Trump admin abandons fight against wind energy as clean output surges

A new EDF-Atlas assessment shows clean power capacity is rising fast even as the Trump administration’s stance has fallen out of step with renewables. The report also documents a parallel jump in planned natural gas capacity, with critics warning that long-liv

For a state that depends on fast-moving power decisions, the tug-of-war over energy isn’t theoretical. In Maryland. clean-energy advocate Jon Gordon says the timeline is unforgiving: demand can’t wait. and new supply is needed “right away.” Yet. he argues. natural gas plants are the opposite kind of fix—long to build. built to last. and likely to serve “for 30 years plus. once they’re constructed.”.

Gordon’s concerns land alongside new findings from an EDF-Atlas report that tracks how power construction plans are stacking up across the country. The assessment shows planned and under-construction natural gas capacity rising from 44.8 GW in Q4 2025 to 65.5 GW by the end of Q1 2026—an increase of 20.7 GW. EDF’s report frames it as a pace that outstrips renewable momentum over the same period. describing that the gas buildout is “more than four times the combined growth of solar. storage. and onshore wind.”.

Even as clean capacity expands. the report says fossil fuels are taking a bigger share of what’s on the drawing board. Fossil fuels’ share of planned capacity climbed from 9 percent at the end of 2022 to 27 percent—a “threefold increase” that the authors say points to an uptick in fossil fuel generation investment.

Gordon, a senior policy director at Advanced Energy United, ties the surge to politics and policy choices. He called the gas buildout “very concerning… particularly from an environmental standpoint. ” arguing that it reflects “this administration that’s been throwing roadblocks in the way of renewables and providing incentives for fossil fuel.”.

Those incentives and obstacles. Gordon says. collide with a practical reality for places like Maryland: the need for new power can be urgent. while the gas pipeline moves slowly. Costs also tilt in favor of cleaner options, he argues. Gas plant costs. Gordon said. “has almost doubled in just a couple of years. ” while solar and battery costs “keep falling.”.

The map of where clean energy is being built adds another layer. The EDF-Atlas report found that 80 percent of the nation’s existing. planned. and under-construction clean power capacity is located in congressional districts represented by Republicans. Among the 30 districts with the most clean power capacity, just five are Democratic. Texas tops every state with 164 GW—nearly double California’s 83 GW.

Still. the politics of that map aren’t as simple as a bright red-blue story. according to Abe Silverman. an assistant research scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute. He cautioned against reading land-use patterns as purely partisan. When looking at the spread of projects, Silverman said, “the first thing he looks for is ‘where is land cheap.’”.

His questions go to the fundamentals. “Is it really the red and blueness of the state, or is it the underlying cost of land and the density?” he asked. He said much of the growth is in areas with low-cost land, and that it is “further shaped by interconnection policies.”

That means the clean-energy surge and the gas acceleration are unfolding on the same stage—but not through the same incentives or timelines. The gas buildout’s rapid growth. the report’s fossil share increase. and Gordon’s warning about decades-long plant service all point to the stakes of the next round of infrastructure decisions. Clean power capacity is rising; the question is what kind of system the country is building to meet demand as the lock-in effects of long-lived projects begin to take hold.

EDF-Atlas wind energy natural gas clean energy solar storage onshore wind fossil fuels share congressional districts interconnection policies Maryland Advanced Energy United