The Sabin Center’s Renewable Energy Legal Defense Initiative (RELDI) filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction on behalf of several rural-advocacy organizations with an interest in promoting renewable energy development. This blog post summarizes the case and reflects on its import. In January 2025, President Trump issued four executive actions deliberately crafted to chill renewable energy development: (1) Executive Memorandum: Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf From Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects; (2) Executive Order No. 14156: Declaring a National Energy Emergency; (3) Executive Order No. 14154: Unleashing American Energy; and (4) Executive Order No. 14315: Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign-Controlled Energy Sources.

Shortly thereafter, the DOI and the USACE issued five anti-renewable secretarial orders: (1) a memorandum imposing heightened internal review requirements for all wind and solar permitting decisions; (2) a ban restricting renewable energy developers’ access to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s IPaC consultation tool, which provides localized information on endangered species; (3) an order directing the DOI to prioritize projects based on land-based “capacity density,” meaning the amount of energy that can be produced per acre, disadvantaging renewables in comparison to fossil fuels; (4) a USACE memorandum similarly prioritizing high-capacity density energy projects in permitting decisions; and (5) a solicitor’s opinion reinterpreting the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) in a manner unfavorable to renewable development. Collectively, these actions introduced procedural bottlenecks and substantive barriers that slowed or halted permitting for renewable energy projects on public and private lands nationwide.

The orders also imposed substantial economic harm on rural landowners and communities: eliminating leasing opportunities, reducing income streams, and limiting productive land use. In February, a coalition of renewable energy trade associations and advocacy groups sued DOI, USACE and others, alleging that the agency actions are arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), and filed the motion for preliminary injunction. In particular, Plaintiffs allege that the actions have unlawfully disrupted established permitting frameworks and imposed categorical disadvantages on wind and solar energy development without a reasoned explanation.

The Sabin Center – on behalf of amici advocating for rural landowners and communities including the Center for Rural Affairs, Solar United Neighbors, Renew Missouri, and CURE – filed a brief supporting plaintiffs’ motion, emphasizing the property, economic, and community harms imposed by the challenged actions. In issuing its preliminary injunction, the court found that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their APA claims, determining that all of the challenged agency actions were likely arbitrary and capricious because the agencies did not provide sufficient explanation for their change in policy or adequately consider reliance interests, and/or that the agency actions were contrary to federal statute, including the OCSLA and the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act (FLPMA).

Indeed, the court elaborated that DOI’s deliberate and unabashed roadblocks established and applied exclusively to the development of renewable energy marked a “significant departure from [agency] precedent” and required a “more detailed justification” than the sparse and unreasoned rationales provided – most of which focused on the need to implement Trump’s executive orders. The court also determined that plaintiffs faced irreparable harm, likely in the form of ongoing and imminent economic loss resulting from delayed or stalled projects, and that the balance of equities and public interest favored the Plaintiffs.

On this point, the court agreed with the plaintiffs that the contested secretarial orders “delay[] and prevent[] the development of wind and solar energy projects in the United States, which in turn threatens the public’s vital interest in maintaining a reliable, affordable, and resilient power grid.” And, citing the Sabin Center’s amicus brief, the court acknowledged that “the [a]gency [a]ctions adversely impact the property rights of rural landowners and harm the character of rural communities.” The situation is rife with irony. The Trump Administration issued the anti-renewable orders under the pretense of creating