The Interior Department’s pivot to again consider some solar projects on federal lands hasn’t revived wind energy.
A small wind farm partially on federal land in Wyoming that won approval from Interior in the final days of the Biden administration has sat in limbo for more than a year.
The Two Rivers Wind Project needs a final sign-off from the Bureau of Land Management before it can start construction, said a local official following the development of wind energy in the region.
It’s the only wind farm that had been in the BLM pipeline during the Biden administration that appears to still be viable at the agency under President Donald Trump, who regularly denounces wind energy as a scam.
The moribund state of wind projects on federal lands shows the limit of the recent renewable permitting thaw at BLM, with the agency since January again reviewing around 20 solar projects. The Trump administration’s move to consider those utility-scale solar projects — which had been frozen since the summer — has had ripple effects, including earlier this month reviving stalled permitting reform talks on Capitol Hill. But on public lands through the West, the solar reprieve hasn’t translated into a brighter outlook for wind.
Justin Meuse, the climate and energy government relations director at the Wilderness Society, pointed out that even the movement on solar at Interior was always limited. There have been no new wind or solar project applications to BLM since the Trump administration imposed added scrutiny on renewables last summer, he said.
“Our public lands have some of the greatest solar and wind resources anywhere in the country, and the fact that these policies have chilled new starts pretty much completely is a big problem, especially when we need more energy with the price of oil fluctuating as it is,” Meuse said.
Over the last year, developers of three wind farms on federal land on a BLM list of potential projects appear to have pulled the plug. In addition, BLM last year reversed course on a large Idaho wind farm, canceling the approval issued near the end of the Biden administration.
A BLM spokesperson did not answer questions about whether the administration has advanced any wind projects, and the agency would not provide a list of what renewable projects are currently under consideration.
Renewable energy projects are “proceeding through the permitting process” in line with a presidential executive order aimed at ending “preferential treatment” for wind and solar projects, the BLM spokesperson said.
Two Rivers Wind, which is located in Carbon County, Wyoming, got approval from the Bureau of Land Management in the final weeks of the Biden administration but has since been held up. Primarily on private and state land, the 57-turbine project would install up to 14 turbines on federal land, as well as a transmission line.
Sue Jones, a commissioner in Carbon County, said the project requires a “signature” from a BLM official to proceed. That simply hasn’t happened.
“They almost made it, but they didn’t,” Jones said of the project. “When everything stopped, they were in the pile.”
A 2025 annual report from Carbon County’s Planning & Zoning Department about wind projects notes that although the project’s BLM decision record is “complete,” it is still “awaiting Department of Interior (DOI) review and BLM State Director Signature” on a memorandum of agreement. Until then, the project does not have the right of way needed to proceed.
A county official said Tuesday that the project has also not yet received a necessary local permit, which are generally issued after federal approvals.
Two Rivers is a joint venture between the Canadian company BluEarth Renewables and Clearway Energy. A spokesperson for BluEarth referred a reporter to a Clearway spokesperson, who declined to comment.
BluEarth is also building a wind transmission line for a separate nearby wind project in Wyoming called Lucky Star. That transmission line received approval from BLM in early February.
Previously planned to include BLM land, the 90-turbine wind farm has been moved to state and private land.
Solar movement limited
The permitting hurdles erected specifically for renewables by Interior were spelled out in a July memorandum, which said the department would require either Secretary Doug Burgum or Deputy Secretary Kate MacGregor to sign off on each step of the process for solar and wind projects.
That memo — and other new policies announced in August — largely left solar and wind developments languishing until earlier this year when some solar projects began moving forward.
“That memo created a dam and everything got dammed up,” said a person close to the industry, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive situation for companies. “Now we have a spillway, or a spigot, and so some water is coming out of the dam. But it’s still a dam.”
Solar projects with renewed momentum include projects that were far along in the approvals process in Arizona and Nevada, as well as part of a massive project in the Nevada desert canceled by Interior last year. The Biden administration had combined seven projects into the Esmeralda 7 development, which Burgum has said would be allowed to proceed separately through federal permitting.
The more promising outlook for solar has already had political implications: Senate Democrats restarted permitting talks with Republicans this month after halting them last year over the administration’s hostility to renewables. Some Republicans who had grown frustrated with Interior’s position on renewable energy development, like Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, have celebrated the improved outlook for solar.
That ungluing of some renewable projects also comes as the Trump administration confronts voter dissatisfaction about rising energy prices, which many analysts say would be lessened by bringing more types of energy onto the grid.
Last week, the Trump administration also signaled possible compromise on at least one offshore wind project, which has been a major target of Interior’s rejection of renewable energy projects. The administration declined to appeal a court loss related to its efforts to stop construction on a wind project off the coast of Rhode Island.
Still, a White House spokesperson made clear that Trump had not changed his opinion on wind.
“President Trump’s position on wind energy has remained consistent for years — it is a liability and the biggest scam of the century,” Taylor Rogers said in an email.
Canceled onshore wind
The near-future of onshore wind on federal lands appears dim.
Sandra Purohit, the federal advocacy director at E2, a business group, said that there has not been “nearly enough movement away from the wind and solar permitting ban to make an impact on affordability.”
“Major domestic energy sources that could be helping to address rising energy prices are still stalled at [Interior] and other federal agencies,” she said.
A list of “active” wind projects maintained by the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees renewable energy permitting on federal land, includes five wind farms and two transmission line connections. Four of the wind projects that received permits or were seeking approvals during the Biden administration appear to either have been canceled by BLM or their developers, according to companies and the bureau’s project planning website.
One of the projects on the active list, the 400-turbine Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho, was torpedoed by Interior in August. The project, which had received final approval by BLM in December 2024, under the Biden administration, was opposed by farmers and local resident worried about impacts on wildlife. Some advocates also raised concerns about the project’s proximity to the Minidoka National Historic Site, which was a Japanese internment camp during World War II.
Developer Magic Valley Energy, a subsidiary of LS Power, also had a second Idaho project in preliminary stages of review at BLM, called Salmon Falls Wind. The project has no docket on BLM’s review website and appears to have not moved forward. LS Power did not respond to a request for comment.
Two projects planned in Wyoming — called Maestro and Jackalope — also have been canceled. Jackalope, which was planned to include more than 200 turbines, was dropped earlier this year by NextEra, the developer, spokesperson Neil Nissan confirmed. Maestro, which could have amounted to nearly 100 turbines, is listed as canceled on BLM’s planning website. The developer, Maestro Wind, could not be reached for comment.
Another Wyoming wind project that isn’t on the BLM list but is being developed on a mix of private, state and federal land, called the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project, is under construction, according to the developer. Expected to be one of the largest wind farms in the U.S., the project received most of its federal approvals during the Obama administration, as well as a supplemental analysis during the first Trump administration.
“A well-planned construction program is making this one-of-a-kind wind power project a reality while creating good jobs for Wyoming workers and assuring environmental protection,” said Kara Choquette, a spokesperson for the Power Company of Wyoming.
Two transmission lines related to Wyoming wind projects listed by BLM as active — called Rock Creek and Uinta Wind — received approvals during the Biden administration.
The Rock Creek transmission line has been completed, while the Uinta line is expected to begin construction later this year, said Jillian Scott, a spokesperson for the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. The Uinta developer, Invenergy, did not respond to a request for comment.
Ian Stevenson can be reached on Signal at ianstevenson.77.
