Former President Joe Biden seemed overly fixated on the use of so-called “renewable” energy sources to generate electricity, such as harnessing the power of wind via massive farms of giant windmills — an obsession that President Donald Trump most certainly does not share.
On Wednesday, the Interior Department announced that it is reversing a “misguided, last-minute” approval granted by Biden for a major windmill farm project in Idaho, according to The Hill.
The announcement noted, but did not specify, certain “legal deficiencies” and “unique statutory criteria that were ignored” in the prior administration’s grant of approval, and highlighted the “unified opposition” to the project from Idahoans at the local, state, and federal levels.
The Biden-approved Lava Ridge Wind Project
On his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive memo to temporarily withdraw the nation’s outer continental shelf from consideration for offshore wind farm leasing and to review the federal government’s leasing and permitting practices for all other wind energy projects.
Specifically named in that memo, and for which a moratorium on all further activity was ordered, was the Lava Ridge Wind Project, which had received final approval from the Biden-era Bureau of Land Management on December 5, 2024.
As approved, the Lava Ridge Wind Project, located in southern Idaho, would have involved the construction of 241 windmills, each up to 660 feet tall, and associated infrastructure — including access roads, battery storage, maintenance and operations facilities, substations, and transmission lines — disturbing at least 1,00 acres of federal and state-owned land, and purportedly would have produced enough energy to power up to half a million homes.
Project approval reversed following review
In Wednesday’s press release, the Interior Department claimed that it was “restoring common sense to American energy policy by reversing the Biden administration’s misguided, last-minute push to approve the Lava Ridge Wind Project, an enormous and unpopular 1,000-megawatt wind facility in southern Idaho, during the final days of the former president’s term.”
That reversal was aligned with President Trump’s policy to “no longer provide preferential treatment towards unreliable, intermittent power sources that harm rural communities, livelihoods, and the land,” such as the Lava Ridge Wind Project or other projects that stemmed from the burdensome “radical Green New Scam agenda.”
The press release cited the president’s Day One memo and noted that, following the ordered review of the project, the Department “discovered crucial legal deficiencies in the issuance of the approval, including unique statutory criteria that were ignored.”
It also asserted that “Idahoans at the local, state, and federal levels have voiced unified opposition to this wind project” since it was first proposed, and included a January executive order from Gov. Brad Little directing all state agencies to cooperate with the Trump administration’s review, as well as a unanimous resolution of opposition to the project in February from the state’s House of Representatives.
Further, while the Trump administration’s review was ongoing, “multiple state agencies provided the Bureau of Land Management with letters describing a significant lack of consultation throughout the original review process for the project” — which directly contradicted the Biden-era BLM’s claim that it had “spent hundreds of hours” consulting and coordinating with local groups, individuals, and officials on the project’s planning.
“Putting the brakes on deficient, unreliable energy”
In a statement accompanying the press release, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said, “Under President Donald Trump’s bold leadership, the Department is putting the brakes on deficient, unreliable energy and putting the American people first.”
“By reversing the Biden administration’s thoughtless approval of the Lava Ridge Wind Project, we are protecting tens of thousands of acres from harmful wind policy while shielding the interests of rural Idaho communities,” he added. “This decisive action defends the American taxpayer, safeguards our land, and averts what would have been one of the largest, most irresponsible wind projects in the nation.”
The Hill reported that this was just the latest of several actions taken by the Trump administration thus far to, on the one hand, “curtail” the development of solar and wind power projects, while, on the other, to “fast track” the approvals and development of so-called “fossil fuel” projects involving coal, oil, and natural gas.
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Author: Ben Marquis
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