Promoting Opportunities to Widen Electrical Resilience Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 164) to amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to authorize Federal agencies to provide certain essential assistance for hazard mitigation for electric utilities, and for other purposes.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

The text of the bill is as follows: H.R. 164

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Promoting Opportunities to Widen Electrical Resilience Act of 2025'' or the ``POWER Act of 2025''. SEC. 2. ESSENTIAL ASSISTANCE.

(a) In General.--Section 403 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5170b) is amended by adding at the end the following:

``(e) Electric Utilities.--

``(1) Hazard mitigation activities.--An electric utility may carry out cost-effective hazard mitigation activities jointly or otherwise in combination with activities for the restoration of power carried out with assistance provided under this section.

``(2) Eligibility for additional assistance.-- In any case in which an electric utility facility receives assistance under this section for the emergency restoration of power, the receipt of such assistance shall not render such facility ineligible for any hazard mitigation assistance under section 406 for which such facility is otherwise eligible.''.

(b) Applicability.--The amendment made by subsection (a) shall only apply to amounts appropriated on or after the date of enactment of this Act.

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Mr. GRAVES. 164.

Mr. Speaker, following a natural disaster, electric utilities work tirelessly to restore power to their customers. However, because of FEMA's problematic interpretation of section 403 of the Stafford Act, once power is restored, even with temporary measures, electric utilities are deemed ineligible for reimbursement for permanent work and mitigation efforts.

As a result, electric utilities are treated differently from all other critical infrastructure, even though building mitigation into our power systems reduces the costs of future disasters.

H.R. 164 is going to address this by clarifying that electric utilities may build in mitigation measures that provide essential assistance and that it does not disqualify electric utilities from permanent work eligibility later in the disaster recovery process.

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Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Speaker, I want to publicly thank Representative Hoyle for her work on the bill. It is a great bill.

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Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Speaker, in closing, this legislation is going to provide a whole lot of needed clarity to ensure that electric utilities are not penalized for acting quickly to restore power to those impacted by natural disasters.

This legislation passed the Chamber under suspension of the rules by voice vote last December, and I look forward to the House approving it again.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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