Regulatory Affairs news highlights: October 2026

 

Recent regulatory headlines we’re tracking include:

 

House passes Load Forecasting Enhancement Act

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Load Forecasting Enhancement Act” (H.R. 9332) in mid-September. If enacted, the bill would direct FERC to establish regional joint boards with state public utility commissions to study and identify best practices in electric load forecasting. Each regional joint board would include a FERC commissioner and a state public utility commissioner. Within one year, FERC would provide a report to Congress with recommended best practices from the regional joint boards.

 

Senate bill would reform federal environmental review and permitting process

A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators on Sept. 30 introduced a new bill called the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026, which if passed would reform the federal environmental review and permitting process. The bill would strengthen FERC’s “backstop” siting authority and allow transmission applications to be processed simultaneously with state reviews. It would also require regional and interregional transmission planning, grid-enhancing technologies, and automated systems, and would require electricity markets to allow distributed generation sources and virtual power plants to participate (giving additional flexibility to meet load). The bill would set deadlines for federal environmental reviews and require data centers to pay for their associated transmission costs.

 

DOE working with Idaho National Lab on project aiming to optimize future transformer designs for high-risk earthquake zones

The DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) announced that is working with Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to conduct the first ever seismic testing on an operational 230-kV power transformer. This will allow engineers to optimize future transformer designs for high-risk earthquake zones, and evaluate a new technology designed to relieve stress on transformer bushings during an earthquake.

 

FBI-CISA fact sheet highlights risks related to use of third-party ICS integrators in critical infrastructure

The FBI and CISA published a fact sheet highlighting and describing risk associated with the use of third-party industrial control system (ICS) integrators in the critical infrastructure space. Critical infrastructure organizations must be aware of the risk of an ICS introducing security issues into its environment. Critical infrastructure organizations can manage this risk by taking precautions including requesting documentation of and understanding how ICS software and hardware will be used in an organization’s environment and including cybersecurity and supply chain controls and requirements in contracts.