Around 400 onshore wind energy projects are sitting in a Department of Defense permitting queue that only eight federal staff have authority to advance, according to a court filing submitted earlier this month, Utility Dive reports. The disclosure came from Dale Marks, Assistant Secretary of Defense for energy, installations and environment, as part of ongoing litigation before the US District Court for the District of Oregon.
The case was brought by a coalition of clean energy developers, trade groups and state governments, who filed suit on 31 May alleging that DOD had abandoned its statutory obligation to assess whether wind projects pose a risk to military readiness. The complaint stated the review process had effectively ceased following Marks’ confirmation in office.
A federal court intervened in August, issuing an injunction requiring DOD to lift what it had described as a “temporary pause” on wind permitting. DOD’s 3 November filing acknowledged the injunction and stated that the Military Aviation and Installation Assurance Siting Clearinghouse — the body responsible for issuing wind project permits — had moved from a processing freeze back into active project assessment.
The American Clean Power Association had already disputed DOD’s account. In a declaration filed on 20 October and based partly on information from ACP members, its Vice President of Policy and Regulatory Affairs, Tom Vinson, said that whatever administrative activity DOD had reported since the court order, none of it had produced substantive progress on mitigation review.
Marks’ November submission offered context for the bottleneck. His filing said none of the review teams is sized to handle the sharp rise in applications of recent years, at a time of downward pressure on staffing, funding and contractor support, and that contractors cannot step in because the functions involved are inherently governmental. The filing stated that DOD would typically complete around 13 mitigation agreements per year; that figure has recently risen to approximately 30.
Why it matters
For project developers and their finance teams, the stalled process carries a hard financial deadline. Vinson cited one project where turbine deliveries have already been deferred, warning that any equipment not on site by 31 December 2027 will fall outside the eligibility window for the Advanced Manufacturing Credit. The developer estimated that credit’s value at approximately $200,000 per turbine — equivalent to roughly $24 million across the full project. Vinson said developers keep incurring costs while they wait for DOD to act, which threatens the economics of the projects in the queue.
The disclosures also raise a structural question for the sector: whether DOD’s siting review is staffed for the volume of applications it now receives, which has pushed its yearly mitigation agreements from around 13 to around 30.
What to watch next
DOD’s 3 November filing also opposed the plaintiffs’ motion asking the court to enforce the stay. The plaintiffs’ reply is due on 17 November.
