Federal aid for power outages lasting 72 hours or more
H.R. 10899 — Power Outage Family Assistance Act · Filed by Haley Stevens (D-MI) · Introduced Oct 22, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
The bill lets the President say a long power outage counts as a disaster. Power outages lasting 72 hours or more qualify. They must affect at least 10 percent of people in an area. People can get money for basic needs, medical bills, housing, and damaged things. The bill does not cover planned outages. It does not cover outages caused by a utility company's carelessness.
Who it affects
People who lose power for three days or longer can get federal money. The money covers food, medicine, hotels, and other needs. States and tribal governments may get money to help pay for aid.
One thing to notice
The President alone decides if an outage qualifies for aid. No Congress vote is needed.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Oct 22, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Oct 22, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Homeland Security and House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and in addition to the Committee on Homeland…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- President — The head of the federal government who can declare disasters.
- federal — Belonging to the whole United States government, not just one state.
- utility company — A company that provides power, water, or other services to homes and businesses.
- carelessness — Failure to take proper care or attention to prevent harm or problems.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,540 characters) on Oct 31, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,778 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-31.
“Federal aid for power outages lasting 72 hours or more” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr10899/simple Report an error
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