House Natural Resources Committee advances Boebert’s Rural Jobs and Hydropower Expansion Act after rejecting Huffman amendment

The House Natural Resources Committee voted to report H.R. 7487, the Rural Jobs and Hydropower Expansion Act, to the House with a favorable recommendation after debate and a recorded vote that ended 21–14. The bill, sponsored by Representative Boebert, would amend the Reclamation Project Act of 1939 to give the Bureau of Reclamation exclusive authority over nonfederal hydropower development within Reclamation projects and remove the current duplicative FERC/Reclamation permitting split.

Supporters argued the change will speed permitting for projects that now face overlapping review. "This legislation builds on the committee's work to streamline the permitting process for development of energy projects in the United States," Representative Boebert said, describing plans to reduce what she called duplicative reviews that now affect roughly 69 nonfederal projects and about 12 additional projects in development. Committee supporters and the Chair cited a Bureau of Reclamation analysis that examined 530 dams and identified roughly 191 with some hydro potential and about 70 sites that could be economically developed, representing an estimated 225 megawatts of additional capacity.

The bill drew sustained questioning from Ranking Member Huffman, who said he was open to shifting jurisdiction but insisted statutory protections embedded in the Federal Power Act — including provisions to protect federal reservations, tribal resources, fish and wildlife, and public recreation — must be transferred if Interior assumes permitting authority. "If you're going to move all of that authority from FERC to Interior, you need to move the safeguards that have been built over many years along with it," Huffman said, and offered an amendment intended to preserve those guardrails in statute.

The committee rejected Huffman's amendment after a recorded vote (14 yeas, 21 nays). Representative Boebert opposed the amendment on the floor of the markup as a "poison pill," saying it would reimpose the FERC regulatory regime the bill was intended to avoid and add delay and cost. After the amendment failed, an amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by Representative Boebert was adopted, and the bill as amended was reported to the House with the 21–14 recorded vote in favor. Ranking Member Huffman gave notice of his intent to file supplemental or minority views on the measure.

The committee also allowed staff to make technical and conforming changes to the report documents. The bill will now be considered by the full House under the committee's regular processes; committee members noted that any further changes or floor amendments would follow House procedures for consideration.