The bill
Advancing GETs Act of 2025
S. 1327, 119th Congress — read as touching Electric Utilities.
Sponsored by
Sen. Welch, Peter [D-VT]
ID: W000800
Follow the money
The bill
S. 1327, 119th Congress — read as touching Electric Utilities.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
22 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Department of Energy and Related Commissions" section, p. 437-439 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy. Hearings held. With printed Hearing: S.Hrg. 119-366.
April 14, 2026
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill moves to the floor for full chamber debate and voting.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the intellectually bankrupt denizens of Congress. The "Advancing GETs Act of 2025" - because who doesn't love a good acronym? - is a bill that promises to revolutionize the grid-enhancing technology landscape by... wait for it... providing a shared savings incentive to developers. Wow, I can barely contain my excitement.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The primary objective of this bill is to line the pockets of developers and corporations with taxpayer money, all under the guise of "promoting innovation" and "enhancing grid efficiency." Because, you know, the free market wasn't doing its job well enough. The bill's sponsors, Mr. Welch and Mr. King, must have been asleep during Economics 101.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill establishes a shared savings incentive that returns a portion (between 10% and 25%) of the savings attributable to an investment in grid-enhancing technology to the developer. Because, apparently, developers need a handout to invest in technologies that will ultimately benefit their own bottom line. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will promulgate rules to implement this incentive, because who needs Congressional oversight when you have unelected bureaucrats?
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects: developers, corporations, and special interest groups who will reap the benefits of this corporate welfare program. Oh, and let's not forget the taxpayers who will foot the bill for this boondoggle. Consumers might see some marginal benefits, but don't hold your breath - the "consumer protections" mentioned in the bill are about as robust as a participation trophy.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a classic case of regulatory capture, where special interests dictate policy to benefit themselves at the expense of the general public. The potential impact? A bunch of cronies will get richer, while the rest of us are left to wonder why our energy bills didn't decrease as promised. The implications? This bill sets a terrible precedent for future legislation, where politicians will continue to prioritize corporate handouts over actual policy solutions.
In conclusion, the "Advancing GETs Act of 2025" is a symptom of a deeper disease: the corrupting influence of money in politics and the utter incompetence of our elected officials. It's a bill that should be diagnosed with a healthy dose of skepticism, ridiculed for its obvious flaws, and ultimately sent to the legislative graveyard where it belongs.
Sen. Welch, Peter [D-VT]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 1 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: K000383
Top Contributors
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Total contributions: $57
Showing top 18 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 2 helped.
Section 3 establishes a shared savings incentive for developers of grid-enhancing technology, which includes utilities that install such technology to improve transmission efficiency, reliability, and capacity. Section 4 requires transmission operators to submit congestion reports, and Section 5 directs the Secretary of Energy to create an application guide and provide technical assistance to utilities and developers. These provisions benefit electric utilities by reducing costs, improving grid
The bill defines grid-enhancing technology as hardware or software installed in addition to transmission facilities to increase capacity, efficiency, reliability, resilience, or safety. Sections 3, 4, and 5 collectively incentivize and support the deployment of such technologies on transmission infrastructure, which directly benefits midstream operators, pipeline companies, and LNG terminal operators that own or manage transmission assets. The shared savings incentive and reporting requirements
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"The Advancing GETs Act aligns with Project 2025's focus on FERC-led grid reliability and transmission reform by incentivizing grid-enhancing technologies that improve efficiency and resilience, supporting FERC's role in optimizing transmission infrastructure. Both emphasize FERC's authority to enhance grid performance and reliability through regulatory action."
— 404 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Unlike vertically integrated utilities that are accountable to state elected officials and state public utility commissions, RTOs and their participants are accountable only to FERC. Even then, however, accountability is indirect through the tariffs (rules) that the RTOs adopt and FERC approves. In addition, unlike utilities, generators in an RTO have no obligation to serve customers. New Policies FERC must make reliability of the grid and service to end use top priorities. To do so, it should: l Reexamine the premise of RTOs. RTOs no longer seem to work for the benefit of the American people. Marginal price auctions for energy are not ensuring the reliability of the grid and are not passing the full economic benefits of subsidized renewables on to customers. FERC needs to reexamine the RTOs under its jurisdiction to make sure that they procure reliable and affordable electricity for the benefit of the American people. l Ensure that RTOs return to market fundamentals so that they serve customers, not special interests and political causes. FERC should require RTOs to ensure that reliable, dispatchable resources are properly valued to provide electricity when needed for the benefit of customers. Potential reforms could include: 1. Requiring renewable generators to provide intra-day backup by dispatchable on-demand generation so that bids by intermittent resources into RTOs equate fairly with far more valuable on-demand dispatchable resources; 2. Creating dual energy markets for dispatchable and nondispatchable resources; or 3. Eliminating capacity markets where intermittent resources participate and instead establishing “reliability” markets where dispatchable on-demand resources participate. Alternatives to marginal price auctions also should be considered. l Direct the RTOs to ensure that the economic benefits of renewables (like tax credits and no fuel costs) are passed on to customers. — 405 — Department of Energy and Related Commissions l End undue discrimination that allows subsidized resources to distort price formation in RTOs. l Affirm its commitment that states will decide whether to join an RTO instead of imposing RTOs on regions that do not want them. FERC should also consider allowing states to enter into non-RTO power pools with alternative structures for the sharing of resources and