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Summary
- Judge enjoins Pentagon freeze on wind project reviews
- Pentagon cited national security interests
- Renewable energy groups said freeze was arbitrary and capricious, cost billions
- Pentagon said it does not discuss ongoing litigation
(Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Thursday ordered the Pentagon to lift its freeze on reviewing proposed onshore wind projects, handing a defeat to President Donald Trump, who has long disdained wind power.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut in Portland, Oregon, granted a preliminary injunction to several renewable energy groups that said the freeze imposed by the Department of Defense caused a “total halt” of wind project development in the country.
The Pentagon said it does not discuss ongoing litigation, but is “actively evaluating land-based wind energy projects to ensure they do not impair national security or military operations, in accordance with statutory and regulatory requirements.”
The reviews are intended to ensure that wind projects don’t interfere with radar, airspace and technology concerns such as cybersecurity and communications.
According to the complaint, the review process had been predictable since its creation in 2011, but the Pentagon acted arbitrarily and capriciously as it began to slow down reviews last August and stopped them altogether by early May.
In seeking a dismissal, the Pentagon said emerging national security threats required a reassessment of the review procedure, and the freeze was necessary to protect U.S. interests “in an ever-evolving global landscape and its shifting threat paradigm.”
Trump, a Republican, has derided wind turbines as ugly, expensive and inefficient, preferring fossil fuels such as oil and gas.
PENTAGON CANNOT TAILOR RULES TO SUIT POLICY GOALS
In her 36-page decision, Immergut, a Trump appointee, said the renewable energy groups were likely to show the Pentagon violated statutory and regulatory deadlines that Congress established for the reviews.
“DoD cannot pick and choose which parts of this legal regime to follow,” Immergut wrote. “DoD has no power to tailor legislation to its policy goals by rewriting unambiguous statutory terms.”
Immergut also said the energy groups showed irreparable harm in the billions of dollars, representing lost revenue, higher carrying and financing costs, and the potential loss of tax credits.
Lawyers for the groups did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Joshua Berman, a lawyer for the Sierra Club, which supported the groups’ efforts in a court filing, said the Trump administration has “tried every trick in the book to stop or slow-walk renewable energy development, and courts have seen through (its) ruses time after time.”
The Democratic attorneys general of 18 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., have also challenged the freeze in court.
Wind power accounts for about 10% of U.S. electricity.
Trump wants to rename the Defense Department as the Department of War, which the Pentagon calls itself in court papers. A formal change requires congressional action.
Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; additional reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
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