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Spotlight

Trump’s Solar Permitting Pause Is Over, BLM Says

Developers have yet to see the approvals start flowing, however.

Trump and solar panels.
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The Bureau of Land Management claims that Trump’s pause on solar energy permitting is no longer in effect — though no permits have yet come of it.

President Trump paused permitting for solar as well as wind projects for 60 days via executive order on his first day in office. The expiration date on that pause was technically last Friday, and in an exclusive statement to Heatmap, BLM spokesperson Brian Hires said “there is currently no freeze on processing renewable applications for solar” or “making authorization decisions” on projects.

Hires also said all transmission for wind projects is now allowed to advance through federal permitting, a statement that arrives after the agency indicated in emails I obtained that it may soon approve wires for a wind project in Wyoming sited on private land. BLM also approved a transmission project for a solar farm earlier this month, a decision it made public with a press release that also declared solar was part of the president’s “energy dominance” agenda.

This might sound like good news. But I’m going to wait and see before declaring the permitting pause for solar officially dead because we’ve yet to see a solar farm on federal lands permitted under Trump 2.0.

As we reported in February, a leaked industry memo outlined how Trump’s permitting freeze led to chaos and delays for solar energy developers who found that agencies on the fringes of the process — such as the Army Corps of Engineers — were suddenly dragging their feet on crucial permits. Even after the Army Corps told me it was no longer delaying solar permits, I heard conflicting tales from developers, who said there was a disconnect between the public line and government inaction behind the scenes.

A D.C. solar industry lobbyist who requested anonymity to speak candidly on the matter said they’ve yet to receive any clarity on whether the pause has actually been lifted and whether permits will actually be issued now. The source said they’ve heard little from state BLM offices or staff in Washington about what projects may be approved, and that the Interior Department — which oversees BLM — has been “weirdly opaque” with solar developers so far in Trump’s term.

“We can’t get straight answers,” the lobbyist said.

BLM told me the pause is still in effect for wind projects sited on federal lands and in federal waters, pending completion of a comprehensive government review of the wind sector’s environmental and national security implications. There’s been no timetable or deadline set for finishing that review, which has so far been conducted in secret. The agency did not provide me with any information on that study.

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Spotlight

How a Giant Solar Farm Flopped in Rural Texas

Amarillo-area residents successfully beat back a $600 million project from Xcel Energy that would have provided useful tax revenue.

Texas and solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Power giant Xcel Energy just suffered a major public relations flap in the Texas Panhandle, scrubbing plans for a solar project amidst harsh backlash from local residents.

On Friday, Xcel Energy withdrew plans to build a $600 million solar project right outside of Rolling Hills, a small, relatively isolated residential neighborhood just north of the city of Amarillo, Texas. The project was part of several solar farms it had proposed to the Texas Public Utilities Commission to meet the load growth created by the state’s AI data center boom. As we’ve covered in The Fight, Texas should’ve been an easier place to do this, and there were few if any legal obstacles standing in the way of the project, dubbed Oneida 2. It was sited on private lands, and Texas counties lack the sort of authority to veto projects you’re used to seeing in, say, Ohio or California.

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Hotspots

A Data Center Is Dead, Long Live a Solar Farm

And more of the most important news about renewable projects fighting it out this week.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Racine County, Wisconsin – Microsoft is scrapping plans for a data center after fierce opposition from a host community in Wisconsin.

  • The town of Caledonia was teed up to approve land rezoning for the facility, which would’ve been Microsoft’s third data center in the state. Dubbed “Project Nova,” the data center would have sat near an existing We Energies natural gas power plant.
  • After considerable pushback at community meetings, the tech giant announced Friday that it would either give up on the project or relocate it elsewhere to avoid more fervent opposition.
  • “While we have decided not to proceed with this particular site, we remain fully committed to investing in Southeast Wisconsin. We view this as a healthy step toward building a project that aligns with community priorities and supports shared goals,” Microsoft said in a statement published to its website, adding that it will attempt to “identify a site that supports both community priorities and our long-term development objectives.”
  • A review of the project opponents’ PR materials shows their campaign centered on three key themes: the risk of higher electricity bills, environmental impacts of construction and traffic, and a lack of clarity around how data centers could be a public good. Activists also frequently compared Project Nova to a now-infamous failed project in Wisconsin from the Chinese tech manufacturer Foxconn.

2. Rockingham County, Virginia – Another day, another chokepoint in Dominion Energy’s effort to build more solar energy to power surging load growth in the state, this time in the quaint town of Timberville.

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Q&A

How the AI Boom Could Come Back Around for Natural Gas

A conversation with Enchanted Rock’s Joel Yu.

The Fight Q & A subject.
Heatmap Illustration

This week’s chat was with Joel Yu, senior vice president for policy and external affairs at the data center micro-grid services company Enchanted Rock. Now, Enchanted Rock does work I usually don’t elevate in The Fight – gas-power tracking – but I wanted to talk to him about how conflicts over renewable energy are affecting his business, too. You see, when you talk to solar or wind developers about the potential downsides in this difficult economic environment, they’re willing to be candid … but only to a certain extent. As I expected, someone like Yu who is separated enough from the heartburn that is the Trump administration’s anti-renewables agenda was able to give me a sober truth: Land use and conflicts over siting are going to advantage fossil fuels in at least some cases.

The following conversation was lightly edited for clarity.

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