Bill limits rules for dam power plant licenses
S. 5048 — Hydropower Licensing Affordability Act · Filed by Steve Daines (R-MT) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 21, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill changes how the government can set rules for dam power plants. It says the government can only require fixes for harm from one dam. It stops the government from making broader rules to protect nature. Dam power plant companies would face fewer rules to get or renew licenses.
Who it affects
People who fish, boat, or rely on healthy rivers would lose some nature rules. Tribal nations with rights to fish may have less power to demand rules. Fish and water quality downstream from dams could get worse.
One thing to notice
The bill uses the term 'direct adverse effect' but does not define it. This could let each dam operator ignore harm from many dams on one river.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 4 Republicans.
- Jul 21, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jul 21, 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 $50,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 2 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Steve Daines, who sponsored the bill, received $916,144 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Marshall Bioresources — $50,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- license — official permission from the government to do something
- direct adverse effect — harm caused straight by one dam itself
- tribal nations — Native American groups with their own governments and treaty rights
- 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 (678 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 14,206 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 19, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-17.
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