H.R. 6176: Electricity Transmission Scorecard Act

HR6176 would create a federal scorecard system for the transmission grid, aimed at making a notoriously opaque part of the power system more transparent. Covered transmission owners would have to file a biannual TIAPS report, while Independent System Operators, Regional Transmission Organizations, and transmission planning entities would file an annual RIAPS report. Those scorecards would have to be submitted in a machine-readable, open-data format, and the first reports would be due not later than 6 months after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issues a final rule.

The bill is detailed about what gets measured. For transmission owners, the scorecard must cover ratepayer affordability, financing costs, investment prudency and cost recovery, investment effectiveness, capital expenditure bias, system reliability and availability, physical system performance, interconnection and access fairness, non-operational cost recovery, and interregional and regional planning integration. Regional entities would have to aggregate those utility-level metrics and add broader measures like market efficiency, regional interconnection performance, regional and interregional development, seams management and resolution, and greenhouse gas emissions intensity.

The measure also tries to prevent self-grading. Scorecards must be verified by independent evaluators approved by the Commission, with strict rotation limits: covered transmission owners could use an evaluator for no more than 5 consecutive periods and no more than 15 times in 10 years, while ISO/RTO/planning entities are capped at 3 consecutive periods and 7 times in 10 years. Verification protocols must be reviewed at least once every 3 years, and independent audits by National Laboratories or other qualified institutions must be made public within 2 months after completion. Violations would be enforced under section 316A of the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. 825o–1.

The timeline is aggressive. The final rule is due not later than 1 year after enactment. A public transparency portal must be initiated within 12 months and available within 18 months. The Commission must also hold technical conferences not less than once every 3 years, and a 17-member stakeholder advisory group would feed recommendations into the process; the Commission would have to respond in writing within 60 days. The bill reaches a wide set of transmission owners, including entities outside ISO/RTO structures if they own, operate, or control transmission facilities and, for facilities not part of the bulk-power system, have total transmission capacity of 100 megawatts or greater.