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The American Clean Power Association wrote to its members about federal guidance that has been “widely variable and changing quickly.”

Chaos within the Trump administration has all but paralyzed environmental permitting decisions on solar and wind projects in crucial government offices, including sign-offs needed for projects on private lands.
According to an internal memo issued by the American Clean Power Association, the renewables trade association that represents the largest U.S. solar and wind developers, Trump’s Day One executive order putting a 60-day freeze on final decisions for renewable energy projects on federal lands has also ground key pre-decisional work in government offices responsible for wetlands and species protection to a halt. Renewables developers and their representatives in Washington have pressed the government for answers, yet received inconsistent information on its approach to renewables permitting that varies between lower level regional offices.
In other words, despite years of the Republican Party inching slowly toward “all of the above” energy and climate rhetoric that seemed to leave room for renewables, solar and wind developers have so far found themselves at times shut out of the second Trump administration.
ACP’s memo, which is dated February 3 and was sent to its members, states that companies are facing major challenges getting specific sign-offs and guidance from the Army Corps of Engineers, which handles wetlands permits, as well as the Fish and Wildlife Service, our nation’s primary office for endangered species and migratory bird regulation.
Federal environmental protection laws require that large construction projects — even those on state and private lands — seek direction from these agencies before building can commence. Wetlands permitting has long been the job of the Army Corps, which determines whether particularly wet areas are protected under the Clean Water Act. Wetlands have historically been a vector for opponents of large pipelines and mines, as such areas are often co-located with sensitive ecosystems that activists want to preserve.
Fish and Wildlife, meanwhile, often must weigh in on development far from federal acreage because, according to the agency, two-thirds of federally listed species have at least some habitat on private land. FWS also handles the conservation of bird species that migrate between the U.S. and Canada, which are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Any changes to federal bird consultation could impact wind developers because turbine blades can kill birds.
Now, apparently, all those important decision-makers are getting harder to read — or even reach. Army Corps district activity has become “widely variable” and is “changing quickly,” per the memo, with at least two districts indicating that for “wind or solar projects” they “will not be issuing any JDs,” meaning jurisdictional determinations for federally protected wetlands — that is, they won’t even say whether federal wetlands are present at a construction site or not. According to the Army Corps, receiving a JD is optional, but it is nevertheless an essential tool for developers trying to avoid future legal problems in the permitting process.
In addition, emails from staff in FWS’ migratory birds protection office now apparently include a “boilerplate notice” that says the office “is unable to communicate with wind facilities regarding permitting at this time.”
Usually, renewables developers just get a simple go-ahead from the government saying that they don’t have wetlands or bird nests present and that therefore work can begin. Or maybe they do have one of those features at the construction site, so guardrails need to be put in place. Either way, this is supposed to be routine stuff unless a project is controversial, like the Keystone XL pipeline or Pebble Mine in Alaska.
It’s not immediately clear how solar and wind developers move forward in this situation if they are building in areas where wetlands or protected species even may be present. Violating wetlands and species protection laws carries legal penalties, and with the Trump administration arranging itself in such an openly hostile fashion against renewables developers, it’s probably not a good idea to break those laws.
Unfortunately for industry, the ACP memo describes a confusing state of affairs. “Written guidance from ACOE [Army Corps of Engineers] to industry has been expected but members have not seen it yet. Actions and communications from regional districts appear to be guided by internal ACOE emails,” the document states. Staffing within the Army Corps is “uncertain” due to questions over whether money from the Inflation Reduction Act — which provided funds to hire permitting personnel — will be “available to continue funding staff positions in some offices,” or whether permitting staff will take the administration’s voluntary resignation offer, which the memo claims “is apparently still actively being pushed on staff with emails.”
Meanwhile, at Fish and Wildlife, ACP’s members “have indicated some staff are still taking phone calls and responding to emails to answer questions, while others are not.”
