Two senators on Wednesday said their support for permitting reform legislation is conditional on the Interior Department approving solar and wind projects following a federal court order last week.
Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Angus King (I-Maine) told Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that they have no reason to vote for permitting reform if they don’t have confidence the Trump administration will follow the law.
“I think that we can make some progress on permitting reform,” King told Burgum during a hearing on DOI’s fiscal 2027 budget request. “But I can assure you, there won’t be the votes unless we can have some assurance. It would really help if you would move those permits that are sitting on your desk. That would be a gesture of good faith, because my concern is that if you’re not following a court order, we could pass a statute, and you wouldn’t follow that either.”
Burgum said he “vehemently” disagreed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts’ ruling: a preliminary injunction blocking the DOI from enforcing a handful of actions that renewable energy developers argued created a de facto blockade on their projects on public and private lands.
Despite repeated questions on the topic, Burgum didn’t explicitly comment on whether DOI plans to comply with the ruling, stating only that the agency’s solicitor general will respond to the litigation. However, when asked by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), if he’s willing to process solar and wind permits, Burgum said yes.
Fits and starts
The muddled response reflects how the Trump administration’s opposition to solar and wind energy has become a major obstacle to bipartisan permitting reform in the Senate.
In December, Heinrich and his counterpart on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), cut off negotiations with Republicans after the Trump administration issued stop-work orders to five offshore wind power farms already under construction. (Since then, federal courts have ordered those projects to move forward.) Senate ENR and EPW have jurisdiction over key elements of permitting reform, including the leasing of oil, gas, and renewable energy on federal lands, transmission planning, and environmental reviews.
In March, Heinrich and Whitehouse decided to restart the talks after DOI reportedly started reviewing permits for some solar projects. Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) said DOI didn’t share a list of what’s under review with Congress, and asked Burgum to provide one.
Burgum said he’d share “whatever public information is available,” and added that Congress should allow companies with pending permits at DOI to have a dashboard listing where they stand in the review process.
Permitting reform is widely seen as key to accelerating the build-out of new generation — both renewable and fossil fueled — and transmission infrastructure needed to serve artificial intelligence data centers and new manufacturing plants, which are top priorities of President Donald Trump.
Some of the changes lawmakers are considering were outlined in a 2024 deal struck between former Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.V.) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) after two years of negotiations. These include shortening the timeframe to challenge federal energy permits in court and granting FERC more authority to approve interstate transmission lines deemed in the national interest. (That bipartisan push failed in the final lame duck days of the 2024 Congress.)
A bipartisan group of lawmakers also supports legislation that would block any administration from canceling lawfully issued permits. That would benefit both renewable and oil-and-gas developers, the latter of which was targeted by former President Joe Biden’s administration.
The chances of passing permitting reform this Congress remain unclear. Proponents — including tech giants, electrical manufacturers, oil and gas companies, and renewable energy developers — hope lawmakers can agree on a deal well before the November midterm elections, which could once again shake up the political landscape.
If DOI starts to advance permits for solar and wind projects, it would bode well for legislative reform. But on Wednesday, Burgum defended the administration’s stance that solar and wind power are unreliable, don’t lower consumer prices, and shouldn’t receive U.S. taxpayer subsidies.
Burgum also denied that fossil fuels receive their own U.S. government subsidies, despite research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which estimated the total at about $2.2 billion in 2024.
“I think a fair response would be, let’s end energy subsidies generally,” King said, adding that wind and solar paired with battery storage can provide baseload power that the administration is prioritizing.
