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State of Siting | May 2026

Newsletter

Activity on siting policy is slowing down now that most state sessions have ended. 12 more states adjourned in May: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Vermont, leaving 15 states still in general session today. This year we’re tracking 215 siting bills across 42 states. At this point in the session, the ratio of restrictive to permissive bills is close to breaking even, which is an improvement from last year.

National Siting Policy Trends

Session Updates – States to Watch

Sensible Spotlight | Highlighting a policy that shifts the narrative or moves the ball

  • In Pennsylvania, SB 349 (11R*), a 2025 session bill that was carried over to this year, would establish statewide decommissioning and financial assurance standards, preempting any such standards set through local ordinances. The decommissioning standards include the removal of equipment and structures at least 3-feet below grade, require restoration to pre-construction condition, and reseeding of any cleared areas. The financial assurance provisions mirror industry best practices, with phased financial payments over the lifetime of a project and recalculation of cost estimates every 5 years. While the underground removal requirement is more restrictive than other state decommissioning regulations, these standards provide certainty and ensure local governments cannot set cost-prohibitive decommissioning requirements. The bill was removed from the table on April 29th and re-referred to the Appropriations Committee on May 4th.

Active bills that would improve renewable energy siting:

  • Rhode Island’s SB 2800 (2D*) seeks to incentivize and streamline permitting energy storage systems on brownfields and other blighted property through a few mechanisms. First, it adds energy storage as a priority criterion that buyers can satisfy to get preference in court-ordered sales of blighted, abandoned properties. Second, it requires by-right permitting for energy storage projects proposed on blighted property that have gone through a receivership sales process. Lastly, it extends the “Renewable Ready” law to energy storage systems, which grants by-right permitting status on all previously contaminated sites. While originally applying this incentive broadly, the Senate passed an amended version on May 21st which limits its scope to projects at or below 5 MW, effectively excluding large, utility-scale projects from by-right permitting. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Municipal Government and Housing on May 22nd.
  • In New York, SB 4408 (1D)/AB 10483 (6D) removes a barrier to siting renewables near reforestation areas by authorizing the Department of Environmental Conservation to enter into lease agreements or easements in reforestation areas to build transmission infrastructure for the purpose of interconnection of renewable energy facilities sited outside of such protected areas. This bill provides clarity to a legally ambiguous issue around authority and legality around running interconnection lines through state-owned reforestation land protected under the state constitution, thus enabling grid access and making more sites viable for renewable development. The bill was carried over from last year’s session and passed the Senate as amended on April 1st, with the Assembly reprinting their companion bill the same day, now awaiting action.

Active bills that would make renewable energy siting more difficult:

  • In New Jersey, House legislators introduced AB 5002 (3R) on May 7th. The bill repeals subsections of the 2021 offshore wind law and Municipal Land Use Law granting the state authority to site offshore wind projects despite local opposition. The subsections that were removed involved prohibiting a municipality from blocking the state’s use of public rights-of-ways for offshore wind infrastructure, authorizing state-level use of eminent domain in those public rights-of-ways and granting the state authority to preempt or supersede local decisions on permits, if reasonably necessary. Repealing these provisions would subject offshore wind projects to local zoning review, enabling restrictions on development.
  • In New York, SB 9895 (4R) would dismantle the state’s centralized siting framework established through the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) by repealing Article 8 from New York’s Public Service Law, which allows the bypassing of local zoning in many cases and establishes stricter timelines to streamline permitting large-scale renewable energy projects. This would revert the state back to the previous framework of Article 10, which has been criticized for creating permitting bottlenecks. The bill was referred to the Energy and Telecommunications Committee on April 13th. Additionally, SB 9917 (1R)/AB 10965 (1R) would restore local siting authority on top of the existing state siting framework, adding a strenuous layer to the permitting process. Each bill was referred to their respective committees on April 14th.
  • In Vermont, H 710 (2D*) constrains the development of disaggregated projects by defining when multiple renewable energy projects count as a single “plant” by setting a new rule that if a project uses the same generation technology and is developed on the same or contiguous parcels, they are considered the same plant, not matter when each portion of the project was built. This would restrict phased or co-located renewable energy development and subject projects to higher regulatory thresholds at the state. The bill passed in the Senate on May 26th and will go back to the House for concurrence.
  • In Arizona, HB 2975 (2R) proposes a reorientation of state land use priorities from solar development to housing and mining development. The bill requires removing solar scoring or any similar solar potential evaluation from the Commissioner’s state land use decision making and replacing it with mining resource and housing resource scoring frameworks. Both Senate majority and minority caucuses recommended its passage and on April 13th, the Senate Committee of the Whole recommended passage. Next the bill will go to the Senate floor for a third reading and final vote.

