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Spotlight

Trump’s Wind Order Could Hit ‘More Than Half’ of New Projects

The American wind industry faces a potentially existential threat.

Trump and wind turbines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

President Trump’s executive order halting permits and leases for wind projects is starting to look like a potential existential threat to the industry’s future. Just don’t expect everyone to say it out loud.

On Monday, Trump issued an order pausing new federal approvals for wind projects, pending a “comprehensive assessment” of permitting practices, while opening the door to a review of existing leases and previously-issued permits subject to litigation. In the days following the order, lawyers, industry trade representatives, and professionals who work for renewable energy developers explained to me how this could impact essentially any wind project, even ones not sited on federal lands. Wind projects are just so large and impactful that it’s hard to avoid a federal permit.

Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, told me Wednesday afternoon that a pause on federal permits would impact “probably more than half” of all wind projects under development in the U.S.

“If in fact the federal government stops issuing approvals, a significant amount of the pipeline would be interrupted,” Grumet said.

Given the high costs associated with building a wind project, and the likelihood of tariffs making that situation worse, the uncertainty produced by a potential halt to permits may also be enough to cause developers to pull the plug on projects – because even if the order itself winds up tossed out in court, that could take years.

As one renewable energy professional told me anonymously, for fear of reprisal, “If we say, well we probably have the right to do this but we have to sue the government to enforce that right, it’s probably only going to get the [project] deal done 40% of the time now.” He concluded: “It’s definitely going to chill investment.”

It’s early days, and Grumet of ACP says he’s holding out hope that the new president can be walked back from the brink. He’s focusing on the possibility that people in the administration including Trump’s picks to run the Interior and Energy Departments – Doug Burgum and Chris Wright – are willing to listen and potentially help walk back a complete and total permitting shutdown.

When asked however if suing the administration may be required, Grumet said it’s a hypothetical that could come true in the worst case scenarios.

“We’re taking it seriously. But the idea that you would have a pro-business administration trying to stop private companies from taking economically appropriate action on private land is just so out of step with the role of government that we’re expecting they’re going to clarify their intent.”

Fear of a federal nexus

Trump’s executive order is so far-reaching because wind projects regularly need federal permits and other authorizations, even if they’re sited on private or state lands.

A commonly cited federal nexus is endangered species. Opponents of wind energy have long criticized turbines for being a potential threat to birds, but it is the case that many wind projects are collocated within or near areas for rare bird migration. Cultural heritage impacts can often also be a difficulty.

One major threat I’ve been hearing about from many in the industry flew out of left field: the Federal Aviation Administration often must clear wind projects for construction. Matt Eisenson, an expert in renewables permitting at the Columbia University Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, told me FAA approvals are required “very frequently” for wind projects because any land structure more than 200 feet tall must be approved to not be a hazard for commercial planes. And while the order didn’t cite the FAA specifically, it instructed all “relevant agencies” to wind permitting stop giving approvals related to projects, opening the door to aviation-related clearances idling on a procedural tarmac.

“It’s hard to avoid it if you’ve got anything sizable,” an attorney who works in the renewable energy industry told me, adding the total scope of impact is still unknown: “There’s nobody you could talk to who could have nearly all the answers [about Trump’s order]. And that includes developers and companies, because they don’t know either.” (It’s worth noting no industry attorney would be willing to go on the record with me because of ongoing impacts to clients.)

Then there’s the existing leases and permits. It’s easy to assume that a permit issued is a permit safe, and the Biden administration quickly rushed approvals for many wind projects, onshore and offshore, in the final days before Trump’s inauguration.

But the order left open a process to challenge existing approvals through litigation. In the offshore wind space, we’re already seeing public requests for Trump to review the leases for the MarWin project off the coast of Maryland and Delaware, and Atlantic Shores off the coast of New Jersey.

Paul Kamenar, a lawyer involved in a suit challenging Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project, says we can expect the same in his case. Kamenar is with the National Legal and Policy Center, which joined with the Heartland Institute and anti-wind group CFACT to sue the government for approving Coastal Virginia, claiming it did not consider the cumulative impacts of building the project on endangered whales.

Kamenar told me he believes the order shows Trump’s team is sympathetic to the arguments raised in the case, and he’s planning to file a request for the federal government to reconsider its permits and leasing for the project as soon as next week. Kamenar said the order provides avenues for similar challenges to many other projects.

“I think this affects all the onshore and offshore wind projects,” Kamenar said. “Some more than others. But if I were the energy company, I would be loath to continue going forward until I got clarification.”

Eisenson at Columbia told me the executive order “opened the door” to a massive range of new potential hurdles for wind development. He sees legal vulnerabilities in the executive order because there’s a history in recent case law surrounding Biden’s pauses on federal oil and gas leasing. But that’s cold comfort for an industry with such high capital costs that it describes low interest rates as its “fuel.”

“This could have a major chilling impact,” Eisenson said. “Even if the EO is unlawful, it could take years in court to invalidate an unlawful decision.”

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Q&A

Will Blue States Open Up Their Wallets for Renewables?

A conversation with Heather O’Neill of Advanced Energy United.

The Fight Q&A subject.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s conversation is with Heather O’Neill, CEO of renewables advocacy group Advanced Energy United. I wanted to chat with O’Neill in light of the recent effective repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean electricity tax credits and the action at the Interior Department clamping down on development. I’m quite glad she was game to talk hot topics, including the future of wind energy and whether we’ll see blue states step into the vacuum left by the federal government.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

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Spotlight

The Anti-Renewables Movement is Coming for Your Wires

The Grain Belt Express was just the beginning.

Oklahoma.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The anti-renewables movement is now coming for transmission lines as the Trump administration signals a willingness to cut off support for wires that connect to renewable energy sources.

Last week, Trump’s Energy Department with a brief letter rescinded a nearly $5 billion loan guarantee to Invenergy for the Grain Belt Express line that would, if completed, connect wind projects in Kansas to areas of Illinois and Indiana. This decision followed a groundswell of public opposition over concerns about land use and agricultural impacts – factors that ring familiar to readers of The Fight – which culminated in Republican Senator Josh Hawley reportedly asking Donald Trump in a meeting to order the loan’s cancellation. It’s unclear whether questions around the legality of this loan cancellation will be resolved in the courts, meaning Invenergy may just try to trudge ahead and not pick a fight with the Trump administration.

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Hotspots

Vineyard Wind Is Besieged Again

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

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – The fight over Vineyard Wind is back with a vengeance. But can an aggrieved vacation town team up with conservative legal activists to take down an operating offshore wind project?

  • The offshore wind project, which is under construction and currently provides power to Massachusetts, was threatened this week when Nantucket signaled it may sue Vineyard Wind over a laundry list of demands related to the facility and last year’s blade breakage. Then less than 24 hours later, the Texas Public Policy Foundation – a conservative legal advocacy group – filed a petition to the Interior Department requesting it not only reconsider previous permits issued for Vineyard Wind but also halt operations at the site.
  • It’s hard to ignore the timing here: before this flurry of activity, the Interior Department released a new secretarial order that laid out many ways it would potentially go after wind facilities. One method would be potentially settling lawsuits filed against both offshore and onshore wind projects in favor of plaintiffs.
  • We are still waiting to see if Interior will take up the Vineyard Wind petition. But this activity suggests that opponents of offshore wind feel increasingly emboldened by the anti-renewables direction that Trump has taken in recent weeks, and we may soon find out if their aspirations for killing operating projects are well-founded.

2. Henry County, Virginia – A fresh fiasco around a solar farm is renewing animus against solar projects in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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