Senate Finance pauses S.13 after testimony from Great River Hydro and Agency of Transportation

Senate Finance members heard two hours of testimony on S.13, a bill that would require the Agency of Transportation to request conditions related to relicensing of the Bellows Falls hydroelectric project, then declined to move the bill forward, leaving it to sit in committee rules.

The bill matters because it would expressly authorize or direct the state transportation agency to participate in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensing process for the Bellows Falls project — a step supporters say could create leverage for local infrastructure priorities and opponents say would inappropriately convert regulatory review into a mechanism to finance municipal bridge replacements.

Great River Hydro representatives said the measure is untimely and unfair. Erin O'Day, chief executive officer of Great River Hydro, described the relicensing as a lengthy, multiagency process that began in 2012 and has consumed more than a decade of studies and stakeholder work. "We conducted 33 different studies for the cost of $12,000,000 to inform this process," O'Day said, and the company has operated under successive license extensions while awaiting a new FERC license. O'Day told the committee the company filed its initial license application in 2017, amended it in 2020, submitted a Fish Passage Settlement Agreement in February 2024 and filed state water quality certificate applications in April 2024; the company…