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Renewables are really popular. That’s not the problem.
Renewables are popular, and most Americans don’t mind living near them. That’s the message of an interesting new poll from The Washington Post and the University of Maryland, which found that about 70% of Americans would be comfortable living near a wind or solar farm “in their community.” Now, Americans slightly prefer solar over wind, and there’s a partisan gap among the respondents — 79% of Democrats are comfortable living near a wind farm, while only 59% of Republicans are — but overall the message is clear: Americans as a whole don’t mind living near a new renewables project.
It’s great to see this poll, and it adds to a growing and now, I think, unimpeachable body of research that shows renewables remain broadly popular in the United States. In March, a Heatmap poll found that 72% and 76% of Americans, respectively, would welcome utility-scale wind and solar in their communities. We found that the only more popular form of electricity generation was rooftop solar (which can’t solve climate change by itself), backed by nearly 9 in 10 Americans:
In June, the Pew Research Center found similar majorities in its polling, although it also noted that the partisan gap over renewables was continuing to widen. Only 60% of Republicans favor building more wind power today, according to Pew, as compared to 80% in 2016. (Over the same period, Democrats have become modestly more supportive of expanding wind.)
These polls are important. They demonstrate that renewable advocates can draw on a broad base of public support — or, at least, indifference — when fighting for policy. But I worry that they send the wrong message to environmentalists who are wondering about how best to move forward in the fight against climate change. Both the Post and Heatmap polls ask almost identical questions: Would you welcome a wind or solar farm in your community? But neither poll clarifies exactly what “your community” means.
Luckily, a recent study examines the question more deeply. In 2021, a team of researchers asked 4,500 people in America, Germany, and Ireland whether they would accept a new solar, wind, or fossil-fuel plant near them. Unlike other studies, it got specific: Would you accept a solar farm less than a mile from where you live? How about one to five miles away? How about more than five miles?
The study found very big majorities in support of wind and solar: 89% and 92% of Americans would welcome a new wind or solar facility near them at all. But the closer that the project got to their house, the less they favored it. Only 17% of Americans would welcome wind turbines within a mile of their home. About half would approve of wind turbines within five miles. By comparison, about a third of Germans would welcome wind turbines within 0.6 miles of their home (that is, a kilometer), and two-thirds of Germans would within three miles.
In the study, solar was more popular than wind — 57% of Americans would welcome solar panels within five miles of their home — but, still, it didn’t see the kind of commanding majorities you’d expect from Heatmap and the Post’s polling. In fact, I think this study tells an entirely different story from those polls: that Americans are pretty skeptical of new renewable projects in their backyards. (The bright spot for climate advocates is that a much smaller ratio of Americans support the construction of a new natural gas plant within five miles of their homes.)
That 2021 study suggests that a small minority — and in some cases, an outright majority — might oppose a given renewable project depending on how close it is to a residential area. And as I’ve previously written, American laws today give even a small, well-resourced minority plenty of tools to block a project. They can hold up a project in lawsuits or bog it down in paperwork. And what’s more, once that small group starts campaigning against a project, the public’s broad but shallow support for, say, a general technology can crater. That’s what happened recently in New Jersey, where a once broadly pro-wind public has turned against four proposed offshore wind farms.
Is this the biggest problem for renewable advocates? I’m not sure: America will build plenty of new solar projects this year anyway. But it is a problem. And it should be clear by now that broad public opinion does not mean much for our land-use politics. The problem is not that the public opposes wind and solar; the problem is that a few dozen people can block or waylay a project no matter how the broader public feels. If that feels anti-democratic, then climate advocates need to do something about it.
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A judge has lifted the administration’s stop-work order against Revolution Wind.
A federal court has lifted the Trump administration’s order to halt construction on the Revolution Wind farm off the coast of New England. The decision marks the renewables industry’s first major legal victory against a federal war on offshore wind.
The Interior Department ordered Orsted — the Danish company developing Revolution Wind — to halt construction of Revolution Wind on August 22, asserting in a one-page letter that it was “seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States and prevention of interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas.”
In a two-page ruling issued Monday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth found that Orsted would presumably win its legal challenge against the stop work order, and that the company is “likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction,” which led him to lift the dictate from the Trump administration.
