Future of wind and solar farms in Trump's America | The Excerpt
Future of wind and solar farms in Trump's America | The Excerpt
Dana Taylor, USA TODAYMon, February 23, 2026 at 10:09 AM UTC
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On Monday, February 23, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: America’s need for affordable energy sits at the intersection of economic stability and environmental responsibility. Wind and solar farms offer promise, yet concerns over safety and land use have fueled resistance in some communities. USA TODAY Reporter Elizabeth Weise joins The Excerpt to discuss the future of green energy in America.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
America needs affordable energy and that demand sits at the crossroads of creating economic stability while balancing environmental responsibility. Green energy solutions like wind and solar farms hold promise, but there's been strong pushback over safety and land use. As the country weighs questions about infrastructure and affordability, what kind of energy future should we invest in?
Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Monday, February 23rd, 2026. Here to explore those questions and to share the perspective of farmers who've grappled with the issue of land use as USA TODAY Reporter Elizabeth Weise. It's wonderful to have you back on the excerpt, Beth.
Elizabeth Weise:
Happy as always to be here.
Dana Taylor:
When we spoke about this topic two years ago, you told me that as a country, we've made a commitment to getting to 100% carbon-neutral electricity by 2035. President Donald Trump has now reversed that. Is this goal now just dead in the water? Did we make any meaningful progress before Trump took office?
Elizabeth Weise:
Well, as a goal, the US has walked back from that and we no longer have that as a goal. That said, wind and solar are just so cheap to build and quick to build that we're already up to 17% of US electricity coming from wind and solar power at this point. So that while it's slowing, that number continues to increase. And we had hoped, well, under the Biden administration, the plan had been that we would get to a hundred percent solar, that's not going to happen. But it does continue to increase because it just makes sense in a lot of places.
Dana Taylor:
Let's head to some of the places that have seen their economies reinvigorated by renewable energy money. How have wind and solar farms helped shape Randolph County, Indiana?
Elizabeth Weise:
So we went there and it's a wonderful farming county. When they got wind and solar power and specifically wind, they were able to spend a lot of money building up their infrastructure. They redid the county fairground, which if you've spent any time in rural America, 4H is huge. They were able to work on the 4H sites. It ended up being a $2.8 million investment just in the county fairground, which is always important for an ag community. Money went into school districts, infrastructure, ambulances. You know, all the things that make a community vibrant and viable so that people stay there. And that's one of the concerns is as population has lowered. I mean, we're seeing a contraction in the number of farms in the United States as they're consolidating. Counties really need the infrastructure to keep people in place because if there aren't good schools, if there aren't programs, they'll go someplace where they can get access to that.
Dana Taylor:
Tell me about Chris Redder, fifth generation farmer in Randolph County. How have he and his family balanced farming and working with renewable companies?
Elizabeth Weise:
So he's an interesting character because his family's been there for forever. They grow corn, wheat, soy. But in 2011, they got an offer from a company that wanted to put in a wind farm. And they talked about it a lot amongst the whole family, the dad, all the siblings. And in the end, they decided to do it because they were concerned that they weren't going to bring in enough money to keep the farm in perpetuity, which is what they want. And the thing about wind, especially, is that it takes up about 5% of acreage. So you can farm around it. I mean, I've been in a lot of fields where there's a wind turbine right there and then there's corn or soy or wheat or sorghum all around it. And so they made that decision. And according to him, it's allowed them to know that they will be able to keep that farm and pass it down through the generations and to make the money that they're getting from it, the leases, and to make some upgrades that help them be more profitable.
Dana Taylor:
But not everyone is on board with having wind and solar farms in their communities. What's the verdict on green energy for people living in Randolph?
Elizabeth Weise:
I've spent a lot of time in these communities, and it is hard because if you are from a beautiful rural agricultural place, it can be a little disconcerting to suddenly see a turbine or suddenly drive past a solar farm. When you talk to farmers, I mean, farmers, they make their money from what they can do with their soil. That is what they're about. At the end, it's all about how much money can I make from the ground that I own or that I have access to. So farmers are often like, "Hey, this is just another way for me to make money." I talked to a rancher who said, "I can make money off cattle. I can make money off wind turbines. Actually, I can do both because they can coexist on my land." So for many farmers, it's not an issue. But for a lot of people, they don't want to see these things.
