HR7607-119

What This Bill Does

The METRIC Act modernizes how the federal government measures national energy inputs. It finds that traditional primary-energy metrics were built for combustion-based fuels and can misrepresent noncombustion sources such as solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and other systems. DOE, with EIA support, must study the validity and limits of current primary-energy indicators, assess how those metrics affect understanding of efficiency, electrification, decarbonization, and economic productivity, review alternatives and international best practices, and recommend improvements or replacements. DOE must report to the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee within 18 months. The bill also amends EIA's statutory duties to require incident-energy statistics. EIA must collect survey or reporting data where feasible, develop annual model-based estimates where direct collection is not feasible, use data from manufacturers, operators, users, physical models, federal research institutions, national laboratories, NASA, NOAA, and comparable observational sources, integrate incident-energy data into existing EIA products with primary and final energy statistics, publish machine-readable data, assumptions, and methods, and disclose uncertainty.

Who Benefits and How

Energy modelers, renewable-energy analysts, researchers comparing combustible and noncombustible systems, market participants, policymakers, and public users of EIA data benefit from incident-energy statistics, better comparability, public assumptions, machine-readable methods, and uncertainty disclosure.

Who Bears the Burden and How

DOE must complete the primary-energy accounting study and report recommendations within 18 months, while EIA must collect incident-energy data, create annual model-based estimates, integrate the new statistics into existing products, and publish machine-readable assumptions, methods, and uncertainty levels. Energy-conversion technology operators, manufacturers responding to surveys, national laboratories, NASA data providers, NOAA data providers, and federal energy-statistics staff must provide data, modeling inputs, remote-sensing information, and documentation.

Key Provisions

• Directs DOE and EIA to study current primary-energy indicators, their limitations, alternatives, international practices, and recommended improvements within 18 months.
• Requires EIA to develop, collect, analyze, and report incident-energy statistics.
• Requires survey or reporting data where feasible and annual model-based estimates where direct data collection is not feasible.
• Directs EIA to use manufacturers, operators, physical models, federal research institutions, national laboratories, NASA, NOAA, and remote-sensing sources.
• Requires machine-readable public data, assumptions, methods, uncertainty disclosure, and side-by-side comparison with primary and final energy statistics.