Bills that have passed the legislature

  • Oklahoma passed HB 3464 (5R*) on May 5th, establishing statewide standards for energy storage and solar development and preempting any form of local government from adopting energy storage regulations beyond those outlined in the bill. The energy storage standards include reasonable safety provisions such as compliance with fire code, requirements around emergency operations plans, decommissioning and financial assurance standards, and financial support to local fire departments. The solar development standards focus more on transparency and local financial protections such as annual energy generation reporting requirements, pre-construction notices, providing site plans to the State Fire Marshall, and decommissioning financial assurance. While these standards provide more regulatory certainty in terms of project standards by preempting further regulation, this bill does not preempt local siting authority, so decisions on if and where projects are built still lie with the local government. Additionally, the legislature passed SB 237 (4R*), which will phase out the 5-year ad valorem property tax exemption for solar projects, and exclude all battery storage systems from the exemption immediately. While this may impact developer’s project financing, it’s unlikely to have a significant impact on deployment in the state.
  • In Colorado, HB 1326 (38D*, 1R), a reauthorization bill for the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), passed on May 13th. The omnibus bill’s primary purpose was to continue the Colorado PUC through 2033, which would have otherwise sunset this year. Notably, this maintains the PUC’s authority over the appeals process of developers whose land use permit applications were denied at the local level.

Bills that have stalled or failed:

  • The legislative sessions of Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and South Carolina ended without the passage of any siting bills.
  • In Oklahoma, SB 2 (5R), failed after much back and forth between the two chambers. The original bill, introduced in 2025, would have established restrictive standards for wind development, specifically setbacks of ~1,519 feet for all dwellings, on wind projects across the entire state. The House amended the bill to create a new framework that would apply restrictive setbacks only in “affected county” areas with high population densities, allowing for development to occur in areas of the state where wind projects are typically sited, while also providing a referendum option to amend the setbacks locally. Ultimately, the chambers failed to come to an agreement last session, and the bill was carried over. This year, the legislature held a conference committee that resulted in significant changes to the versions of the 2025 legislative session. The setbacks were reduced to more reasonable levels (2.5x tip height from dwellings, 1.5x nonparticipating property lines) but were again applied statewide, and the local referendum option was removed. While these setbacks are more restrictive than the status quo in Oklahoma, they are still quite reasonable for development and could have provided some certainty for the industry, especially considering pro-renewables Governor Stitt’s term ends before the next legislative session. Unfortunately, the House rejected the Conference Committee version, stating it did not go far enough in regulating the technology.
  • In Iowa, SF 2447 (Committee) failed to pass. The bill set state standards and procedures for local governments but includes strict setback distances (3x wind turbine height), sets a 120-day permitting timeline, and did not include opt-out provisions for local governments like its failed counterpart in the House. The bill stalled following the recent decisions from the Iowa Supreme Court and the IUC. First, in the case of Worthwhile Wind LLC vs. Worth County Board of Supervisors, the Iowa Supreme Court decided that significant monetary investment isn’t enough to secure vesting rights for a project. This means that a county can amend their ordinance to restrict renewables or establish moratoriums regardless of whether a developer has already made significant investments in a project. Second, the IUC recently handed down a decision that says developers can go to the IUC for project approval even when local zoning requirements have not been satisfied, essentially preempting local control. With this new context, policymakers decided against moving on the bill this session.
  • In Missouri, every bill related to renewable energy siting was restrictive, and all of them failed to pass. Some of these bills involved establishing statewide moratoriums (SB 849 (1R), while others attempted to establish restrictive statewide standards (SB 879 (1R), SB 2762 (1R*)). Each of them advanced to the “perfection” stage in their chamber of origin but ultimately lacked the momentum to pass before the end of session.
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