US President Donald Trump has posted on his Truth Social platform to reaffirm his stance against solar and wind energy, despite campaigning on an “all the above” energy platform.
“We will not approve wind or farmer destroying solar,” said Trump.
Despite his claim of solar development’s impact to farmers, about 424,000 acres of rural land were affected by solar and wind development in 2020, less than 0.05% of the nearly 900 million acres used for farmland, according to a 2024 study. The report found that most of that land stayed in agricultural development after the projects were developed.
Trump’s administration has taken a series of anti-renewables actions during his second term, on top of Congress’ clean energy-gutting One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Federal actions include:
- An executive order requiring that Treasury apply stricter qualifications for solar and wind projects seeking federal tax credits.
- The Environmental Protection Agency is clawing back $7 billion in Solar For All grant funding. The grants are intended to support community solar projects with guaranteed bill savings for low-income Americans.
- Solar and wind projects seeking to develop on federally owned land now face “final review” from Trump-appointed Department of Interior head Doug Burgum.
- Trump executive order directed the Department of the Interior to scrub for “preferential treatment” for wind and solar and eliminate such treatment.
- US Department of Agriculture will “no longer” fund solar projects, like those made available to farms and small businesses via the $4 billion Rural Energy for America (REAP) grant program.
- President Trump implemented widespread tariffs to most goods, as well as energy component-specific tariffs and tariffs on critical materials like steel and aluminum.
Despite the many roadblocks, renewable energy is dominating new-build electric generation project queues. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that the United States is projected to have a record year for electric capacity buildout in 2025, adding 64 GW. The previous record was set in 2002, when developers added 58 GW of capacity, 57 GW of which was natural gas.
But this time, the record year for installations will be led by an emissions-free source instead. Solar is expected to account for 33.3 GW of the 64 GW added this year. This is followed by 18.3 GW of battery energy storage, 7.8 GW of wind and 4.7 GW of natural gas, said the EIA.
Asset management firm Lazard said that solar and wind energy projects have a lower levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) than nearly all fossil fuel projects – even without subsidy.
“On an unsubsidized $/MWh basis, renewable energy remains the most cost-competitive form of generation. As such, renewable energy will continue to play a key role in the buildout of new power generation in the US,” said Lazard. “This is particularly true in the current high power demand environment, where renewables stand out as both the lowest-cost and quickest-to-deploy generation resource.”
