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Sparks

Trump Pauses Permitting for All Renewables on Federal Lands

A newly released memo from the Department of the Interior freezes the pipeline for 60 days.

Solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

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 administrationapproved 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.

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Sparks

Trump in North Carolina: Let’s Overhaul FEMA

The president is on his way to Los Angeles next.

Donald Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

On his fifth day back in office, President Trump is making the rounds to recent disaster zones —- North Carolina, which is recovering from Hurricane Helene, and later Los Angeles, where fires are still burning. In the immediate aftermath of both catastrophes, Trump was quick to blame Democrats for their response. Touching down in North Carolina earlier today, he sounded the same tune as he proposed overhauling or even eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is responsible for disaster preparation and recovery nationwide.

On the tarmac, Trump told the press that his administration was “looking at the whole concept of FEMA,” saying he would rather states be solely responsible for disaster recovery. Later, at a hurricane recovery briefing, Trump said that he planned to sign an executive order that would “begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA — or maybe getting rid of FEMA.” Trump dodged questions on details of the order or a timeline for implementation.

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Sparks

There Is a Big New Fire in Los Angeles County

The Hughes Fire ballooned to nearly 9,500 acres in a matter of hours.

Fire and vegetation
Illustration by Simon Abranowicz

In a textbook illustration of how quickly a fire can start, spread, and threaten lives during historically dry and windy conditions, a new blaze has broken out in beleaguered Los Angeles County.

The Hughes Fire ignited Wednesday around 11 a.m. PT to the north of Santa Clarita and has already billowed to nearly 9,500 acres, buffeted by winds of 20 to 25 miles per hour with sustained gusts up to 40 miles per hour, Lisa Phillips, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, told me. The area had been under a red-flag warning that started Sunday evening and now extends through Thursday night. “There are super dry conditions, critically dry fuel — that’s the basic formula for red flag conditions,” Phillips said. “So it’s definitely meeting criteria.”

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Sparks

Trump’s Offshore Wind Ban Is Coming, Congressman Says

Though it might not be as comprehensive or as permanent as renewables advocates have feared, it’s also “just the beginning,” the congressman said.

A very large elephant and a wind turbine.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

President-elect Donald Trump’s team is drafting an executive order to “halt offshore wind turbine activities” along the East Coast, working with the office of Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, the congressman said in a press release from his office Monday afternoon.

“This executive order is just the beginning,” Van Drew said in a statement. “We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”

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