To modernize U.S. hydropower licensing, lawmakers should update the Federal Power Act to simplify a regulatory process that is currently stalled by high costs and bureaucratic delays. According to the authors of the newly released report, these reforms would limit the ability of various government agencies to impose mandatory conditions on projects unless those requirements are directly related to the project’s specific impacts.
The report highlights that “the licensing process for hydropower facilities, including PSH, is costly, time consuming, and cumbersome,” often involving “up to thirteen major federal statutes and five major federal agencies.” Industry experts advocate for “limiting mandatory conditioning authority of the Federal Power Act solely to the effects directly related to hydropower projects” to prevent regulatory overreach.
In simple terms, getting a permit to build or maintain a hydropower facility is currently a long and expensive ordeal because too many different government groups have the power to add their own rules to the process. The proposed reform would ensure that these agencies can only set requirements that are relevant to the project, cutting out red tape and making it easier to build the energy storage needed for the nation’s power grid.
The report “Winning the AI Race: Tapping into Pumped Storage Hydropower” was published by the National Hydropower Association in March 2026. Produced by the association’s policy experts in Washington, D.C., the document provides a strategic roadmap for leveraging long-duration energy storage to meet the surging power demands of data centers and advanced manufacturing.
