Bill lets power plants connect to the grid more cheaply.
S. 5008 — Grid Connection and Congestion Management Act · Filed by Martin Heinrich (D-NM) · Introduced Jul 16, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
The bill tells grid managers to offer a cheaper way to connect. Renewable energy plants do not pay for big upgrades. They accept a risk: their power might get cut off when the grid is full. Grid managers must write new rules within 180 days. A federal agency must approve those rules within another 180 days.
Who it affects
Renewable energy companies and small power plants pay less to connect. Electricity customers might pay less because fewer upgrades are needed. Power plants using the cheaper option might lose money when power gets cut off.
One thing to notice
The bill does not say who pays for upgrades that keep the grid reliable. All customers might end up paying for those who use the cheaper option.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Jul 16, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jul 16, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 1 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $20,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 1 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Martin Heinrich, who sponsored the bill, received $451,277 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Rocky Mountain Institute — $20,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- grid managers — Groups that run the electric grid and decide how power flows.
- renewable energy plants — Power plants that use wind, sun, or water to make electricity.
- federal agency — A government office that makes and approves rules for the whole country.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (14,425 characters) on Aug 12, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,707 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 2026-09-23.
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