As with a lot happening in the early era of Trump 2.0, much of the permitting mess is still unclear. We don’t know who is behind these difficulties because there have been no public policy or guidance changes from the Army Corps or Fish and Wildlife. Trump did order agencies to stop issuing “new or renewed approvals” for wind projects shortly after entering office, but the ACP memo describes something altogether different: agency staff potentially refusing to declare whether an approval is even necessary to build on state or private lands.
Another example of how confusing this is? Interior had issued a 60-day pause on final decisions for solar projects, but the Army Corps isn’t under Interior’s control — it’s part of the Defense Department.
It’s also unclear if the contagion of permitting confusion has spread to other agencies, such as the Federal Aviation Administration, which we previously reported must regularly weigh in on wind turbines for aviation safety purposes. As I reported before Inauguration Day, anti-wind activists urged the Trump administration to essentially weaponize environmental laws against wind energy projects.
ACP didn’t respond to a request for comment. I also reached out to the Army Corps of Engineers and Fish and Wildlife Service, so I’ll let you know if and when I hear back from any of them.
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Much of California’s biggest county is now off limits to energy storage.
Residents of a tiny unincorporated community outside of Los Angeles have trounced a giant battery project in court — and in the process seem to have blocked energy storage projects in more than half of L.A. County, the biggest county in California.
A band of frustrated homeowners and businesses have for years aggressively fought a Hecate battery storage project proposed in Acton, California, a rural unincorporated community of about 7,000 residents, miles east of the L.A. metro area. As I wrote in my first feature for The Fight over a year ago, this effort was largely motivated by concerns about Acton as a high wildfire risk area. Residents worried that in the event of a large fire, a major battery installation would make an already difficult emergency response situation more dangerous. Acton leaders expressly opposed the project in deliberations before L.A. County planning officials, arguing that BESS facilities in general were not allowed under the existing zoning code in unincorporated areas.
On the other side, county officials maintained that the code was silent on battery storage as such, but said that in their view, these projects were comparable to distribution infrastructure from a land use perspective, and therefore would be allowable under the code.
Last week, the residents of Acton won, getting the courts to toss out the county’s 2021 memorandum allowing battery storage facilities in unincorporated areas – which make up more than 65% of L.A. County.
Judge Curtis Kin wrote in his October 14 ruling that “such expansive use of the interpretation runs contrary to the Zoning Code itself,” and that the “exclusion” of permission for battery storage in the code means it isn’t allowed, plain and simple.
“Consequently, respondents and real parties’ reliance on the existence of other interpretive memos and guidance by the [Planning] Director is beside the point,” Kin stated. “There is no dispute the Director has the authority to issue memos and interpretations for Zoning code provisions subject to interpretation, but, as discussed above, such authority cannot be used in such a way as to violate the provisions of the Zoning Code.”
The court also declared the Hecate project approval void and ordered the company to seek permits under the California Environmental Quality Act if it still wants to build. This will halt the project’s development for the foreseeable future. Alene Taber, the attorney representing Acton residents, told me she has received no indication from Hecate’s legal team about whether they will appeal the ruling.
Hecate declined to comment on the outcome.
Taber’s perspective is unique as a self-described “rural rights” attorney who largely represents unincorporated communities with various legal disputes. She told me this ruling demonstrates a serious risk regulators face in moving too fast for a host community, especially given rising opposition to battery storage in California. Since the Moss Landing fire, opposition to storage projects has escalated rapidly across the state – despite profound tech differences between more modern designs proposed today and the antiquated system that burned up in that incident.
I asked Taber if she thought California enacting a new law last week to beef up battery fire safety oversight could stem the tide of concerns about battery storage. In response, she railed against a separate statute giving energy companies – including battery developers – the ability to work around town ordinances and moratoria targeting their industry.
“Even though the county didn’t consider the community input — which it should’ve — the county process at least still allowed for communities to appeal the project. And they’re also at least supposed to consider what the local zoning code said,” Taber told me. “Local communities are now sidelined all together. They’re saying they don’t care what the concerns are. Where’s the consideration for how these projects are now being sited in high fire zones?”