Orsted previously claimed in legal filings that delays from the stop work order could put the entire project in jeopardy by pushing its timeline beyond the terms of existing power purchase agreements, and that the company installing cable for the project only had a few months left to work on Revolution Wind before it had to move onto other client obligations through mid-2028. The company has also argued that the Trump administration is deliberately mischaracterizing discussions between the federal government and the company that took place before the project was fully approved.
It’s still unclear at this moment whether the Trump administration will appeal the decision. We’re still waiting on the outcome of a separate legal challenge brought by Democrat-controlled states against Trump’s anti-wind Day One executive order.
A new letter sent Friday asks for reams of documentation on developers’ compliance with the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is sending letters to wind developers across the U.S. asking for volumes of records about eagle deaths, indicating an imminent crackdown on wind farms in the name of bird protection laws.
The Service on Friday sent developers a request for records related to their permits under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which compels companies to obtain permission for “incidental take,” i.e. the documented disturbance of eagle species protected under the statute, whether said disturbance happens by accident or by happenstance due to the migration of the species. Developers who received the letter — a copy of which was reviewed by Heatmap — must provide a laundry list of documents to the Service within 30 days, including “information collected on each dead or injured eagle discovered.” The Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
These letters represent the rapid execution of an announcement made just a week ago by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who released a memo directing department staff to increase enforcement of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act “to ensure that our national bird is not sacrificed for unreliable wind facilities.” The memo stated that all permitted wind facilities would receive records requests related to the eagle law by August 11 — so, based on what we’ve now seen and confirmed, they’re definitely doing that.
There’s cause for wind developers, renewables advocates, and climate activists to be alarmed here given the expanding horizon of enforcement of wildlife statutes, which have become a weapon for the administration against zero-carbon energy generation.
The August 4 memo directed the Service to refer “violations” of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act to the agency solicitor’s office, with potential further referral to the Justice Department for criminal or civil charges. Violating this particular law can result in a fine of at least $100,000 per infraction, a year in prison, or both, and penalties increase if a company, organization, or individual breaks the law more than once. It’s worth noting at this point that according to FWS’s data, oil pits historically kill far more birds per year than wind turbines.
In a statement to Heatmap News, the American Clean Power Association defended the existing federal framework around protecting eagles from wind turbines, noted the nation’s bald eagle population has risen significantly overall in the past two decades, and claimed golden eagle populations are “stable, at the same time wind energy has been growing.”
“This is clear evidence that strong protections and reasonable permitting rules work. Wind and eagles are successfully co-existing,” ACP spokesperson Jason Ryan said.
The $7 billion program had been the only part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund not targeted for elimination by the Trump administration.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to cancel grants awarded from the $7 billion Solar for All program, the final surviving grants from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, by the end of this week, The New York Times is reporting. Two sources also told the same to Heatmap.
Solar for All awarded funds to 60 nonprofits, tribes, state energy offices, and municipalities to deliver the benefits of solar energy — namely, utility bill savings — to low-income communities. Some of the programs are focused on rooftop solar, while others are building community solar, which enable residents that don’t own their homes to access cheaper power.
The EPA is drafting termination letters to all 60 grantees, the Times reported. An EPA spokesperson equivocated in response to emailed questions from Heatmap about the fate of the program. “With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, EPA is working to ensure Congressional intent is fully implemented in accordance with the law,” the person said.
Although Solar for All was one of the programs affected by the Trump administration’s initial freeze on Inflation Reduction Act funding, EPA had resumed processing payments for recipients after a federal judge placed an injunction on the pause. But in mid-March, the EPA Office of the Inspector General announced its intent to audit Solar for All. The results of that audit have not yet been published.
The Solar for All grants are a subset of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, most of which had been designated to set up a series of green lending programs. In March, Administrator Lee Zeldin accused the program of fraud, waste, and abuse — the so-called “gold bar” scandal — and attempted to claw back all $20 billion. Recipients of that funding are fighting the termination in an ongoing court case.
State attorneys generals are likely to challenge the Solar for All terminations in court, should they go through, a source familiar with the state programs told me.
All $7 billion under the program has been obligated to grantees, but the money is not yet fully out the door, as recipients must request reimbursements from the EPA as they spend down their grants. Very little has been spent so far, as many grantees opted to use the first year of the five-year program as a planning period.