The Department of Interior has
issued an order suspending the ability of its staff, except a few senior officials, to permit new renewables projects on public land. The document, dated January 20, suspended the authority of “Department Bureaus and Offices” over a wide range of regular actions, including issuing “any onshore or offshore renewable energy authorization.”
The suspension lasts for 60 days and can only be overridden by “a confirmed or Acting official” in a number of senior roles in the Department, including the secretary.
Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of the interior, former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, cleared a Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee vote earlier this week, and will likely be confirmed by the full Senate soon. The suspension was signed by
Walter Cruickshank, the acting secretary, a longtime public servant in the department.
“This step will restrict energy development, which will harm consumers and fail to meet growing electricity demand,” Jason Ryan, a spokesperson for American Clean Power, the clean energy trade group, said in an email. “We need an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy strategy, not just a ‘some-of-the-above’ approach.”
The order is yet another early action taken by the Trump administration indicating its
favoritism towards oil and gas (and some non-carbon-emitting energy sources such as geothermal and nuclear) and its hostility or indifference towards renewables.
An earlier executive order suspending permitting of new offshore wind projects was written broadly enough that industry officials told Heatmap it could affect more than half of all new wind projects, including those on- and offshore. Trump also halted a specific wind project, Idaho’s Lava Ridge, that was unpopular with Republican elected officials in the state. There are currently 12 renewable energy projects planned on federal lands in various stages of the permitting process, according to the Permitting.gov databased, including two that have been canceled.
“We don’t want windmills in this country,”
President Trump said Thursday in an interview with Fox News. “You know what else people don’t like? Those massive solar fields, built over land that cover 10 miles by 10 miles, they’re ridiculous.”
While the vast majority of solar development
happens on private land, the Biden administration set ambitious goals for solar deployment on public land, identifying some 31 million acres that could be used for utility-scale solar in the western United States. Between January 2021 and December 2024, the Biden administration approved 45 renewables projects on public lands, totaling some 33 gigawatts of capacity.
The order suspended a number of other Department of Interior activities, including new hiring, land sales, and altering land management plans. The order noted that the suspension of new permits for renewables projects “does not limit existing operations under valid leases.”
The order is part and parcel of a broad freeze on renewable energy and climate change programs, including
funding for projects through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Former President Joe Biden issued a similar order on his first day in office,
halting new permits for oil and gas projects on public lands for 60 days except with permission by senior officials, followed up with a longer term pause on leasing in order to review the climate and environmental effects of oil and gas projects on public lands, which was eventually blocked by a federal judge. Like President Trump, Biden also killed off a specific energy project that many of his supporters opposed on his first day in office, the Keystone XL pipeline.
