In the 2025 legislative session, which ended in June, states made an unprecedented push to overhaul clean energy siting.
While federal anti-renewables activity — including the rollback of clean energy tax incentives and the cancellation of federal funding for energy projects — has held the spotlight, 47 states introduced more than 300 bills targeting renewables siting since January. That’s according to new research by Clean Tomorrow, a nonpartisan environmental policy group founded by Department of Energy alumni in 2024.
Only 39 of those hundreds of siting-related bills passed — and only in “trifecta states,” where one party controls the state’s House, Senate, and governor’s office.
Ultimately, renewable energy essentially “broke even” in the 2025 session, the report found. Republican-led states including Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, and Texas passed bills making it harder to site renewables projects. Both Democrat- and GOP-controlled states, however, passed more permissive siting policies, including Indiana, Ohio, and Oregon.
But when viewed more broadly, state-level activity during the legislative session was largely negative for clean energy advancements: 49% of all proposed bills attempted to restrict clean energy siting, including by requiring more local approvals, altering local zoning authority, and expanding setback requirements.
Only 22% of bills introduced were aimed at streamlining deployment, the report found. Meanwhile, 29% of bills targeted small procedural or technical adjustments to the permitting process, and would have “neutral or ambiguous” impact.
Siting activity has been most highly concentrated in the states already building the most wind and solar. The top states for restrictive legislation activity, the report found, were Texas and Oklahoma (which rank first and second for the most wind capacity added in the last decade). These were joined by Illinois (the sixth-most wind power), as well as Virginia and New York (which rank eighth and ninth for solar additions.)
And in states with recently enacted permissive siting reforms — including California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, and Washington — policymakers introduced efforts to repeal or dilute those reforms.
Successful defense
Some of the successful state-level efforts to restrict clean energy development could have been worse, the report found, if not for the efforts of some non-traditional coalitions.
In Louisiana, the future home of massive Meta data centers, legislators had originally introduced a bill that would have imposed restrictions and setback requirements on solar projects sited on 10 or more acres of land. But thanks to a coalition of renewable energy developers, business groups, and oil and gas interests who banded together to oppose the bill, the final version, which passed in June, was less restrictive. That bill, since signed into law by Governor Jeff Landry, adds restrictions for projects on 75 or more acres of land, and also allows landowners to opt out of the siting requirements it imposes.
In that case, Louisiana’s Oil and Gas Association was particularly involved in the efforts to dilute the bill’s impacts. Thanks to rising energy and operating costs in the Gulf Coast, that industry is increasingly reliant on affordable electricity from renewables.
Bills that passed with bipartisan sponsorship were not only more likely to facilitate more rapid deployment of renewables, the report found, but were more likely to be passed than partisan bills. Bipartisan bills were twice as likely as Democrat-sponsored bills to become law, and four times as likely as Republican-sponsored bills.
Where to watch in 2026
Looking ahead to next year, Clean Tomorrow is anticipating “significant siting activity” in states anticipating hyperscaler data center projects, including Pennsylvania, Virginia, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
In Pennsylvania, renewable energy siting activity will likely center around Governor Josh Shapiro’s “all of the above” energy strategy aimed at cost and emissions reductions. As part of the so-called “Lightning Plan,” several siting-related bills have already been proposed, including one that would let the state approve energy projects even if local governments oppose them, and another that would set new rules for solar decommissioning.
Virginia is facing a similar dynamic of rising energy demand fueled by data centers, alongside rising electricity prices and concerns from various industries about energy availability. Two primary bills that were introduced in the 2025 session but failed to advance could resurface: one that would have created a state siting board with regional energy planning requirements, and another that sought to set statewide standards for local zoning ordinances. One key determiner of where Virginia state policy goes next, though, is which party wins the upcoming gubernatorial elections in November.
In Indiana, which similarly faces data center energy demand growth, renewable energy is expected to gain traction as part of Governor Mike Braun’s “Strategic Energy Growth Task Force,” which was established following the end of the 2025 session. Given the Republican trifecta governing the state, the report notes, any reforms would likely be advanced as part of an “all-of-the-above” energy bill.
Louisiana and Oklahoma, meanwhile, are both likely to see additional restrictive legislation. Louisiana legislators have signaled interest in restricting wind in a similar fashion to the solar restrictions enacted this year. Meanwhile in Oklahoma, pro-renewables Governor Kevin Stitt (R) is approaching the end of his term, and the front-runner in the race to succeed him is Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who has called wind farms the “green energy scam.”