They are there because it's this beautiful, bucolic, lovely fields and waving grain, and they don't want to see them. There's a lot of misinformation out about them. Sometimes when you go to these areas, you hear from people that maybe the farmers aren't the ones as opposed, but it's folks who've moved from cities and towns who came specifically to be in a rural, beautiful area, but they are not actually making their living from that ground. And so there can be a little bit of tension there between folks who maybe they have five acres, but they don't have 400 acres and they don't want their viewscape destroyed in their words. And the farmers are like, "Hey, it's my land. I'll do what I want with it." So there's a lot of tensions.
Dana Taylor:
President Donald Trump has called green energy a scam, but why is the Trump administration opposed to green energy and how has that impacted the flow of money?
Elizabeth Weise:
Well, President Trump has been strongly anti-wind since at least 2011 when it was proposed to build wind turbines off the Scottish coast, which you could see from one of his golf courses. And he fought that all the way to the Supreme Court over there and he ended up losing. So he has long had a extreme dislike of wind turbines. Solar more recently, the argument that the administration has made is that these forms of energy are unreliable, that they don't make sense because they're heavily subsidized. And if they're not subsidized, then they economically don't make sense, which isn't actually true. And the Trump administration has really doubled down on fossil fuels. So coal, oil, natural gas, and wants to put America's efforts behind those as opposed to wind and solar, which unsubsidized wind and solar is still among the cheapest ways to generate electricity.
Dana Taylor:
The story of wind and solar is playing out in rural America, places I'd be correct in calling Trump country, right?
Elizabeth Weise:
They are. And people have a lot of conflicting feelings sometimes. There's a really interesting group, Conservatives For Clean Power. I mean, there's actually a bunch of conservative groups that are, they say, "We're all of the above. We don't just want coal or fossil fuels. We want anything that we can to make energy because without energy, America can't function and America can't be great." So there are contradictions there. And the Republican Party has really become very, especially in rural America, very much the party of being opposed to wind and solar in many places. There are conservative groups that would tell you that's a contradiction. It brings up a lot of strong feelings.
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One of the places that we visited was Utah. And Utah is, the county I was in, 70% Trump voters it was very strong. And yet they were very rational about it. And they just sat down and they said, "Hey, this solar is going to bring in this much money. It's going to allow us to do this with their schools." They have an amazing wrestling team. This is in Juab County. And they decided, "This is what we want." And for them, I mean, they had a lot of discussions, but it ended up being a financial decision for their community apart from any political feelings they might've had.
Dana Taylor:
Well, roughly how many counties have impediments to new wind and solar? What are some of the hurdles that farmers who want wind or solar farms are facing?
Elizabeth Weise:
Yeah, so that's what's really interesting. So we have spent three years now doing an in depth analysis of every county in the United States to see if they had either a ban or a block or a moratorium on new... And we're only looking at utility scale solar. This isn't what you stick on your roof. These are solar farms that can power tens and thousands of houses at a time. And what we found when we looked at 2023, at that point, 15% of US counties made it difficult or impossible to build new wind or solar. When we redid those numbers for 2024 and 2025, we are now up to 24%, almost 25% of US counties where you can either not build new wind or solar, or there are so many hurdles to building it that it becomes financially... It's a disincentive to developers.
Dana Taylor:
You wrote that companies have to negotiate complex contracts. How difficult is it for companies to get these green initiatives off the ground?
Elizabeth Weise:
It's a process that can take years. I was just updating the California numbers. And I mean, there are counties in California that have been trying to build wind or solar for 12, 13, 18 years, and reasonably so. There are a lot of hurdles. You have to get the leases from the farmers, and then you have to go to the county commission. And often the county planning commission, you have to get sign off from various federal and state oversight institutions. You have to make sure that there's no significant environmental impact. I mean, it is a long slog. What we're seeing is that counties are putting in place requirements that make it longer and maybe even impossible. I mean, there's a county in Michigan that requires their local county health department to sign off on whether a new wind project is healthy for the people in the community.
And the people at the health department are like, "That is not our expertise. How can we do this?" So people are coming up with new ways for counties to block without actually banning these. Because if you just ban it, I mean, you might be subject to a lawsuit, like what's your basis? And counties sometimes just come up with rules that can be so difficult or onerous or expensive that developers just say, "Okay, this county doesn't really make sense."
