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No More Easy Ride for Wind and Solar (OBBB guidance, risks ahead)

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#llinowes">Lisa Linowes</a> -- July 22, 2025

New wind and solar projects are expected to decline sharply over the next two years as the One Big Beautiful Bill’s strict tax credit rules, supply chain restrictions, and aggressive enforcement drive up costs and risk. With subsidies set to expire after 2027 for new projects, the decades-long era of easy tax-driven renewable development is coming to an end.

“Under the new law, eligibility for the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and Investment Tax Credit (ITC) has become far more complex and legally uncertain. That’s by design. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act prioritizes strengthening America’s energy system with reliable, dispatchable power—not tax-driven projects that weaken the grid’s resilience.”

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) marks a major shift in U.S. energy policy—one that places American taxpayers and national interests squarely at the center of federal energy incentives.…

Skipping the Rules: Offshore Wind’s Legal Issue

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#llinowes">Lisa Linowes</a> -- June 11, 2025

“The law remains clear: the Department of the Interior must ensure that offshore projects prevent unreasonable interference before approval — not simply allow harm and hope payouts will quiet objections.”

With offshore wind, a lethal tort issue lurks beneath the waves: Is it enough to pay off harmed ocean users after the fact, or does the law demand the government prevent harm in the first place? Under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), a clear answer is being dangerously overlooked.

OCSLA, originally passed in 1953 and amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, governs energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Section 8(p)(4)(I) imposes a specific duty on the Department of the Interior: before approving offshore activities like wind development, the Secretary must ensure the project “provides for the prevention of interference with reasonable uses” of the ocean — including fishing, recreation, and navigation.…

Big Wind/Solar Roll Taxpayers, Landscape: Legislative Bonanza: A Terror Unleashed

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#llinowes">Lisa Linowes</a> -- August 8, 2022

“The Schumer-Manchin bill provides that after 2024 the traditional PTC and ITC programs expire, but the benefits live on through the new “Clean Electricity” tax credit program.”

“Based on published project footprints of recently sited wind projects in Wyoming, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Colorado, new wind turbines will spread across 30 million acres (50,000 sq. mi.) by 2032.”

The Schumer-Manchin bill passed by the US Senate this weekend and heading to the House erases any doubt whether Congress is serious about lowering inflation, addressing energy costs, or protecting the environment.

Ironically dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Schumer-Manchin will do nothing to reduce inflation. But what it will do is far worse. Schumer-Manchin will unleash the largest industrialization of U.S. open lands not seen since the damming of our western rivers.…

Understanding Industrial Wind’s Production Tax Credit (Part III: The Future)

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#llinowes">Lisa Linowes</a> -- August 19, 2020

Understanding Industrial Wind’s Production Tax Credit (Part II: 2020 Status)

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#llinowes">Lisa Linowes</a> -- August 18, 2020

Understanding Industrial Wind’s Production Tax Credit (Part I: Introduction)

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#llinowes">Lisa Linowes</a> -- August 17, 2020

Budweiser’s 100% Renewable Energy Start: Two Death Projects

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#llinowes">Lisa Linowes</a> -- July 22, 2019

Wind Turbine Noise: Real Impacts on Neighbors

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#llinowes">Lisa Linowes</a> -- March 1, 2019

Wind Growth after PTC Expiration

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#llinowes">Lisa Linowes</a> -- September 24, 2018

Paying the Price for Renewables (Georgetown, TX power surplus generates cost deficits)

By <a class="post-author" href="/about#llinowes">Lisa Linowes</a> -- September 12, 2018