New Permitting for Fossil Fuel Projects Aim to Redefine Reality
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The White House has a problem.
For all its fossil fuel love, clean energy is still the cheapest form of new electricity almost everywhere. And it’s not even close.
Despite a recent executive order to attempt to reinvigorate America’s declining coal industry, coal power in the US is more than twice as expensive as onshore wind power – and nearly twice as much as solar energy. In fact, analysis from Energy Innovation found that, “99% of existing U.S. coal plants are more expensive to run than replacement by local wind, solar, and energy storage resources.”
It’s not just coal. Power from natural gas peaker plants is significantly more expensive than from wind and solar. And slower to build, too. If you want to build a new gas plant today, be prepared to wait for up to five years, with turbine manufacturing capacity currently maxed out. You should also be prepared to pay some 50% more for the parts than you would just 10 months ago (and your customers should be prepared to pay for those higher costs).
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The bottom line is that if you want consumers to pay more for electricity, build more gas plants. Keep those inefficient and expensive coal plants churning out all that cancer-causing pollution.
On the other hand, if you want to cut both climate pollution and consumers’ electricity bills, add more renewables to the grid. If you want to add new generation quickly, add more renewables to the grid. Solar farms, for example, can be built in as little as eight to 18 months.
But that all assumes you can get new renewable generation built in the first place.
One of the major barriers for energy developers is the process of getting projects permitted and then connected to the grid. In 2024, the average permitting timeline for new energy projects was 4.5 years. Delays in approvals to connect new projects to the grid – effectively another kind of permitting – mean that – as of 2024 – the US has more power simply waiting for approval than already in operation nationwide. A staggering 95% of this is from wind, solar, and battery storage projects.
In other words, speed up permitting and interconnection for wind, solar, and energy storage and the US could effectively double power supply from projects already in development.
Using Permitting to Advantage Fossil Fuels
The administration has other ideas. On April 23, the Department of Interior announced it would accelerate permitting approvals for fossil fuel, geothermal, hydropower, mining, and nuclear projects on public lands.
The department announced that it will use emergency measures to limit environmental assessments and impact statement reviews – processes that typically take between a year and two years – to no more than 28 days. (How exactly Interior will be able to conduct thorough reviews in such compressed timeframes while also potentially cutting staff levels by much as 25% remains an open question.)
In addition, the department is using emergency provisions in key laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act to speed up review and approvals for selected new energy projects.
These laws have historically enabled communities and green groups to have a voice in projects that would significantly increase climate and environmental pollution. Accelerating review will likely not only accelerate new fossil fuel projects across the country, but also limit the ability of communities and advocates to oppose them.
The justification for this move comes from the president’s declaration of an “energy emergency” in January, despite the US oil and gas production already at record levels.
Notably missing from the list for expedited approvals: Wind and solar.
If You Can’t Win Fairly
The new permitting rules and the omission of wind and solar may seem like just more administrative details, but they fit a larger pattern of activities with major real-world consequences for the climate.
In January, the administration halted permitting for new renewable projects on public lands. This month, citing a supposedly rushed review process by the previous administration, Interior halted construction on a major wind power project off the coast of New York, despite the project spending years under review. (The cosmic irony of Interior announcing radically shortened review timeframes for fossil fuel projects just one week later should be lost on no one.)
What we see is that, if fossil fuels can’t win fairly in the market, the administration is ready to use the levers of government policy to help them win by default.
This itself is part of another larger pattern from the administration. If the facts don’t suit the preferred narrative, do everything possible to change the facts. Or at least ensure people don’t hear them.
Invent an energy emergency while ignoring the real climate crisis and costs to Americans. Costs like $182.7 billion in damages from just 27 billion-dollar-plus extreme weather and climate events in 2024 alone. Control the narrative at home by firing climate scientists, eliminating key climate reports, and gutting critical federal science agencies so the public can’t hear the truth about the impact of fossil fuels on our planet. Pressure external authorities like the International Energy Agency to change their tune on climate and clean energy.
What’s at stake here isn’t just permitting timeframes, but the very notion of reality itself. Because the reality is that the climate crisis is accelerating and building out more fossil fuels will lead to more costly and destructive storms, floods, heat waves, and fires. End of story.
But the reality is also that we have a choice in this. The deeply inconvenient truth for the administration and its fossil fuel allies is that clean energy isn’t just the better choice for our planet. It’s also the cheapest and better choice for anyone who pays a utility bill every month.
The administration is trying to sell us its own version of reality. We don’t have to buy it.
