Trump Administration Is Delaying Hundreds of Wind and Solar Projects

A week before the 2024 election, Idaho’s largest electric utility struck a 35-year deal to buy power from a wind farm under development in Wyoming.

The Jackalope Wind project would span an area the size of Chicago, with hundreds of wind turbines generating clean electricity by 2027.

But the wind farm soon became a casualty of President Trump’s efforts to slow — and sometimes revoke — federal approvals for wind and solar projects. A key environmental review of Jackalope by the Interior Department was stalled for months, and the project is now effectively dead.

Similar stories are unfolding nationwide. While Mr. Trump’s attacks on offshore wind have been highly visible, his administration has also been hobbling solar and wind energy projects on land by halting or delaying federal approvals that were once routine.

More than 60 large wind and solar farms under development on federal lands, such as Jackalope Wind, are being stymied. But the administration is also holding up hundreds of wind and solar projects on private land that require federal consultations. Many projects are facing potentially fatal delays, according to interviews with more than a dozen energy companies, industry groups and analysts.

The extra layer of scrutiny for wind and solar contrasts with actions by the Trump administration to make it easier and cheaper for companies to produce oil, coal, gas and nuclear power. And it sets the United States apart from other countries that are embracing renewable energy.