U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Alex Padilla (D-CA) today introduced legislation that would reauthorize their Preventing Outages With Enhanced Resilience and Operations Nationwide (POWER ON) Act to help weatherize electric grids across the nation.
Support reauthorizing the Department of Energy grid resilience grant program created by the POWER ON Act to help weatherize electric grids and protect energy infrastructure against future extreme weather events.
Occurrences
Evidence
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
GovInfo lists S. 4827 in the 119th Congress with last action date June 18, 2026: Cornyn, for himself and Padilla, introduced the bill; it was read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The full title is to reauthorize a program for preventing outages and enhancing electric-grid resilience.
legacy_unverified · Source version not recorded · locator unknown
Cornyn's Senate office said Cornyn and Padilla introduced legislation to reauthorize the POWER ON Act to help weatherize electric grids, and that the legislation would reauthorize the DOE grid resilience grant program to prevent a lapse in funding for protecting energy infrastructure against extreme weather.
Assessments
Cornyn materially advanced the reauthorization by introducing S. 4827 with Sen. Padilla in the 119th Congress, and the bill directly targets the DOE grid resilience program created by the POWER ON Act. However, the available official record shows only introduction and referral to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on June 18, 2026, with no enactment or final reauthorization. Because the promised policy outcome has not been delivered, this is a failed but serious legislative attempt rather than fulfillment.