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State legislatures saw a torrent of anti-clean energy bills introduced this year — and little more than a trickle of measures that would benefit renewables. Fortunately, most of the legislation was not signed into law.
As of June, with most states’ legislative sessions wrapped up for the year, 305 bills related to the siting of new clean energy developments had been introduced across 47 states, according to a new report from Clean Tomorrow, a policy-focused nonprofit. Of those, 148 would likely have made it harder to build renewables, while just 68 would have helped wind, solar, or battery storage projects move forward. The remaining 89 would have had a neutral or unclear impact.
The vast majority of these bills stalled out, and of the few that were signed into law, slightly more were favorable to clean energy than hostile to it. Ten pro-renewables siting laws passed versus seven that are expected to restrict clean energy.
Still, the flood of new anti-renewables legislation underscores the increasingly hostile policy environment for clean energy.
Already, 16 states have significant restrictions on new solar, wind, and battery projects, and 459 counties and municipalities across 44 states have restrictions of their own, per a June 2025 report from the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. These restrictive policies range from giving local officials more authority over permitting decisions to imposing onerous setback requirements on projects, which prevent solar or wind from being built within a certain distance of, say, a road or a property line.
Such policies are becoming more common around the U.S., the Sabin Center finds, a fact that is not surprising given shrinking public approval for large clean energy projects. Support for expanding solar farms fell from 66% to 52% between September 2022 and this past June, per an AP/NORC poll; pro-solar sentiment declined most among independents and Democrats over that period.
Still, some Democrat-led states are boosting policy support for clean energy deployment — most notably Colorado. Even in deep-red Ohio, the governor signed into law a bipartisan, tech-neutral bill that is expected to make it modestly easier to build clean energy.
States and municipalities have significant power to advance clean energy, even without the federal government. They also have the ability to stifle it, making state and local government a crucial arena for the energy transition. Right now, with Trump’s all-out campaign against clean energy at their back, opponents of renewables have the momentum.
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