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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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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.
Along with Senator John Curtis of Utah, the Iowa senator is aiming to preserve the definition of “begin construction” as it applies to tax credits.
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley wants “begin construction” to mean what it means.
To that end, Grassley has placed a “hold” on three nominees to the Treasury Department, the agency tasked with writing the rules and guidance for implementing the tax provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, many of which depend on that all-important definition.
Grassley and other Republican senators had negotiated a “glidepath for the orderly phaseout” of tax credits for renewables, the senator in a statement announcing the hold, giving developers until July 2026 to start construction on projects (or complete the projects and have them operating by the end of 2027) to qualify for tax credits.
Days after signing the law, however, President Trump signed an executive order calling for new guidance on what exactly starting construction means. The title of that order, “Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign Controlled Energy Sources,” has generated understandable concern within the renewables industry that, as part of a deal to get conservative House members to support the bill, the Treasury Department will write new guidance making it much more difficult for wind and solar projects to qualify for tax credits.
“What it means for a project to ‘begin construction'’ has been well established by Treasury guidance for more than a decade,” Grassley said. Under these longstanding definitions, “beginning construction” can mean undertaking “physical work of a significant nature,” which can include or buying certain long-lead equipment or components like transformers. Another way to qualify for the credits is to spend 5% of the total cost of the project.
A more restrictive interpretation of “begin construction,” however, could turn the tax credit language into a dead letter, especially when combined with the rest of the administration’s full-spectrum legal assault on renewable energy.
Grassley said that new guidance is expected within two weeks, and that “until I can be certain that such rules and regulations adhere to the law and congressional intent, I intend to continue to object to the consideration of these Treasury nominees.”Grassley has a long history with production tax credits for wind energy, playing a pivotal role in their extension in 2015. “As the father of the first wind energy tax credit in 1992, I can say that the tax credit was never meant to be permanent,” Grassley said at the time. “The five-year extension for wind energy brings about the best possible long-term outcome that provides certainty, predictability and a responsible phase-down of a tax incentive for a renewable energy source.”
Almost 60% of Iowa’s electricity is generated by wind turbines, the highest proportion of any state, according to Energy Information Administration data.
Utah Senator John Curtis has joined Grassley in placing a hold on nominees, delaying their vote before the whole Senate, according to Politico’s Joshua Siegel. Grassley and Curtis, alongside Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, were unable to get a meeting with the Treasury Department to discuss the guidance, Siegel reported.
The department creates a seemingly impossible new permitting criteria for renewable energy.
The Interior Department released a new secretarial order Friday saying it may no longer issue any permits to a solar or wind project on federal lands unless the agency believes it will generate as much energy per acre as a coal, gas, or nuclear power plant.
Hypothetically, this could kill off any solar or wind project going through permitting that is sited on federal lands, because these facilities would technically be less energy dense than coal, gas, and nuclear plants. This is irrespective of the potential benefits solar and wind may have for the environment or reducing carbon emissions – none of which are mentioned in the order.
“Gargantuan, unreliable, intermittent energy projects hold America back from achieving U.S. Energy Dominance while weighing heavily on the American taxpayer and environment,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement included in a press release announcing the move. “By considering energy generation optimization, the Department will be able to better manage our federal lands, minimize environmental impact, and maximize energy development to further President Donald Trump’s energy goals.”
Here’s how this new regime, which I and many in the energy sector are now suddenly trying to wrap their heads around, is apparently going to work: solar and wind facilities will now be evaluated based on their “capacity density,” which is calculated based on the ratio of acres used for a project compared to its power generation capacity. If a project has a lower “capacity density” than what the department considers to be a “reasonable alternative,” then it may no longer be able to get a permit.
“On a technology-neutral basis,” the order states, “wind and solar projects use disproportionate Federal lands relative to their energy generation when compared to other energy sources, like nuclear, gas, and coal.” The document going on to give an example, claiming that data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows an advanced nuclear plant uses less federal acreage than an offshore wind farm and “thus, when there are reasonable alternatives that can generate the same amount of or more energy on far less Federal land, wind and solar projects may unnecessarily and unduly degrade Federal lands.” The order also includes a chart comparing the capacity density of wind and solar facilities to conventional nuclear, gas, and coal, as well as geothermal, and claims that these sources are superior as well. The document does not reference hydropower.
There’s also a whole host of other implications in this order. Crucially, does the Interior expect that by choking off the flow of permits, cities and companies will just pony up to build what the Trump administration considers “reasonable alternatives” instead? Is the federal government going to tell communities in Nevada, for example, that they must suddenly build gas plants in the desert instead of solar farms to meet their increasing energy needs?
In any case, much more is coming, as this order simply built off of a separate secretarial order earlier this week commanding staff to prepare a litany of recommendations on ending alleged “preferential treatment” for solar and wind facilities. In other words hold my beer – and hold onto yours, too.