It has been a busy policy year for the renewable energy industry: legislators in nearly every state introduced hundreds of bills to change the rules under which large-scale wind, solar, and battery storage projects receive state and local approvals. The Siting Solutions Project tracked, analyzed, and reported on 305 bills introduced in 47 states from January through June 2025 seeking to change the rules for siting and permitting renewable energy projects. The legislation we reviewed includes restrictive policies, which sought to make renewable energy siting more difficult by increasing setback distances or mandating more local control over zoning, as well as permissive policies, which would facilitate wind and solar siting, through mechanisms like permit streamlining and reasonable development standards.

Clean Tomorrow’s State of Siting 2025 Legislative Round-Up report, grounded in expertise on state policy approaches to renewable siting, provides insights into national siting policy trends, state-specific analyses, and 2026 projections.

Restrictive Policy Approaches Proliferate

Most bills introduced in 2025 (49%) would likely make clean energy deployment more difficult, as seen in the chart below.

Restrictive policy approaches gained momentum in states with large amounts of clean energy deployment, such as Oklahoma and Texas, which rank first and second respectively for wind capacity added over the last 10 years. Clean energy opponents also sought to overturn laws in states that recently passed permissive siting reforms, including California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, and Washington. In each state, policymakers sought to repeal or water down newly minted siting laws.

Types of Restrictive Legislation

Of the 148 bills proposed nationwide that would have negative impacts on renewable energy development, many fit within distinct policy approaches. The most common types of restrictive bills would have increased the number of local approvals required for developers, given more zoning authority to local boards, and expanded setback requirements. The full suite of restrictive approaches, ranked by frequency, are shown below.

The Polarized Politics of Siting Policy

Many of the bills were introduced by Republican lawmakers, who proposed nearly twice as many siting bills as their Democratic colleagues, and these bills were overwhelmingly restrictive; Republicans introduced nine restrictive bills for every one permissive proposal. This trend is explained by two factors: First, Republicans tend to represent rural communities where projects are most likely to be sited, giving them a greater stake in the issue; Second, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey, Republican support for wind and solar technologies has plummeted since the first Trump administration took office.

New Coalitions of Unlikely Allies Blocked Restrictive Bills

Non-traditional coalitions faced off against this high volume of restrictive bills and effectively blocked or limited their impacts in many states. In Louisiana, an unlikely alliance of the renewable energy industry, business groups, and oil and gas interests banded together to oppose HB 615, which would have stopped an emerging solar industry in its tracks. While its counterpart in the House, HB 459, passed and creates new hurdles for renewables in Louisiana, it’s significantly less restrictive than the original proposal. In Texas, new advocates for solar and wind from diverse backgrounds, including local chambers of commerce, ranchers, veterans, and landowners, joined with renewable energy and conservation groups to block SB 819, a particularly restrictive siting bill. And in Oklahoma, the energy industry, business groups, and tech companies opposed several restrictive proposals, and formed a coalition that supported Governor Stitt’s vetoes of several harmful bills that passed the legislature.

Renewable Energy Broke Even with a Balance of Wins and Losses

Despite the massive volume of bills introduced, only a few were passed through their legislatures and signed into law. Of the 39 siting-related bills that did pass, renewable energy broke even–with a balance of wins and losses. While more than half of the siting bills that passed make minor adjustments with no significant impact on the pace of clean energy deployment, states enacted an almost equal number of bills helping (10 bills) and hurting (7 bills) the renewable energy permitting process. The map below highlights the states that successfully passed legislation that we anticipate will impact renewable energy deployment. Interestingly, the only states that succeeded in passing siting reform legislation, either restrictive or permissive, all have single-party control over the respective House, Senate, and Governor’s office. These trifecta states were more productive than split legislatures, which may both reflect the challenges of passing anything through a split legislature and the political polarization of the issue. Nevertheless, bills with bipartisan support were more likely to pass even in trifecta states; bipartisan-sponsored legislation passed with a success rate of 40%, twice that of Democrat-sponsored bills and four times that of Republican-sponsored bills. 

State-Specific Insights

In our full report, we profile a handful of states, shedding light on the political debates that transpired and the likely impacts of new laws. Indiana, Ohio, and Oregon passed siting legislation with modest benefits for clean energy deployment. Legislators in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana were busy trying to restrict clean energy deployment and scored a few minor victories.  The jury is still out on renewable energy siting bills signed in South Carolina and Maryland, both bills have unclear or mixed impacts on clean energy development.

Looking Ahead: 2026 Forecast

The 2026 legislative session will be crucial for determining whether the restrictive momentum of 2025 represents a temporary backlash, or if permissive policies will gain a greater foothold in future legislatures. Based on current political dynamics and policy momentum, we anticipate at least six states—Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—are likely to pursue significant siting legislation in 2026 and beyond.

The future of America’s clean energy economy depends increasingly on the outcomes of state-by-state political battles over where and how clean energy projects can be built. The Siting Solutions Project will continue monitoring and reporting on state-level policy developments.

Download our “State of Siting: 2025 Legislative Round-Up” insight report here.

If you’d like more information, or if there’s anything we’ve missed, please reach out to siting@cleantomorrow.org.