I was unable to reach Los Angeles County officials before press time for The Fight, but it’s worth noting that, amid the battle over Hecate’s approval, L.A. County planning officials began preparing to update their renewable energy ordinance to include battery storage development regulation – an indication they may need new methods to site and build more battery storage. There’s no timeline for when those changes will take place.
And more of the week’s top news about renewable energy conflicts.
1. Benton County, Washington – A state permitting board has overridden Governor Bob Ferguson to limit the size of what would’ve been Washington’s largest wind project over concerns about hawks.
2. Adams County, Colorado – This is a new one: Solar project opponents here are making calls to residents impersonating the developer to collect payments.
3. Lander County, Nevada – Trump’s move to kill the Esmeralda 7 solar mega-project has prompted incredible backlash in Congress, as almost all of Nevada’s congressional delegation claims that not a single renewables project in the U.S. has gotten a federal permit since July.
A conversation with David Gahl of SI2
This week I spoke with David Gahl, executive director of the Solar and Storage Industries Institute, or SI2, which is the Solar Energy Industries Association’s independent industry research arm. Usually I’d chat with Gahl about the many different studies and social science efforts they undertake to try and better understand siting conflicts in the U.S.. But SI2 reached out first this time, hoping to talk about how all of that work could be undermined by the Trump administration’s grant funding cuts tied to the government shutdown. (The Energy Department did not immediately get back to me with a request for comment for this story, citing the shutdown.)
The following conversation was edited lightly for clarity.
So what SI2 funding could be cut because of the federal shutdown, and what has it been put toward?
On October 1, the Energy Department put out a list of about $7.5 billion in grants they were terminating. Approximately a week later, another larger list of grants that were slated for termination found its way into the press. There’s an outstanding question about what this other list floating around means, and only DOE can verify the document’s accuracy, but we have two projects that were on that bigger list.
The first was $2.5 million supporting research into how power companies engage communities. We were coming up with a list of community engagement innovations — the idea was to actually test, through rigorous social science research at project sites, which of these innovations produces the best outcomes. We were going to have empirical data that said, If you approach communities in this way you’re more likely to get support, and if you approach communities this other way you wouldn’t.
The second was $3 million to bring diverse stakeholders together to talk about siting and permitting reform, best practices, guidance to make development smoother. The concept there was to bring traditionally warring parties to come up with a framework and tools to help the siting process. If you can get people together to come up with best practices, you can typically move things faster.
This was an “uncommon dialogue” – there was “uncommon dialogue” before on hydropower resources – and this was related to large-scale solar facilities and conservation. It’s not location-specific, more bringing the groups together to talk about a higher level set of issues, not specific projects. Keep in mind, this is relatively small potatoes.
What was the status of that work?
It started earlier in the year and it’s been rolling along. There’s been a lot of progress made so far. People have developed work plans and are working through the issues.
If the funding is canceled, there’s also opportunity for private money to potentially step in, but it puts both initiatives in a precarious place. But to the broader point, the administration has talked about how it wants energy “abundance” and more electrons on the grid to meet growing demand. And these projects funded by the department are addressing key problems to putting electrons onto the grid. Cancellation of these grants is just a complete reversal of what they’re talking about in other forums.
How so? Help me understand how this work actually trickles down to individual project decisions.
One of the challenges with siting any kind of large-scale energy project is getting community buy-in and ensuring the permitting process moves smoothly, that parties aren’t going to be litigating against each other. So if you can come up with ways to make sure the communities feel heard and are designed according to what communities want, you can probably avoid some litigation down the road.
Do you have any indication this government supports the work you’re describing?
What they’ve made clear is they want more electrons to come onto the grid to support data centers and the advancement of artificial intelligence. Canceling grants like these … I mean, we’re talking about potentially canceling projects that make it harder to meet the goal of putting more electricity onto the grid.