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Hotspots

Congressman Asks Trump to Shut Down the Empire Wind Project

And more of the week’s top renewable energy fights.

Map of renewable energy fights.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Long Island, New York We begin today with a crucial stand-off for the future of energy off the coast of New York City: Rep. Chris Smith – one of the loudest anti-wind voices in Congress – is asking the Trump administration to shut down active work on the Empire Wind project.

  • Few in Congress have frustrated offshore wind developers more than Smith, a New Jersey Republican who used legislative maneuvers to get a Government Accountability Office study greenlit about the impacts of offshore wind on whale species.
  • In a letter Friday, which has not been previously reported, Smith requested the project be forcibly paused until the Trump administration can complete its purported government-wide review of the wind industry.
  • Smith also asked a host of additional mitigation requirements be placed on Empire Wind before it can proceed, including new specific requirements on impacts to air travel. The letter claims – without specifics – that the project could impact radar interference “in the shadow of three major airports.”
  • “Empire Wind cannot safely proceed until much needed further review [can] be done to protect the public and our eastern seaboard. I ask that you do everything in your power to halt Equinor’s underhanded rush to begin piledriving and block construction until the critical assessment can be completed,” Smith wrote.
  • I’ve asked Equinor to comment on this letter, as a stop-work order would be a massive escalation in the war on offshore wind. Alyse Sharpe, a public affairs specialist with the Interior Department, told me in an email the agency does "not comment on congressional correspondence" but said it "takes all correspondence from Congress seriously and reviews each matter" and should there be "any updates on this topic, we will provide further information at the appropriate time."

2. Gulf of Maine – American floating offshore wind is now taking one more step backwards, as Mitsubishi pulls out of the test arrays it was working on under Biden with researchers at the University of Maine.

  • Mitsubishi subsidiary Pine Tree Offshore Wind in late March requested Maine regulators cancel their bid to sell power to the state from the turbines, which I explained last year was supposed to be the beginning of a bright future for floating offshore wind in Maine. But conflicts over where to site an assembly and construction facility bedeviled progress in the state. And then came Trump.

3. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – Speaking of bad wind news, the town of Nantucket has sued to block the SouthCoast offshore wind project.

  • The lawsuit alleges SouthCoast’s environmental review was flawed. It is such a transparent “sue-and-settle” maneuver that conservative website Daily Caller said Nantucket was using the “Green Left’s Favorite Legal Strategy.”

4. Washington County, Rhode Island – If you want a small piece of good news for offshore wind, the primary lawsuit against Revolution Wind’s environmental review suffered a major setback this week.

  • District Judge Royce Lamberth on Tuesday knocked down many of the claims raised in the initial lawsuit on the grounds plaintiffs lacked standing, siding with project developer Orsted. Lamberth is a conservative judge who was first appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan.
  • The case will still proceed on multiple grounds, including the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act. But advocacy organizations backing the lawsuit – including the pro-fishing Responsible Offshore Development Alliance – no longer have valid claims under the suit. It’ll now proceed with only the individual fishermen and property owners who were on the case.

5. Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania – In another piece of good news, Scranton, Pennsylvania, approved the city’s first solar project, despite nearby residents speaking in opposition to it.

  • The Bear Peak Power 3.2 megawatt project will power 400 to 500 homes in the local community. This project might not be that large, but it’s still an accomplishment.

6. Carroll County, Arkansas – Less positive solar news: they’re banning solar and wind in the Ozarks.

  • Carroll County’s ban was enacted in late March as a response to the Nimbus Wind project by Scout Clean Energy. Anti-solar sentiments appear to have hitched a ride on the moratorium. The Nimbus project itself is not impacted by this ban.

7. Noble County, Indiana – Landowners opposed to plans for a Geenex solar farm are escalating their war on the project to a lawsuit against their board of supervisors, alleging conflicts of interest around solar decisionmaking.

  • The lawsuit alleges a member of the board of supervisors executed a lease agreement with Geenex for the Southern Pike Solar project, a development still incredibly early in the works. Geenex has yet to submit its formal application to the county, but that hasn’t stopped a small but loud band of organizers from forming a Facebook group opposing all solar on farmland in Noble.

8. Olmstead County, Minnesota – It seems local control won’t win the day over a Ranger Power utility-scale solar project in the Gopher State.

  • Residents in this southeastern rural part of Minnesota are opposing the Lemon Hill Solar project citing impacts to farmland. But a board member for one of the townships with disgruntled locals told TV station KTTC the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission will ultimately have the final say on whether it gets built: “In the end, we have to tell them our hands are tied.”

