Your energy data is yours: new bill forces utilities to share it
H.R. 7741 — E-Access Act · Filed by Kevin Mullin (D-CA) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 26, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to develop national standards allowing consumers to access their own electricity and natural gas usage data in machine-readable form, and to share that data with third-party apps and services of their choosing. It also directs utilities to adopt open standards (like Green Button), maintain 99%+ system availability, and report performance publicly. A separate provision requires a study on whether utilities should transmit individual meter data to wholesale electricity markets for price settlement.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a mandate for utilities to share consumer energy data with third parties under open standards, coupled with DOE/FERC guidelines and a separate meter-settlement study. It is fundamentally a data-portability and consumer-empowerment bill, not a subsidy, deregulation, or narrow carve-out.
What the text implies
- The bill's requirement that utilities adopt 'fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory' terms for third-party access may trigger disputes over what constitutes reasonable access fees or technical requirements, potentially leading to regulatory litigation.
- The meter-settlement study (Section 4) could lay groundwork for future mandates requiring utilities to transmit granular customer data to wholesale markets, which would shift settlement risk and data exposure from utilities to individual consumers.
- The 'electric meter software platform' provisions (requiring fair competition, transparency, and due process for app developers) may implicitly require utilities to operate or certify app marketplaces, creating new operational and liability burdens.
- State certification of energy office policies creates a two-tier system: certified states receive federal funding, potentially incentivizing regulatory races to the bottom or creating pressure on non-certified states to adopt federal standards.
- The bill does not explicitly address liability for third-party data breaches or misuse of consumer energy data, leaving a gap in consumer recourse if a third-party app is compromised.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary consumers gain direct access to their own energy data and the right to use third-party tools to manage consumption and costs, with strong privacy protections and nondiscrimination rules. The bill removes utility gatekeeping and creates enforceable standards for data portability, transparency, and fair competition in energy management software—classic consumer empowerment without visible offsetting costs to the public.
Who stands to gain
- Third-party energy management software developers and startups
- Demand response and energy efficiency service providers
- Smart meter and grid-edge device manufacturers
- Data analytics and energy consulting firms
Named in the bill
Department of Energy (DOE), Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Green Button Alliance, State energy offices, Electric utilities, Gas utilities, Independent System Operators (ISOs), Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 4 Democrats.
- Feb 26, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 26, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $290,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 11 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Kevin Mullin, the sponsor, reported $505,911 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle. $5,500 of that came from 2 PACs tied to these lobbying clients.
- Edison International — $290,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (19,346 characters) on Aug 17, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 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.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Your energy data is yours: new bill forces utilities to share it” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr7741 Report an error
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