Reliable Grid Act

The Reliable Grid Act would block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from enforcing rules that limit or restrict the continuous operation of certain dispatchable electric generating units, unless and until the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has categorized all regions served by the bulk-power system as “normal risk” under its 2023 Long-Term Reliability Assessment. In addition to this enforcement bar, the bill includes a broad set of statements and provisions aimed at prioritizing grid reliability in regulation, promoting waivers to prevent premature retirement of reliable plants, and instructing coordination among FERC, NERC, and EPA on grid reliability standards. The measure frames environmental regulations as potentially dangerous to reliability and urges that future rules be proposed with strong evidence that they won’t undermine the steady operation of the electric grid. In practice, the bill would preserve existing dispatchable generation (such as coal, natural gas, and other controllable units) from EPA enforcement of certain restrictions until the bulk-power system is deemed normal-risk nationwide by NERC. It also signals a political push to reevaluate or halt certain recent EPA rules related to power plants and to ensure reliability is the primary lens through which new energy regulations are considered.