Solar and wind project approvals on federal lands have virtually stopped this year as the Trump Administration rolls back Biden-era clean energy laws and permitting regulations and shows openly hostile attitude toward green energy developments.
Since President Donald Trump was sworn in in January, only one project, a solar development, has been approved on federal lands, according to a Reuters review of permitting data. No wind or solar project has cleared approval for development on federal lands since July, when a new order stipulated that all solar and wind energy projects on federal lands and waters must be personally approved by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Back then, the Department of the Interior ended what it described as “preferential treatment for unreliable, subsidy-dependent wind and solar energy.”
To compare, under former President Joe Biden the U.S. gave the go-ahead to 13 solar and two wind projects on federal lands, the Reuters review showed.
The freeze in permitting threatens over 500 wind and solar energy projects, Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), told Reuters.
SEIA and Wood Mackenzie said this week in their the latest quarterly report that solar capacity installations in the third quarter surged, as developers ramp up activity and construction to qualify for the last investment tax credits that are being phased out by the Trump Administration.
But the report flagged that several uncertainties still hang over the industry following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). Federal permitting actions remain unclear and Treasury guidance on Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) requirements is still months away, SEIA and Wood Mackenzie said.
Last month, a SEIA analysis of EIA data showed that the political attacks on America’s solar and storage industry are threatening as many as 519 projects totaling 117 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. These projects represent half of all new planned power capacity in the United States, and 17 states could lose over half of all their planned capacity, SEIA said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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