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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.
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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

The Country’s Largest Power Markets Are Getting More Gas

Three companies are joining forces to add at least a gigawatt of new generation by 2029. The question is whether they can actually do it.

Natural gas pipelines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Two of the biggest electricity markets in the country — the 13-state PJM Interconnection, which spans the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest, and ERCOT, which covers nearly all of Texas — want more natural gas. Both are projecting immense increases in electricity demand thanks to data centers and electrification. And both have had bouts of market weirdness and dysfunction, with ERCOT experiencing spiky prices and even blackouts during extreme weather and PJM making enormous payouts largely to gas and coal operators to lock in their “capacity,” i.e. their ability to provide power when most needed.

Now a trio of companies, including the independent power producer NRG, the turbine manufacturer GE Vernova, and a subsidiary of the construction firm Kiewit Corporation, are teaming up with a plan to bring gas-powered plants to PJM and ERCOT, the companies announced today.

The three companies said that the new joint venture “will work to advance four projects totaling over 5 gigawatts” of natural gas combined cycle plants to the two power markets, with over a gigawatt coming by 2029. The companies said that they could eventually build 10 to 15 gigawatts “and expand to other areas across the U.S.”

So far, PJM and Texas’ call for new gas has been more widely heard than answered. The power producer Calpine said last year that it would look into developing more gas in PJM, but actual investment announcements have been scarce, although at least one gas plant scheduled to close has said it would stay open.

So far, across the country, planned new additions to the grid are still overwhelmingly solar and battery storage, according to the Energy Information Administration, whose data shows some 63 gigawatts of planned capacity scheduled to be added this year, with more than half being solar and over 80% being storage.

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An Emergency Trump-Coded Appeal to Save the Hydrogen Tax Credit

Featuring China, fossil fuels, and data centers.

The Capitol.
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As Republicans in Congress go hunting for ways to slash spending to carry out President Trump’s agenda, more than 100 energy businesses, trade groups, and advocacy organizations sent a letter to key House and Senate leaders on Tuesday requesting that one particular line item be spared: the hydrogen tax credit.

The tax credit “will serve as a catalyst to propel the United States to global energy dominance,” the letter argues, “while advancing American competitiveness in energy technologies that our adversaries are actively pursuing.” The Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association organized the letter, which features signatures from the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Clean Energy Buyers Association, and numerous hydrogen, industrial gas, and chemical companies, among many others. Three out of the seven regional clean hydrogen hubs — the Mid-Atlantic, Heartland, and Pacific Northwest hubs — are also listed.

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Why Your Car Insurance Bill Is Making Renewables More Expensive

Core inflation is up, meaning that interest rates are unlikely to go down anytime soon.

Wind turbines being built.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Fed on Wednesday issued a report showing substantial increases in the price of eggs, used cars, and auto insurance — data that could spell bad news for the renewables economy.

Though some of those factors had already been widely reported on, the overall rise in prices exceeded analysts’ expectations. With overall inflation still elevated — reaching an annual rate of 3%, while “core” inflation, stripping out food and energy, rose to 3.3%, after an unexpectedly sharp 0.4% jump in January alone — any prospect of substantial interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve has dwindled even further.

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