Former Interior Department Official Travis Annatoyn Weighs in on Legal Vulnerability of Anti-Renewables Actions in Bloomberg Law

Travis Annatoyn, Arnold & Porter Environmental counsel and former Deputy Solicitor for Energy and Mineral Resources at the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), was recently quoted in two Bloomberg Law articles analyzing the Trump administration’s broad efforts to restrict wind and solar energy development on federal lands.

In the article, “Advocates See Trump’s Move to Kill Wind as Legally Vulnerable,” which explores the administration’s reliance on the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) to scrutinize wind energy projects, Travis pointed out that the efforts to penalize wind developers for incidental bird deaths contradict the DOI’s own recently reinstated legal opinion allowing accidental harm under the MBTA. “These are going to be tough sells if they’re litigated,” he said, adding that the agency’s success in court will depend on its ability to justify reversing decades of precedent. “The administration’s chances of success in litigation is directly correlated with their ability to put their money where their mouth is.”

In a follow-up article, “Trump’s Halt of Wind Farms Shows Scope of Anti-Renewables Effort,” Travis commented on the DOI’s Aug. 1 stop-work order for Ørsted’s Revolution Wind project, saying the agency’s anti-renewables orders appear less connected to one another but more directly tied to broader White House directives aimed at ending federal support for wind and solar development. “There is a connection between every one of these orders and the ur-decision that the industry ought to be disfavored.”

Read the full article: Advocates See Trump’s Move to Kill Wind as Legally Vulnerable (subscription required).

Read the full article: Trump’s Halt of Wind Farms Shows Scope of Anti-Renewables Effort (subscription required).