electric generation. FERC: ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION Mission/Overview Under the Federal Power Act, FERC has the authority to regulate the rates, terms, and conditions of interstate electric transmission. (Pursuant to court cases, interstate transmission can be entirely within a state, although the part of Texas served by ERCOT is not under FERC transmission jurisdiction.) Needed Reforms FERC has been considering how to plan for and allocate costs for new trans- mission lines and how new generation resources will be interconnected to the transmission grid. (Transmission expansion and replacement decisions are usu- ally made by local utilities or by an RTO or regional planning entity). Through two major rulemakings,118 FERC is attempting to facilitate the building of more long-range transmission lines and to socialize more of the costs of transmission buildouts to more customers in order to make it cheaper for renewable develop- ers (primarily) to interconnect to the grid and sell their power. Socializing such costs is a form of subsidy for generators and will cause further price distortions in RTOs and ISOs that will make it less economical for reliable, dispatchable resources like coal, nuclear, and natural gas to stay operational and support reliability.119 Also, under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, DOE and FERC are granted authority to site and permit high-priority transmission lines as National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs). The Inflation Reduction Act provides funding to DOE to support transmission expansion.120 These initiatives will undermine state input and decision-making. FERC will consider rules on how NIETC transmission applications are to be made. New Policies FERC should either change course on its existing transmission rulemakings (if still in progress) or issue a new rulemaking to:
AI Analysis:
"The Advancing GETs Act aligns with Project 2025's focus on modernizing energy infrastructure and improving grid efficiency, particularly through incentives for transmission enhancements that support reliable and resilient energy delivery. Both emphasize upgrading transmission systems to better integrate energy resources and reduce inefficiencies, reflecting shared goals in grid modernization and infrastructure investment."
— 416 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise 119. During the deregulation-induced 230,000 MW combined cycle plant boom of 1999 to 2003 and beyond, developers were able to move ahead only with projects that were supported by adequate available gas transmission and near existing localized transmission hubs. Delinking transmission responsibility from power generation, coupled with the heavy incentivization of renewable over gas projects, has promoted the construction of a large class of partially usable and often partially stranded generation-only assets. 120. U.S. Department of Energy, Grid Deployment Office, “Grid Deployment Office Launches Transmission Siting and Economic Development Grants Program with $760M Inflation Reduction Act Investment,” January 13, 2023, https://www.energy.gov/gdo/articles/grid-deployment-office-launches-transmission-siting-and- economic-development-grants (accessed March 13, 2023). 121. H.R. 6586, Natural Gas Act, Public Law No. 75-688, § 7. 122. Ibid., §§ 4 and 5. 123. Ibid., § 7(c). 124. West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. ___ (2022), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf (accessed March 2, 2022). 125. H.R. 6586, Natural Gas Act, Public Law No. 75-688, § 3. 126. U.S. Department of Energy U.S.-based operating export LNG terminals are located in Louisiana (3); Texas (2); Alaska (1); Georgia (1); and Maryland (1). Map, “North American LNG Export Terminals: Existing,” in U.S. Department of Energy, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, “North American LNG Export Terminals— Existing, Approved not Yet Built, and Proposed,” February 8, 2023, https://www.ferc.gov/natural-gas/lng (accessed February 14, 2023). 127. Niina H. Farah, Miranda Wilson, and Carlos Anchondo, “Jordan Cove Project Dies. What It Means for FERC, Gas,” Energywire, December 2, 2021, https://www.eenews.net/articles/jordan-cove-project-dies-what-it- means-for-ferc-gas/ (accessed February 14, 2023). 128. Carlos Anchondo, “Biden Admin Backs Contested Alaska LNG Project,” Energywire, October 25, 2022, https:// www.eenews.net/articles/biden-admin-backs-contested-alaska-lng-project/ (accessed February 14, 2023). 129. As discussed in the section on the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, infra, these automatic approvals should be extended to allies of the United States, not just to those with free trade agreements. 130. H.R. 11510, Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, Public Law No. 93-438, 93rd Congress, October 11, 1974, https:// www.congress.gov/93/statute/STATUTE-88/STATUTE-88-Pg1233.pdf (accessed February 27, 2023). 131. H.R. 9757, Atomic Energy Act of 1954, Public Law No. 83-703, 83rd Congress, August 30, 1954, §§ 21–28, https://www.congress.gov/83/statute/STATUTE-68/STATUTE-68-Pg919.pdf (accessed February 27, 2023). 132. S. 512, Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, Public Law No. 115-439, January 14, 2019, § 103, https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ439/PLAW-115publ439.pdf (accessed March 2, 2023). 133. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Congressional Budget Justification Fiscal Year 2022, June 2021, p. xii, https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1100/v37/index.html (accessed March 2, 2023). — 417 — 13 ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY Mandy M. Gunasekara MISSION STATEMENT Creating a better environmental tomorrow with clean air, safe water, healthy soil, and thriving communities. A conservative U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will take a more supportive role toward local and state efforts, building them up so that they may lead in a meaningful fashion. This will include the sharing of federal resources and agency expertise. Creating environmental standards from the ground up is con- sistent with the concept of cooperative federalism embedded within many of the agency’s authorizing statutes and will create earnest relationships among local offi- cials and regulated stakeholders. This in turn will promote a culture of compliance. A conservative EPA will track success by measured progress as opposed to the current perpetual process and will convey this progress to the public in clear, con- cise terms. True transparency will be a defining characteristic of a conservative EPA. This will be reflected in all agency work, including the establishment of open- source science, to build not only transparency and awareness among the public, but also trust. The challenge of creating a conservative EPA will be to balance justified skep- ticism toward an agency that has long been amenable to being coopted by the Left for political ends against the need to implement the agency’s true function: pro- tecting public health and the environment in cooperation with states. Further, the EPA needs to be realigned away from attempts to make it an all-powerful energy and land use policymaker and returned to its congressionally sanctioned role as environmental regulator.
