250+ onshore wind projects stalled as Pentagon freezes permitting

For the past 15 years, onshore wind projects have followed the same process to get the Department of Defense’s permission to build. Now, that familiar route has been closed off, effectively jeopardizing all new wind projects on private land — more than 250 nationwide — and threatening to sideline 30 GW of potential generation capacity, according to the American Clean Power Association.

All wind projects in the U.S. must first head through the Military Aviation and Installation Assurance Siting Clearinghouse, where, in the DOD’s own words, they’re supposed to undergo a ​“timely, transparent, and repeatable process to evaluate potential impacts” to national security and military operations. It’s a routine that has spanned presidencies, including the first Trump administration, and that typically revolves around making sure turbines don’t interfere with radars or federal airspace.

If an issue arises, developers and the DOD usually come to a mitigation agreement that resolves both parties’ concerns. These deals are often settled in a matter of days, the Financial Times reports. But the DOD hasn’t signed off on a mitigation agreement since last August, the American Clean Power Association says, leaving at least 60 wind projects that were already in formal negotiations awaiting sign-off from the DOD.

The DOD never officially announced or even acknowledged the pause until this April, when the department escalated its efforts and sent a letter to developers saying it was reevaluating how it reviews wind projects’ national security impacts — a tactic the Trump administration has used in its attempts to derail offshore wind farms, too. Now, reviews of all onshore wind projects are subject to a ​“de facto moratorium,” says American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet, with no end in sight.

Such delays are costly for developers, which must continue paying to lease land and maintain grid connections as their timeline for generating power and revenue grows longer. The extra wait also puts companies at risk of missing key deadlines for securing federal tax credits — deadlines that President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act shortened dramatically.

Trump is keeping gigawatts of clean and cost-effective power off the grid at a time when the nation desperately needs more of it to power data centers, factories, and electric appliances coming online. While his claims of national security risks may be questionable, his devotion to gutting ​“windmills” certainly is not.

Maria Gallucci contributed reporting.

More big energy stories

The U.S. is back in its nuclear era

After a nearly two-year-long dry spell, the U.S. is once again building nuclear reactors. The fast ended in Tennessee, where Kairos Power broke ground late last month on a demonstration version of its molten salt reactor. TerraPower quickly followed, launching construction of its liquid-sodium-cooled reactors in Wyoming. These next-generation projects come alongside efforts to restart shuttered conventional nuclear plants, Alexander C. Kaufman reports.

America’s nuclear redux has one major goal: to meet skyrocketing power demand projections as data centers come online. It’s a mission that has the support of federal regulators, Alex explains. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently shook up its licensing processes for the first time in decades to speed reactor construction — although some critics say this hasty pursuit of power jeopardizes safety.

Code red: Data centers threaten grid stability

North America’s top grid oversight authority issued its highest-level warning this week about the risks that data centers pose to the continent’s power systems. That Level 3 alert was in response to several instances the North American Electric Reliability Corp. observed in 2024 and 2025 in which data centers’ energy use quickly and unexpectedly dropped, jeopardizing grid stability and introducing the chance of widespread blackouts. NERC now wants utilities, grid operators, and tech companies to better prepare for data centers’ destabilizing effects.

The warning comes as opposition to the computing facilities soars around the country. Pushback against data center permits ballooned in the first quarter of 2026, and project cancellations reached an all-time high, Heatmap reports. Most notable this week, more than 1,000 people showed up to protest a massive data center planned for Box Elder County in Utah — though county commissioners voted to advance the project anyway.

Clean energy news to know this week

Total system overhaul: The war in Iran has prompted nations around the world to reevaluate their energy systems, with some countries falling back on coal and others boosting investment in clean sources like solar and nuclear. (Grist)

Renewables’ new BFF: A report from the International Renewable Energy Agency shows solar and wind power are entering ​“new territory” as energy storage systems allow them to conquer their fundamental weakness of intermittency and provide consistent power. (New York Times)

Power trip: Major utilities are quietly funding and running groups fighting cities’ efforts to create their own municipal utilities, which proponents say can deliver cheaper and cleaner power as mainstream utilities recommit to fossil fuels. (The Guardian)

Europe steels itself: A steelmaking facility in Sweden is among a growing cohort looking to use green hydrogen to decarbonize its processes, though securing a steady stream of hydrogen produced without fossil fuels remains a sticking point. (Canary Media)

Semi-trucked life: After years of delays, Tesla has finally started high-volume production of its all-electric Semi — a heavy-duty truck that has reached performance targets well beyond what competitors like Volvo, Daimler, and Peterbilt are delivering. (Canary Media)

The ban stands: A referendum that would have lifted restrictions on utility-scale wind and solar construction in Richland County, Ohio, fails to pass, though the vote’s narrow margin suggests that framing the ban as a property rights issue helped gather at least some bipartisan support. (Canary Media)

Sailing toward a carbon tax: International Maritime Organization member nations agree to keep working toward adopting a global carbon fee on shipping amid pressure from the U.S. and fossil fuel companies to abandon the plan. (Associated Press)