Dive Brief:
- The Pentagon has a queue of around 400 onshore wind projects awaiting approval, but lacks sufficient staffing to address the issue, said Dale Marks, assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations, and environment, in a Nov. 3 legal filing. with the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.
- Marks’ comments were part of a Pentagon response in an ongoing lawsuit filed by a coalition of clean energy trade groups, developers, and states against the U.S. Department of Defense. The original complaint, filed May 31, alleged that DOD “stopped fulfilling its statutory mandate to assess wind projects’ impacts on military readiness,” with the process “[grinding] to a halt” after Marks was confirmed. The suit asked the court to vacate DOD’s review freeze policy and order DOD to take action by certain dates.
- In the Nov. 3 filing, DOD said it is complying with an August court injunction ordering a stay of what DOD called a “temporary pause” and has “returned to reviewing” permits for wind projects. It opposed a motion from the plaintiffs asking the court to enforce the stay.
Dive Insight:
Since the court stayed the wind review pause, DOD said, the office that issues wind project permits — the Military Aviation and Installation Assurance Siting Clearinghouse — has shifted from a “pause on processing-related activity to active assessment of projects.”
American Clean Power Association Vice President of Policy and Regulatory Affairs Tom Vinson disputed this in an Oct. 20 declaration, based in part on “information that ACP members provided to me.”
“Despite the Court’s clear orders, DOD has not resumed review,” Vinson said. “While it may have reported some administrative activity, none of this activity has resulted in any substantive movement through mitigation review.”
He testified that DOD’s delay has threatened the economics of wind projects awaiting permits as developers continue to incur costs as they wait for DOD to move forward.
Vinson said one project has seen turbine delivery pushed back and noted that “equipment delivered after December 31, 2027, will not qualify for the Advanced Manufacturing Credit, which the developer estimates would otherwise provide a benefit of approximately $200,000 per turbine, or roughly $24 million across the project.”
In the Nov. 3 filing, Marks said none of the teams tasked with reviewing wind energy permits “are sized to manage the dramatic influx of applications received in recent years during a period simultaneously characterized by downward pressures on resourcing (manning, funding, and contractor support).”
Contractors can’t execute inherently governmental functions, Marks wrote, so action on the approximately 400 projects in the queue rests “solely” with eight federal employees across DOD.
“In an average year, the [DOD] would execute 13 mitigation agreements, but more recently, this number has hovered around 30,” Marks said.
Plaintiffs’ reply to DOD’s Nov. 3 filing is due Nov. 17.
