The Trump administration is doubling down on efforts to delay the buildout of wind power, this time focusing on land-based wind tasks, in accordance with a clear power commerce group.
Citing nationwide safety dangers to US army readiness, the Pentagon is slow-walking the evaluations of 165 land-based wind tasks, in accordance with the American Clean Power Association, the main group representing wind and photo voltaic builders.
The Pentagon, along with the Federal Aviation Administration, has traditionally reviewed massive wind tasks, guaranteeing towering generators don’t mess with radar or flight paths. Typically, these evaluations have been resolved shortly, however customary instances began stretching longer beginning round August 2025, the affiliation mentioned. Some evaluations of particular person tasks have now gone over six months, in accordance with a letter ACP wrote to the Pentagon asking concerning the delays, which was shared with NCS.
ACP CEO Jason Grumet mentioned in a press release the Trump administration was “abusing the current permitting system.”
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The Pentagon is “actively evaluating land-based wind energy projects to ensure they do not impair national security or military operations, in accordance with statutory and regulatory requirements,” a spokesperson for the company mentioned.
The spokesperson didn’t say how lengthy the evaluations would take to finish however referred to as the method “inherently complex and time-consuming.”
In a letter to ACP reviewed by NCS, a Pentagon official wrote that wind generators and their transmission infrastructure “have the inherent potential to adversely impact or impair military testing, training and operations.”
President Donald Trump has made his distaste for wind power clear, and his administration has stymied wind power developments in a number of methods. Late final 12 months, the administration issued stop-work orders for all main offshore wind tasks below building, a transfer that was later overturned by the courts. The administration has additionally settled three offers with builders of extra nascent offshore tasks, paying again lease charges to the tune of almost $2 billion in taxpayer {dollars} for the tasks to not be constructed.
“The Trump administration has been critical about renewables in general, but it does appear that President Trump disfavors wind turbines more than solar,” mentioned Timothy Fox, managing director at power consulting agency ClearView Energy Partners.
The federal authorities has had extra leverage to cease offshore wind tasks as a result of they’re all being in-built federal waters, Fox mentioned. Onshore wind is extra prone to be constructed on private land, however some tasks nonetheless want federal permits to be able to cross the end line. Those permits, whether or not from environmental companies or the army, have grow to be a choke level.
“Projects that are further (along) have a better chance, but just because you’re near the end, if you have an important permit that’s still pending with the Trump administration, that could be it, that could be a reason to walk away,” Fox mentioned.
A federal decide not too long ago dominated in opposition to a sequence of actions the Trump Interior Department had taken to decelerate federal allowing evaluations for wind and photo voltaic tasks, after a coalition of renewable power teams sued. However, it’s unclear what authorized precedent that case might set for the army’s slowed evaluations of tasks.
All advised, the army delays are holding up a major quantity of power from getting onto the grid — round 30 gigawatts, in accordance with the American Clean Power Association. That’s sufficient power to power tens of millions of houses, even although wind power is extra intermittent.
Administration officers singling out wind was counterproductive to ongoing bipartisan Congressional talks on reforming the federal allowing system for all types of power, Grumet mentioned.
“It’s incoherent to pursue that goal while actively blockading domestic energy production that will help meet our growing energy needs and keeping energy affordable for American families,” he mentioned in a press release.
Despite the bureaucratic roadblocks, wind tasks are nonetheless coming on-line. The mammoth 3.5-gigawatt SunZia wind undertaking in New Mexico not too long ago turned on after a long time of delays and is now sending power to California on a towering 550-mile transmission line snaking by way of the desert.
Wind, photo voltaic and large batteries to retailer the power they produce proceed to be the lion’s share of latest power at present getting related to the grid, Fox mentioned. Solar and long-duration storage batteries, particularly, will solely proceed to develop.
Solar, wind and batteries “still dominate” the power sources getting onto the grid, Fox mentioned.