When Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz took the stage to welcome a conference of clean energy advocates in Minneapolis in May, he was quick to note that his state now gets just over half of its electricity from renewables. In the next breath, Walz said Minnesota will never reach 100% – a goal he helped create – without changing what he called “outdated” permitting laws.
“There are things we’re doing that are too cumbersome. They don’t fit with what we’re already doing, they add costs and they make it even harder for us to achieve our goals,” Walz told industry group American Clean Power.
A few weeks later, he signed a bill designed to speed things up. Project developers no longer have to prove that a clean energy project — that is, solar and wind power, storage and transmission projects — is needed as part of Minnesota’s energy system. And they no longer have to examine alternative sites and transmission routes — a requirement that effectively doubled the number of potential opponents to a project.
Walz’s efforts to remove a major obstacle to the nation’s energy transition have garnered modern attention since he was nominated as Kamala Harris’s vice presidential running mate. His experience passing such legislation in Minnesota could make him a leader on climate issues should Harris win in November.
“If Governor Walz becomes our vice president, I hope he can help bring some of these considerations to the federal level,” said Amelia Vohs, climate program director at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, a group that helped craft the permitting reforms. “It would make an incredible difference to the country’s progress on climate.”
What Minnesota has done is not easily replicated at the federal level because of a divided Congress. But experts say most renewable energy projects are developed on private lands, subject to siting by states or localities or both. Other states could follow Minnesota’s lead. One notable exception is offshore wind, where development in federal waters is regulated by federal agencies.
New York, California, Illinois and Michigan have already made their own changes to permitting processes in recent years to speed up the deployment of clean energy, taking different approaches depending on whether the state or local government retains control of the siting process.
“The speed of the energy transition is critical, in fact it matters a lot,” says Matthew Eisenson, a senior fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law who tracks legal barriers to renewable energy facilities and develops strategies to overcome them.
“The faster we can reduce emissions, the faster we can stabilize the climate and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. So at the macro level, speed is important. At the micro level, speed is important. Projects can be nipped in the bud if it takes too long.”
Most wind and solar projects take four to six years from announcement to commissioning. Around two-thirds of this time is needed for approval, according to studies by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Around 20 percent of projects take more than six years.
Berkeley Lab surveyed developers of immense wind and solar projects nationwide last year about their experiences with permitting processes. Developers said local ordinances or zoning and community opposition were the main causes of significant delays and cancellations. According to researcher Robi Nilson, these two factors are often related: in some cases, community opposition has lengthened the permitting process, while in other cases the process was already lengthy due to previous opposition to other projects.
Developers reported that about a third of their applications for wind and solar sites submitted over the past five years were canceled, while about half experienced delays of six months or more. Survey respondents came from companies that collectively financed about half of the wind and solar facilities developed nationwide between 2016 and 2023.
“Any permitting legislation that makes it easier to build clean energy infrastructure and make connections is critical to all of our climate goals,” said Ben Pendergrass, vice president of government affairs at Citizens Climate Lobby, a nonpartisan, nonprofit climate advocacy organization.
Before the modern law, permitting in Minnesota was handled through a 50-year-old process that was ponderous and getting slower. The time it took to get a solar project approved increased from about 10 months in 2015 to 18 months as of 2019, according to a report by North Star Policy Action, a research group that supports action on climate change, among other things.
House Majority Leader Jamie Long, a Minneapolis Democrat, had worked with Walz on the 2023 bill that set the state’s goal of using 100% clean energy. Once that passed, they turned their attention to the permitting process. Walz-appointed members of the state Public Utilities Commission put together broad working groups with the goal of getting something in place for this year’s legislative session, Long said.
The change in the law was not without resistance.
Lawmakers had to consider concerns from environmental groups who feared that too-quick implementation would compromise environmental review and wanted to ensure there was enough time for public participation in the permitting process. Those groups also wanted to make sure the bill would only fast-track wind, solar and transmission projects — not nuclear, biomass, fossil fuel and hydrogen projects, or waste incineration. Democrats, who control the Minnesota Legislature, advanced the bill despite objections from Republicans who wanted it to include fossil fuel and nuclear projects as well.
The final bill was supported by utilities, renewable energy developers, labor, environmentalists and nonprofit energy policy organizations, whose recommendations to speed up the process became the core of the bill. Walz and his team stayed involved throughout to get the final bill to the finish line, said Long, the bill’s author in the House.
Walz signed it at a wind farm in southern Minnesota, which he represented in Congress before taking office as governor.
“The legislation accomplished something really difficult by striking a balance between increasing efficiency and avoiding other projects that we didn’t want to facilitate,” said Vohs of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. “It maintained the integrity of the process and didn’t throw too much overboard in the name of efficiency.”
Virginia-based Apex Clean Energy said it took nearly two years to get permits for each of the two immense wind and solar projects it is developing in southwestern Minnesota’s Cottonwood County. Chris Kunkle, senior director of government affairs at Apex, said he expects the modern law will cut the permitting time about in half, which he called “fantastic.”
Xcel Energy, the state’s largest utility, expects to save several months of time when it comes to getting a single transmission line or immense power plant approved. Given the number of companies pursuing projects to provide carbon-free electricity to their customers, the cumulative time savings will be decades.
Doug Loon, president and CEO of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, said it’s clear the system isn’t working. He said the chamber believes the state now needs to apply reforms to the entire industry, not just one segment.
Long expressed hope that other states would follow Minnesota’s example.
“I think if a state like ours, which doesn’t have a particularly deep blue coast or a coastal location, can come together and find a way to get business, workers and the environment to support a package, that’s a strong sign that it can be done,” he said.
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