YourVoice.Now Summary
Corporate BenefitsTransparency & AccountabilityRenews a program that guards the power grid from hackers — and closes its records to the public.
Corporate Benefits
The Department could sign contracts, grants, and other deals with private firms to run the program. It could also set up pre-approved contracting paths so those deals move faster.
Today's law lists helping small electric utilities check and improve their cyber defenses as one goal of this program. The bill would drop that goal from the list.
Transparency & Accountability
What companies and local agencies share with this program would not be public. The Department could not release it, even if asked.
Federal law usually makes advisory groups with outside members meet in public. This program would not count as one of those groups.
The Energy Secretary alone would pick which companies or agencies get help. No court could review that choice, and no one else could claim the same help.
More about this bill
Most people would notice no change in their power bill or service. The clearest change is what the public can find out. Records that companies and state or local agencies share with a federal cyber-threat program would be closed to the public. Federal, state, tribal, and local public-records laws would not reach them. The Department of Energy could also meet with industry behind closed doors. The Energy Secretary alone would decide who gets help. That choice could not be appealed. The bill would renew a Department of Energy program that helps guard the power grid against hackers. It would let the Department run that work through a new Energy Threat Analysis Center. It also drops one current goal: helping small electric utilities test and improve their own cyber defenses. Funding is set at $50 million for 2027 through 2031 — the same amount as the last five years. That money runs out after 2031. The new records and meeting rules would not expire.
Congressional Summary
Energy Threat Analysis Center Act of 2026 This bill reauthorizes through FY2031 and expands the pilot Energy Sector Operational Support for Cyber Resilience Program of the Department of Energy (DOE). The program aims to protect energy infrastructure through collaboration between the federal government and the energy sector and enhancing DOE’s emergency response capabilities. Specifically, the bill expands the program objectives to include enhancing collaboration between the government and the energy sector to address threats to energy systems, advancing the collective understanding of national security risks and vulnerabilities associated with the energy sector that may be exploited by adversaries, and helping the energy sector increase its understanding of tactics of adversaries that present risks to the energy sector. The bill allows DOE to establish an Energy Threat Analysis Center at one or more physical locations for program activities. The bill also eliminates technical assistance provided under the program to small electric utilities. Under the bill, the decision to provide assistance or information under the program to a governmental or private entity is at the sole discretion of the Secretary of Energy and is unreviewable. The bill authorizes the Secretary to (1) enter into and perform contracts, grants, and other transactions with public agencies, private organizations, and persons to carry out the program; and (2) establish and utilize preapproved national security contracting mechanisms, model partnership agreements, and expedited review procedures for purposes of entering into such transactions. In addition, the bill exempts the program from certain public disclosure and other transparency requirements.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Reported to House
- Action Date
- 2026-05-12
- Date Added
- 2026-06-26
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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