Wind/Solar Energy

 Solar and wind energy projects must now get Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s personal sign-off to receive permits across the hundreds of millions of federal acres under his department’s control, according to an internal memo obtained by POLITICO.

The Interior directive puts wind and solar projects under heightened scrutiny, potentially slowing approvals and construction across vast swaths of some of the most sun- and wind-rich portions of the country. The memo was sent to Interior staff on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with it and an Interior official who had seen the document who were both granted anonymity to discuss a memo that had not been publicly released.

The move comes as President Donald Trump has sought to clamp down on wind and solar subsidies — at the behest of House conservatives — even after moderate Republicans in the Senate preserved some federal tax credits for those energy sources in their recently enacted megalaw.

Gregory Wischer, Interior’s deputy chief of staff for policy, wrote in the memo that “all decisions, actions, consultations, and other undertakings — including but not limited to the following — related to wind and solar energy facilities” require Burgum’s review. The actions triggering Burgum’s attention span cradle to grave aspects of project development, ranging from scoping reports to access road authorizations to cost recovery agreements.

Wischer said in the memo the steps are necessary to align with various Trump administration executive orders, including the president’s Inauguration Day declaration of a national energy emergency that called on steering federal resources to produce more energy — but did not define wind and solar as energy sources.

“Let’s be clear: leaking internal documents to the media is cowardly, dishonest, and a blatant violation of professional standards,” Interior said in a response to a request for comment on the memo. “It shows a complete lack of respect for the people working hard to serve the American public.”

Eric Beightel, former executive director of the Federal Permitting Council under President Joe Biden, said the directive would definitely slow down approvals for these renewable energy projects.

“It absolutely will create so much bureaucratic process that no solar or wind projects are likely to move in a timely and efficient manner, if at all,” he said. “For an administration so focused on eliminating unnecessary roadblocks, this is a clear attempt to use ‘the process’ to kill projects.”

The Interior memo said its actions were also intended to align agency policy with Trump’s executive order earlier this month to “strictly enforce” the wind and solar tax credit phaseouts in the megalaw, including by potentially rewriting long-standing rules that define when a project is considered to have started construction.

The executive order also directed the Interior Department to review all of its regulations and guidance within 45 days to “determine whether any provide preferential treatment to wind and solar facilities in comparison to dispatchable energy sources.”

Democratic administrations had sought to use federal land for wind and solar development, and bipartisan laws like the Energy Act of 2020, which Trump signed, explicitly encouraged it.

Federal lands produce about 4 percent of U.S. renewable power — 8.9 gigawatts — but carry potential to provide 12.5 percent by 2035, according to a January study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory released during the Biden administration.

That study found federal lands hold technical potential for 5,750 gigawatts of utility-scale solar power and 875 million acres of land-based wind power, according to NREL. When accounting for siting concerns, such as social, environmental and technical considerations, that total falls significantly to 1,750 gigawatts for solar and 70 gigawatts for land-based wind, the study found.