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President Donald Trump is now effectively blocking any new wind projects in the United States, according to the main renewables trade group, using the federal government’s power over all things air and sky to grind a routine approval process to a screeching halt.
So far, almost everything Trump has done to target the wind energy sector has been defeated in court. His Day 1 executive order against the wind industry was found unconstitutional. Each of his stop work orders trying to shut down wind farms were overruled. Numerous moves by his Interior Department were ruled illegal.
However, since the early days of Trump 2.0, renewable energy industry insiders have been quietly skittish about a potential secret weapon: the Federal Aviation Administration. Any structure taller than 200 feet must be approved to not endanger commercial planes – that’s an FAA job. If the FAA decided to indefinitely seize up the so-called “no hazard” determinations process, legal and policy experts have told me it would potentially pose an existential risk to all future wind development.
Well, this is now the strategy Trump is apparently taking. Over the weekend, news broke that the Defense Department is refusing to sign off on things required to complete the FAA clearance process. From what I’ve heard from industry insiders, including at the American Clean Power Association, the issues started last summer but were limited in scale, primarily impacting projects that may have required some sort of deal to mitigate potential impacts on radar or other military functions.
Over the past few weeks, according to ACP, this once-routine process has fully deteriorated and companies are operating with the understanding FAA approvals are on pause because the Department of Defense (or War, if you ask the administration) refuses to sign off on anything. The military is given the authority to weigh in and veto these decisions through a siting clearinghouse process established under federal statute. But the trade group told me this standstill includes projects where there are no obvious impacts to military operations, meaning there aren’t even any bases or defense-related structures nearby.
One energy industry lawyer who requested anonymity to speak candidly on the FAA problems told me, “This is the strategy for how you kill an industry while losing every case: just keep coming at the industry. Create an uninvestable climate and let the chips fall where they may.”
I heard the same from Tony Irish, a former career attorney for the Interior Department, including under Trump 1.0, who told me he essentially agreed with that attorney’s assessment.
“One of the major shames of the last 15 months is this loss of the presumption of regularity,” Irish told me. “This underscores a challenge with our legal system. They can find ways to avoid courts altogether – and it demonstrates a unilateral desire to achieve an end regardless of the legality of it, just using brute force.”
In a statement to me, the Pentagon confirmed its siting clearinghouse “is actively evaluating land-based wind projects to ensure they do not impair national security or military operations, in accordance with statutory and regulatory requirements.” The FAA declined to comment on whether the country is now essentially banning any new wind projects and directed me to the White House. Then in an email, White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told me the Pentagon statement “does not ‘confirm’” the country instituted a de facto ban on new wind projects. Kelly did not respond to a follow up question asking for clarification on the administration’s position.
Faced with a cataclysmic scenario, the renewable energy industry decided to step up to the bully pulpit. The American Clean Power Association sent statements to the Financial Times, The New York Times and me confirming that at least 165 wind projects are now being stalled by the FAA determination process, representing about 30 gigawatts of potential electricity generation. This also apparently includes projects that negotiated agreements with the government to mitigate any impacts to military activities. The trade group also provided me with a statement from its CEO Jason Grumet accusing the Trump administration of “actively driving the debate” over federal permitting “into the ditch by abusing the current permitting system” – a potential signal for Democrats in Congress to raise hell over this.
Indeed, on permitting reform, the Trump team may have kicked a hornet’s nest. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Ranking Member Martin Heinrich – a key player in congressional permitting reform talks – told me in a statement that by effectively blocking all new wind projects, the Trump administration “undercuts their credibility and bipartisan permitting reform.” California Democratic Rep. Mike Levin said in an interview Tuesday that this incident means Heinrich and others negotiating any federal permitting deal “should be cautious in how we trust but verify.”
But at this point, permitting reform drama will do little to restore faith that the U.S. legal and regulatory regime can withstand such profound politicization of one type of energy. There is no easy legal remedy to these aerospace problems; none of the previous litigation against Trump’s attacks on wind addressed the FAA, and as far as we know the military has not in its correspondence with energy developers cited any of the regulatory or policy documents that were challenged in court.
Actions like these have consequences for future foreign investment in U.S. energy development. Last August, after the Transportation Department directed the FAA to review wind farms to make sure they weren’t “a danger to aviation,” government affairs staff for a major global renewables developer advised the company to move away from wind in the U.S. market because until the potential FAA issues were litigated it would be “likely impossible to move forward with construction of any new wind projects.” I am aware this company has since moved away from actively developing wind projects in the U.S. where they had previously made major investments as recently as 2024.
Where does this leave us? I believe the wind industry offers a lesson for any developers of large, politically controversial infrastructure – including data centers. Should the federal government wish to make your business uninvestable, it absolutely will do so and the courts cannot stop them.
