A federal judge in Boston just threw a big wrench into the Trump administration's efforts to slow-roll renewable-energy permits. Chief US District Judge Denise Casper on Tuesday temporarily blocked a set of Interior Department policies that wind and solar groups say effectively froze new projects by routing almost every permit decision through three top political appointees, including Interior chief Doug Burgum, reports Reuters. Casper wrote that the plaintiffs are likely to prove those policies are unlawful and were adopted without a solid explanation, in violation of federal administrative law.
The Interior Department last summer proclaimed that every solar and wind project on federal land had to get the OK from Burgum personally, "a layer of enhanced oversight that officials said was needed to end what they said was preferential treatment for these technologies under the Biden administration," per the AP. The ripple effects of that, per the industry groups: projects put on ice, including an Illinois wind farm that hadn't been able to open due to wildlife and water permitting delays, reports the New York Times.
The injunction covers members of nine advocacy and industry groups, including RENEW Northeast and the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, which called the ruling "an undeniable victory" for the clean-energy sector, per Reuters. The decision marks another judicial setback for a White House that has promoted oil, gas, and coal—Trump recently invoked the Defense Production Act to boost fossil fuel output—while targeting what one plaintiff's lawyer described as putting wind and solar in a "regulatory second-class status." The Interior Department declined to address the case directly.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
