The Trump Administration’s Move To Halt Wind and Solar Development on Federal Lands Reverses a Biden Priority

On Friday, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a secretarial order that could effectively prohibit his agency from issuing permits for wind and solar on federal lands unless they produce as much energy per acre as fossil fuels or nuclear power, reports Heatmap News. Specifically, the order directs the Interior Department to consider “a reasonable range of alternatives that includes projects with capacity densities meeting or exceeding that of the proposed project,” when conducting a review under the National Environmental Policy Act. 

“Based on common sense, arithmetic, and physics, wind and solar projects are highly inefficient uses of Federal lands,” the order reads. “On a technology-neutral basis, wind and solar projects use disproportionate Federal lands relative to their energy generation when compared to other energy sources, like nuclear, gas, and coal.”

On one hand, the announcement could signal a return to sound energy policy. Under former President Joe Biden, the federal government paused new oil and gas leasing (eventually lifting the ban) and supercharged renewable energy development on federal lands. Political favoritism of green energy sources, which run at full power less than 40 percent of the time and need more land to produce a megawatt of electricity than other conventional sources, coupled with the retirement of baseload energy sources, has undermined the outlook of the U.S. electricity grid, according to the Energy Department. 

However, the Trump administration is trading Biden-era energy favoritism for its own. The order says in no uncertain terms that laws governing federal land management call into question “whether the use of Federal lands for any wind and solar projects is consistent with the law, given these projects’ encumbrance on other land uses, as well as their disproportionate land use when reasonable project alternatives with higher capacity densities are technically and economically feasible.”

The order is not surprising given President Donald Trump’s animosity toward renewable energy sources since being reelected. In January, the Interior Department issued a 60-day pause on all renewable energy leasing

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