Interior’s Renewables Attacks Snag Power Lines

I can now confirm the Trump administration’s recent attacks on renewables permitting appear to be impacting transmission projects, too.

Over the past two weeks, the Interior Department has laid forth secretarial orders implementing a new regime for renewables permitting on federal lands. This has appeared to essentially kill the odds of utility-scale solar or wind projects on federal land getting approved any time soon. Public timetables for large solar projects across the American West have suddenly slipped back by years-long intervals, and other mega-projects – like Esmeralda 7 – appear now to be trapped in limbo.

Amidst this flurry of secretarial orders, Nevada’s Republican Governor Joe Lombardo has signaled that transmission lines attached to renewable energy are also being trapped in the political thicket, even if the energy they would connect to is on private land. In a letter first reported by E&E News, Lombardo told Interior that his office has heard the recent orders have “not only stopped solar development on federal lands in Nevada, but also on private land where federal approvals such as transmission line rights of way are required.” Lombardo pleaded with Interior to “empower career staff to continue issuing approvals for projects sited on private lands where there is a federal nexus, such as transmission line rights of way.”

John Hensley, the senior vice president for markets and policy analysis for the American Clean Power Association, confirmed to me that, at a minimum, the newly anti-renewable Interior has also been hyper-focused on transmission lines connected to solar and wind. “I do believe that when considering transmission projects that are principally designed to enable wind and solar, those are certainly getting increased scrutiny and being brought into focus,” he told me this week.

As of today, I can report at least one major transmission line in Nevada that would connect to solar appears to be delayed: NV Energy’s Greenlink North, the second part of a sprawling transmission project that could, according to its permitting documents, cross areas with upwards of at least two dozen pending solar project applications, according to its environmental impact statement. The other major arm of the project, known as Greenlink West, was approved by the Biden administration but then met with litigation from environmental groups who are opposed to it over the possibility that it will harm endangered wildlife.

This spring, it looked like Greenlink North – which NV Energy has claimed is not tied to the completion of any individual solar project – would be an example of Trump embracing transmission and a neutral “all of the above” approach to power lines. The Bureau of Land Management released the environmental impact statement for the project and said it would deliver its final ruling on Sept. 12. In a press release, the agency said the line was “designed to increase transmission capacity and reliability across the state in support of American Energy Dominance.”

However, that was before far-right members of Congress asked the administration last month to attack renewable energy in exchange for passing Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

Quietly, as of today, the Bureau of Land Management’s updated public project timetable for Greenlink North now says its record of decision will be released by Sept. 30. An 18-day slippage might seem benign, but agencies, including BLM, often use the end of a month marker as boilerplate when they’re unsure of when they’ll actually finish something. One can easily imagine this date slipping far beyond September, unless something changes.

It is altogether unclear what led BLM to slide the timetable back for Greenlink North to an end-of-month date like this. Yesterday, the agency uploaded appendixes to the permitting documents for the project, indicating things were moving smoothly. The agency did not release a public explanation for the deadline change.

Patrick Donnelly, an organizer with Center for Biological Diversity, told me last week that he’s split on how to feel about the Trump administration’s attacks on solar and related transmission projects in Nevada. On the one hand, in his view, stopping Greenlink North “will be beneficial for the environment.” I have no doubt he’s probably celebrating the delay that I am reporting today.

But Donnelly sees the obvious downsides. “If we’re looking at killing renewable energy, that is extremely harmful and we do not support that. We’ve always said there is a right place to put renewable energy on public lands,” he said. “I don’t want my home destroyed by solar panels. But I also don’t want no solar energy.”

I asked BLM to confirm that transmission projects linked to renewable energy are also subject to the ongoing permitting freeze, as well as for an explanation of the Greenlink North delay. BLM confirmed receipt of my request but was unable to provide comment by press time. We will update our story accordingly if and when we receive a statement from them.