AI Analysis:
"The Advancing GETs Act focuses on improving transmission reliability and resilience through grid-enhancing technologies, which aligns with Project 2025's emphasis on grid reliability and resource diversity. However, the bill does not directly address reserve margins reform, natural gas infrastructure, or cyber/physical security specifics highlighted in the policy."
— 401 — Department of Energy and Related Commissions nation in the summer110 and winter.111 Cyber and physical attacks also threaten the grid. Specific areas for reform include the following: l Limit the impact of subsidized renewables on price formation. Subsidized renewable resources are undermining electric reliability in RTOs. The increase in subsidized, intermittent resources is undermining the ability of RTOs’ pricing models to support the reliable dispatchable generation that is needed to serve the grid at all times.112 l Reform the application of reserve margins. Reserve margins have become largely meaningless. Traditionally, the electric industry has used “reserve margins” to ensure that the grid has enough power plants to guarantee reliability. Generally, reserve margins represent the amount of generation available (power plants) to meet peak electric demand (the time of day and year when people are using the most electricity) plus a percentage of additional generation for backup.113 However, given the increasing number of intermittent resources (like solar, which may be available during the heat of the day but disappears as the sun sets), other dispatchable generation needs to be available to meet customers’ electricity requirements. Therefore, the definitions and calculations of reserve margins and peak load need to be updated to focus on the modern grid’s reliability challenges for all times of the day and year. l Recognize the interdependence of electric generation and natural gas. The interdependence of electric generation and natural gas pipelines continues to grow. Given natural gas’s important role in generating electricity, especially as backup when renewables are not available, lack of natural gas pipelines or attacks on existing pipelines could threaten our ability to generate electricity. l Expand resource diversity and reliability. Resource diversity is needed to support grid reliability. Pressure to use 100 percent renewables or non– carbon emitting resources threatens the electric grid’s reliability. A grid that has access to dispatchable resources such as coal, nuclear, and natural gas for generating power is inherently more reliable and resilient. l Protect against cyber and physical attacks. The threat of cyber and physical attacks on electric infrastructure by foreign actors like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, as well as terrorists, continues to grow. The attacks with guns on substations in North Carolina in December 2022 that left customers without power demonstrate the grid’s vulnerability.114 — 402 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise New Policies l Reform RTOs to require reliability. FERC should direct RTOs to establish reliability pricing for eligible dispatchable generation resources or require intermittent resources to procure backup power for times when they are not available to operate. In addition, Congress should repeal subsidies for generation resources. l Update the definition and calculation of reserve margins to support reliability. FERC, NERC, and DOE should revise the definition of reserve margins to ensure the grid’s reliability throughout the day and the year. This will mean recognizing that reserve margins may need to consider “net peak” and exclude non-dispatchable resources from inclusion in reserve margin calculations. l Expand and protect natural gas infrastructure in support of electric generation. FERC needs to ensure that its consideration of natural gas pipeline applications recognizes the role that natural gas plays in electric reliability. FERC also needs to make sure that RTO pricing mechanisms support generators that need to contract for natural gas service on a firm basis. l Support resource diversity and reliability. FERC, NERC, and DOE play key roles in balancing consumer, industrial, and national defense interests to ensure an ongoing reliable, plentiful, and accessible national electricity supply. NERC reliability reviews and FERC’s reliability roles should be aware that overreliance on any one power generation fuel source entails concurrent cost and availability risk. FERC should reform market rules that unduly discriminate against dispatchable resources needed for reliability. l Strengthen security against cyber and physical threats. FERC and NERC need to enhance the security of the bulk power system by, for example, banning Chinese-made components, investing in transformers, and hardening substations and other critical infrastructure. DOE should play a leading role in identifying and addressing threats to the grid. FERC: RTOS/ISOS AND “ELECTRIC POWER MARKETS” Mission/Overview For more than 20 years, FERC has issued regulations and directed policies for the creation and operation of regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) to manage the dispatch of generation and
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.
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