9. Van Zandt County, Texas – A Texas County is issuing a stop work order on a Taaleri Energia battery project alleging it is violating the local fire safety code.

  • According to one local media account, Van Zandt is ordering Taaleri Energia to provide additional documentation about fire planning for the Amador battery storage project by April 7 or the company must cease construction, and officials are threatening misdemeanor charges if the order is defied.

10. Sacramento County, California – A D.E. Shaw Renewables utility-scale project is taking one step forward after a local planning council recommended county officials give it the green light.

11. Shasta County, California – Elsewhere in California, ecological concerns about renewables are winning out over the pace of decarbonization.

  • Staff for the California Energy Commission have recommended the state reject the ConnectGen Fountain Wind project in Shasta County, on the grounds it would create “significant and unavoidable environmental impacts and conflicts with local land use laws.”

12. Ada County, Idaho – We conclude today’s hotspots with, as Jon Stewart likes to say, a ‘Moment of Zen’: the city of Boise is rejecting a challenge to battery storage development.

  • City officials responded to concerns at a packed town hall this week by saying their public permitting presentations answered questions raised by residents and that the complaints raised did not equate to legal flaws in their decisions.

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Q&A

How Developers Should Think of the New IRA Credit Rules

A conversation with Scott Cockerham of Latham and Watkins.

How Developers Should Think of the New IRA Credit Rules
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s conversation is with Scott Cockerham, a partner with the law firm Latham and Watkins whose expertise I sought to help me best understand the Treasury Department’s recent guidance on the federal solar and wind tax credits. We focused on something you’ve probably been thinking about a lot: how to qualify for the “start construction” part of the new tax regime, which is the primary hurdle for anyone still in the thicket of a fight with local opposition.

The following is our chat lightly edited for clarity. Enjoy.

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Hotspots

An Influential Anti-ESG Activist Targets A Wind Farm

And more of the week’s most important news around renewable energy conflicts.

Map of renewable energy fights.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Carroll County, Arkansas – The head of an influential national right-wing advocacy group is now targeting a wind project in Arkansas, seeking federal intervention to block something that looked like it would be built.

  • Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, recently called on the Trump administration to intervene against the development of Scout Clean Energy’s Nimbus wind project in Arkansas. Consumers’ Research is known as one of the leading anti-ESG advocacy organizations, playing a key role in the “anti-woke” opposition against the climate- and socially-conscious behavior of everyone from utilities to Anheuser-Busch.
  • In a lengthy rant posted to X earlier this month, Hild pointed to Carroll County’s local moratorium on wind projects and claimed Nimbus being built would be “a massive win for ESG radicals – and a slap in the face for local democracy.”
  • As I told you in April, the Nimbus project prompted Carroll County to enact the moratorium but it was grandfathered in because of contracts signed prior to the ban’s enactment.
  • However, even though Nimbus is not sited on federal land, there is a significant weak point for the project: its potential impacts on endangered birds and bats.
  • Scout Clean Energy has been working with the Fish and Wildlife Service since at least 2018 under Trump 1.0. However, the project’s habitat conservation plan was not completed before the start of the current Trump term and Scout did not submit an application for Nimbus to receive an incidental take permit from the Service until May of this year.
  • Enter the Trump administration’s bird-centric wind power crackdown and the impact of Hild’s commentary comes into fuller focus. What will happen to all the years of work that Scout and the Service did? It’s unclear how the project reckons with this heightened scrutiny and risk of undue federal attention.

2. Suffolk County, New York – EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin this week endorsed efforts by activists on Long Island to oppose energy storage in their neighborhoods.

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Spotlight

Trump’s Permit Freeze Prompts Some Solar to Eye Exits

Is there going to be a flight out of Nevada?

Solar in Nevada.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s renewables permitting freeze is prompting solar companies to find an escape hatch from Nevada.

As I previously reported, the Interior Department has all but halted new approvals for solar and wind projects on federal lands. It was entirely unclear how that would affect transmission out west, including in the solar-friendly Nevada desert where major lines were in progress to help power both communities and a growing number of data centers. Shortly after the pause, I took notice of the fact that regulators quietly delayed the timetable by at least two weeks for a key line – the northern portion of NV Energy’s Greenlink project – that had been expected to connect to a litany of solar facilities. Interior told me it still planned to complete the project in September, but it also confirmed that projects specifically necessary for connecting solar onto the grid would face “enhanced” reviews.

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