The Pentagon is blocking more than 150 wind projects over drone fears
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- The Pentagon has frozen permitting for at least 155 new wind projects across 24 states for nearly a year, citing concerns that turbines' radar 'blade flash' can't be distinguished from small, deadly drones zipping through wind farms.
- The frozen onshore projects carry a combined 44 gigawatts of capacity — four times the 11+ gigawatts of offshore wind the Trump administration paid $2.6 billion to cancel after losing in court earlier this year.
- Wind developers say they've incurred $2 billion in added costs, and some projects may have already missed a July 4 construction deadline needed to qualify for federal tax credits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
- A coalition of renewable energy groups and wind companies sued the Defense Department in May, calling the pause the most damaging new tactic in the administration's 'unprecedented campaign' against the wind industry.
- The Pentagon told the court the freeze is 'delay, not a rule change' and therefore requires no public notice-and-comment rulemaking — a position the lawsuit characterizes as an opaque effort to change a federal rule.
- Fifty-five Democratic representatives signed a letter requesting a confidential briefing on the delays; the Pentagon has not yet responded to the request.
Why it matters: The 44 GW of onshore wind now sitting frozen is four times the capacity the administration already paid $2.6 billion to cancel offshore — and unlike those projects, the onshore freeze came with no public process, no rulemaking, and no congressional briefing. With some projects likely already missing the July 4 tax credit deadline, the quiet pause could strand more U.S. wind development than the headline-grabbing offshore cancellations did.
