Dive Brief:
- In a blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to stifle renewable energy development, the Department of Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers must end a set of policies that limit solar and wind energy permitting on federal land while litigation over the issue plays out, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
- RENEW Northeast, the Southern Renewable Energy Association, Interwest Energy Alliance and other clean energy groups showed that their members face imminent and irreparable harm by a set of five policy actions taken by the Trump administration, Denise Casper, a judge with the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, said in granting their request for a preliminary injunction.
- Also, the plaintiffs are likely to win their suit, which argues the policies violate the Administrative Procedure Act by being arbitrary and capricious, or violate the Outer Continental Shelf Lands and Federal Land Policy and Management acts, Casper said.
Dive Insight:
About 57.2 gigawatts of wind, solar, hybrid and offshore wind capacity have been canceled or face delay or cancellation beyond 2029 due to the agencies’ actions, representing about $905 million in capital already invested in projects, said the judge, citing a report from Charles River Associates offered by the plaintiffs.
The report contends that the agencies’ actions jeopardize $8.4 billion to $25.6 billion of federal tax credits for renewable energy development within a three-year range, the judge said.
“Plaintiffs have shown that the public interest favors preliminary relief from the Agency Actions because the Agency Actions ‘harm the public by delaying and preventing the development of wind and solar energy projects in the United States, which in turn threatens the public’s vital interest in maintaining a reliable, affordable, and resilient power grid, which is currently struggling to meet record energy demand,’” Casper said.
The injunction affects five issues:
- The DOI “review procedures” memo, which established a list of at least 68 specific permitting actions subject to review by the DOI secretary for solar and wind projects;
- A ban on the use of the Information for Planning and Consultation website by solar and wind developers before their projects are reviewed under the DOI’s new review process;
- The DOI “land order,” which effectively barred wind and solar projects on federal land by requiring consideration of a project’s “capacity density” during permitting;
- An Army Corps’ memo that directs the agency to prioritize its permit reviews to high capacity density projects; and,
- The Zerzan M-opinion, which effectively bars new offshore wind projects, according to the plaintiffs.
The injunction is the latest legal blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to curtail renewable energy development while favoring fossil-fueled and other “baseload” generation.
In February, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction lifting a “work stop” order on an Ørsted offshore wind project after four similar injunctions had been issued. And in January, a judge found that the administration had illegally cut certain clean energy grants.
In response to a request for comment, a DOI spokesman said the department doesn’t comment on litigation.
Advocacy groups praised the injunction.
“The courts rightly blocked illegal regulatory attacks that drive up energy costs and slow down the development of new sources of electricity we urgently need,” E2 Federal Advocacy Director Sandra Purohit said in a statement. “Wind and solar remain the cheapest and fastest-to-deploy energy sources we can build. The law doesn’t allow agencies to rig the process against them.”