Dana Taylor:
Let's dive into some of the safety questions people have regarding renewable energy. We have birds, and if they're impacted by wind turbines and solar farms. If solar panels are toxic, do they leach toxins into the earth? What reporting did you do on that, Beth?
Elizabeth Weise:
So the toxins is one you see a lot where a county will have a regulation that says, "You have to go out and test the groundwater to make sure these are not contaminating our groundwater." And you hear that a lot in the meetings where everybody shows up. The truth is that a solar panel does contain metals that if you were to ingest them would be bad for you. However, those metals are part of the silicon. They're part of the glass that make up the solar panel. And so when I talk to scientists, MIT and other places, what the scientists have told me is really the only way that could work is you would have to grind up the solar panel and then put the resulting dust into a strong acid bath, and then you might get those metals to leach out. But otherwise, I mean, it's glass. Things don't melt out of glass.
Birds are an interesting question because yes, when especially wind turbines can kill birds, and the number is between 140,000 to maybe as many as 700,000 a year can be harmed by wind turbines, and birds and bats both actually. But when you talk to people about this, and even like the Audubon Society, they say the important thing is to remember that, I mean, that seems like a lot of birds, but it's nothing compared to the number of birds in the United States that are killed by outdoor cats every year. And that number is estimated between 1.3 and 4 billion a year and also buildings because birds fly into buildings and that's probably more than 900 million a year. So yes, turbines can kill birds, but really if you're concerned about birds, it's not the least of your worries, but it really shouldn't be high on your list.
Dana Taylor:
We've discussed some of the financial benefits here, but are homeowners at risk of declining property values?
Elizabeth Weise:
Yeah, that's a really interesting one. And there's been a fair amount of research done by that by, actually, federal labs. So what they've found is typically your property value does dip, and especially it's very dependent on how close you are to win turbine or a solar plant. I mean, if you're a mile away, there's very little impact. I mean, if you're 200 yards away, perhaps.
However, they also found that they dip, but they tend to go back up. What they think is happening is that when you get wind turbines or a solar farm in your county or in your area, that brings in a lot of tax revenue, which means your infrastructure increases. So your schools get better, your roads get better. I mean, I've been in counties where they didn't have ambulance service because they couldn't afford it. And then when they got wind or solar, there was enough tax revenue that they could get it.
And so those things have meant that overall, property values tend to increase over time. So they can dip, they tend to come back, and it's really only people who live right next to the farms. Being far away is not a big deal, though they may not like how they look, but it's unlikely to impact their property values.
Dana Taylor:
Beth, you've reported on this topic for years. We're now at the end of your series on wind and solar. What struck you the most as you researched the story?
Elizabeth Weise:
I mean, a couple of things. I have spent now a lot of time in the Midwest and on a lot of farms, and I really could feel the struggle that people have because these are their homes. So they love this landscape and they don't want it messed up. And so that is real and there's really no way... I mean, some people can look at a wind turbine and see soaring beauty and amazing engineering, and some people can look at it and see it as a blight on the landscape. That's a hard one. But what I say more broadly, and especially what we're seeing now in the Trump administration, is that wind and solar power is inexpensive. We need more power. When you go to these counties, I mean, they're like, "It's a windfall." I mean, one guy said, "It has been a goldmine for our school district. I mean, it makes tremendous difference."
And so to see increasing amounts of the United States turning away from that possibility and just cutting it off like this will never happen in this county, it feels shortsighted. And then the broader issue, and we've certainly seen this under the Trump administration, is that the United States is turning away from wind and solar power and geothermal. The geothermal they're less concerned about and really doubling down on fossil fuels. And the rest of the world is doing exactly the opposite. I mean, China is building out wind and solar and when I speak to people about this, they're concerned that the United States is going to be left behind in this major, important transition. And at some point, if we try and play catch up, it's going to be a lot more expensive.
Dana Taylor:
Beth Weise is a reporter for USA TODAY. Thank you so much for joining me, Beth.
Elizabeth Weise:
As always, I am thrilled to be here. Thanks so much.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our senior producer, Kaely Monahan, for her production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA TODAY's The Excerpt.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will farmers decide the future of green energy? | The Excerpt
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