Since Trump took office, the Interior Department has issued a series of memos and secretarial orders that systematically disadvantage wind and solar projects. Last July, it issued a memo requiring that nearly all approvals in the wind and solar permitting process be subject to additional reviews by the secretary’s office. A subsequent order required the agency to prioritize permitting projects with greater energy density, meaning ones that produce more power per acre of land, and deemed wind and solar “highly inefficient” compared with coal, nuclear, and natural gas projects.
The policies amounted to an effective freeze on wind and solar development on public lands, while also stalling projects on private lands that require federal consultations, affecting hundreds of clean energy projects. By the end of last year, Democrats saw no point in negotiating on permitting reform if the executive branch could simply make up its own permitting rules. They insisted on limits to executive power before they’d agree to a deal.
Around the same time, a coalition of clean energy groups, including the Clean Grid Alliance, Alliance for Clean Energy New York, and the Southern Renewable Energy Association, challenged the agency’s actions in the U.S. District court for the District of Massachusetts. The Interior’s permitting policies “place wind and solar technologies into second-class status without providing any rational justification for such disparate treatment or drastic policy shifts — unlawfully picking winners and losers among energy sources, contrary to Congress’ intent,” the lawsuit claimed. The groups argued the policies were arbitrary and capricious, in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. In April, Judge Denise Casper sided with the plaintiffs, putting a temporary injunction on the agency’s wind and solar-hobbling memos.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Representative Susie Lee of Nevada told Burgum that his policies have “created a total permitting mess” in her sunny home state, and asked him what the immediate impact of the court’s order was within his agency. When Burgum responded by denigrating the judge’s decision, Lee asked if he was planning to appeal the order.
“Yeah, absolutely,” he said, asserting that “the idea that a single judge could decide” how the agency conducts permitting “is absurd.”
At the end of her questioning, Lee reaffirmed that the July 15 memo was the single thing stalling a permitting reform deal in Congress. “If you would just rescind that memo, we could get permitting reform passed this Congress, and we can start to talk about permitting all forms of energy.”
Later in the hearing, Burgum also defended another of the administration’s controversial actions regarding renewables. California Representative Dave Min questioned Burgum on his deal to pay the French energy company Total nearly $1 billion to walk away from its offshore wind leases. Was that an appropriate use of money, Min asked, considering so many Americans were struggling with high energy bills? Burgum rejected the premise, asserting several times that the agency merely “refunded” Total’s money.
