Wind turbines can confuse radar systems on ships and aircraft. Their massive rotating blades create a “blade flash” on radar screens, while their steel bases reflect electromagnetic waves, making it difficult to distinguish the turbines from aircraft or other objects. That’s a problem for the military, which relies on radar for threat detection and navigation. For over a decade, the Pentagon has used a permitting program to review proposed projects and mitigate the effects on radar. Wind developers are required to submit project proposals, address military requests, and in some cases pay to upgrade radar systems to tune out the turbines.
But now, in a world where small, deadly drones can zip through wind farms, the Pentagon says those upgrades may not be sufficient.
For almost a year, the Pentagon has effectively frozen the permitting process for at least 155 new wind projects in 24 states, citing drone concerns, according to research from the American Clean Power Association, an industry advocacy organization. As long as the freeze persists, developers say, no new wind projects can begin construction. The Pentagon has not revealed when or if it will resume approving new projects.
Wind developers say they’ve incurred $2 billion in additional costs as a result of the freeze and that the administration’s new narrative is just the latest excuse to shut down their industry. Some may already have missed a July 4 construction deadline to qualify for federal tax credits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the 2025 law that phased out several clean energy incentives.
“Without [Pentagon approval], wind projects can’t get financing or insurance, and so effectively it has frozen the entire process,” said Dave Belote, a wind energy consultant and former director of the Defense Department subagency that greenlights wind projects during the Obama administration.
Over the past year, the Trump administration has separately been trying to halt the construction of offshore wind projects in federal waters, in part citing similar national security concerns. The Interior Department froze leases for five offshore projects last year, and the developers sued the agency over the decision. In a series of rulings earlier this year, judges struck down the federal stop-work orders even after viewing classified material that administration officials claimed illustrated that wind turbines created national security threats by affecting radar. After the court losses, the Trump administration took the extraordinary step of paying developers a combined $2.6 billion to cancel more than 11 gigawatts of offshore wind projects.
In contrast, the permitting freeze for onshore wind projects has resulted in no reported project cancellations so far. But the scope of its potential impacts could be larger because it affects land-based projects—including those on private property—which represent the bulk of U.S. wind power development. The projects affected by the freeze have a combined capacity of 44 gigawatts — four times the generation capacity of the offshore projects canceled through federal payouts.
In May, a coalition of renewable energy organizations and wind energy companies filed suit against the Department of Defense, claiming the permitting pause for onshore wind projects is the most damaging new tactic in the Trump administration’s “unprecedented campaign” against the industry. According to legal filings, the pause could cause developers to fall behind on project timelines, violate agreements, lose tax credits already baked into their financial models, and miss important deadlines for connecting to electrical grids, potentially making some projects unviable.
“An unknown number of projects may never be able to move forward as a result of [the department’s] freeze,” the lawsuit stated.
The freeze also occurred with none of the official communication or transparency required for what the lawsuit argues is an effort to change a federal rule. For its part, the Pentagon says the freeze does not require that level of public communication because it is a delay, not a rule change: “This case at core is one of agency inaction, i.e., delay, so there is no agency action for which to seek notice-and-comment rulemaking,” the department’s filing reads. (The agency did not respond to Grist’s request for comment.)
In legal filings responding to the developers’ claims last month, lawyers for the Pentagon said that delays to wind projects are a “practical result” of the department’s review, which is necessary to safeguard the country from emerging threats.
“This case centers on the [Pentagon’s] ability to do its job—specifically, whether national security interests must take a back seat when they inconvenience the development interests of the energy industry. The answer should doubtlessly be ‘no,’” Pentagon lawyers wrote.
The freeze is “totally politically motivated,” Belote said. When Belote helped create the first Pentagon process for wind energy reviews, the agency followed the standard process of issuing notices and seeking public comments. The Pentagon’s pause had none of that transparency, Belote said.
“I’ve got clients all over the country who are just wondering what the heck is going on,” Belote said.
If drone swarms are a new threat that needs to be handled, Belote said, the Pentagon should openly fund studies and experiments to find the best solutions. The lack of transparency and open effort toward a solution points to political motives against the wind industry, he added.
Fifty-five Democratic representatives signed a letter to the Department of Defense in May, requesting a confidential briefing to understand the basis for the delays. A spokesperson for Congressman Seth Magaziner, a Democrat representing Rhode Island who signed the letter, said the Pentagon has not yet responded to the lawmakers’ request.
This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/energy/pentagon_wind/. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.
Read the full article here
