How Lava Ridge Could Come Back

Jeff Pierson's Feeding the Beast No. 1 makes the core point in one line: the cancellation rests on executive action, and what one administration does, another can undo. That is accurate as far as it goes. The fuller picture has several routes back, each with its own gate, and some gates have gotten harder since 2025 while one got easier.

The routes, side by side

Route	What would have to happen	Pushes toward return	Pushes against	What to watch
Policy change	A later administration lifts the wind review and Interior issues a new decision	The memorandum calls itself temporary and review-based; a final EIS already exists	The 2024 ROD was reversed, so a new decision is needed; an older EIS may need supplementing	New Interior wind guidance; any rescission of the January 2025 memorandum
New application	Magic Valley Energy or another developer files a fresh right-of-way application under 43 U.S.C. 1761	Existing studies and data on the area; SWIP-N in service by 2028	Full NEPA review again; years of process; current wind policy	BLM register and right-of-way case filings in the area
Lawsuit	The developer sues over the reversal under the APA and wins	A court can set aside a decision made without proper reasons or procedure	No suit found as of October 2026; courts often send a decision back to the agency, not forward to construction	Federal court dockets through about August 2031
Private and state land	A smaller project sited off BLM land, with county permits or a state lease	No federal right-of-way needed; Idaho leases endowment land for energy	County zoning; fewer large contiguous parcels; local opposition	County CUP filings; Idaho Department of Lands lease notices

Route 1: a change in federal policy

The January 20, 2025 memorandum is titled as a temporary withdrawal and review. It paused new wind approvals "pending" a review and placed a "temporary moratorium" on Magic Valley Energy's rights. A future president could rescind it in a day.

But rescinding the memorandum would not revive the 2024 decision, because Interior went further in August 2025 and reversed the approval itself. To build, the project would need a new decision. Interior could try to rest one on the 2024 final EIS, but environmental analyses go stale: if the project, the area or the science changes enough, agencies supplement the EIS before deciding. Two years is not old for an EIS. Six or eight years starts to be.

Route 2: a new application

Anyone can apply to the BLM for a right-of-way for "systems for generation, transmission, and distribution of electric energy" under 43 U.S.C. 1761. A new Lava Ridge, or a different developer on similar ground, would start that process over: application, plan of development, scoping, draft EIS, comments, final EIS, decision.

Route 3: a lawsuit

An agency that reverses its own decision has to explain why. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, a court can set aside an action that is arbitrary, unlawful or made without required procedure. Magic Valley Energy could argue Interior had no adequate basis to undo a final ROD.

This course found no suit as of October 2026. And winning would usually send the matter back to Interior to decide again with better reasons. It would not hand the developer a construction permit.

Route 4: off federal land

A wind project on private land needs no BLM grant. It needs landowner leases, county permits and an interconnection. State endowment land is another option: the Idaho Department of Lands sought wind and solar lease proposals on more than 6,000 acres in Elmore County in 2020, so the state does lease for energy.

This is where local code matters most, and where the course on limiting industrial energy projects through local code picks up. On private land, county zoning governs: setbacks, height limits, decommissioning bonds, or districts where utility-scale wind is not allowed at all. On BLM land, a county ordinance cannot simply veto a federal grant, though federal planning law asks the BLM to coordinate with local plans, and county comments go into the record. A county that wants a durable answer has to write it for the land it actually controls.

What makes a return harder, and what makes it easier

Harder: the tax credits. IRS Notice 2025-42 describes the 2025 law: wind and solar facilities lose the federal production and investment credits if construction begins after July 4, 2026 and they are placed in service after December 31, 2027. Lava Ridge was under a federal moratorium through that date, so it could not have begun construction, and a 1,000 MW wind farm with no permit cannot be built by the end of 2027. So any return would have to pencil out without those credits, or wait for Congress to change the law. That is a large hole in the economics of a 1,000 MW wind farm.

Harder: the queue. Magic Valley Energy also announced an 800 MW Salmon Falls Wind project on BLM land in Twin Falls County in March 2022. A third-party tracker of Idaho Power's interconnection queue lists an 800 MW wind and battery request by Magic Valley Energy at the Rogerson 345 kV substation, queued August 30, 2021, as suspended. A suspended request has not been withdrawn; the position sits on the shelf.

Easier: the wire. SWIP-N adds over 2,000 MW of capacity between the Midpoint Substation and Nevada, in service by 2028 if the schedule holds. Lack of transmission is what strands most remote wind. With that wire built, the hardest physical problem for a big Magic Valley generator gets smaller, no matter who is in the White House.

Easier: California still wants the power. CAISO's draft 2025-2026 transmission plan, released April 7, 2026, calls for importing over 10 GW of wind from Idaho, Wyoming and New Mexico, much of it over out-of-state lines in development, SWIP-North among them. A buyer on the far end of the wire is half of what a developer needs. CAISO's board approved the final plan on May 19, 2026, trimmed to $6.7 billion from the draft's $7 billion, and the approval release kept the 10 GW wind import, again naming SWIP North among the lines it relies on.

Easier, maybe: county money. The 2025 federal budget law added revenue sharing for wind and solar on federal land. NRDC's analysis of it says capacity fees, set at 3.9 percent of gross proceeds from electricity sales, are split 50 percent federal, 25 percent to the state and 25 percent to the county where the project sits. Lava Ridge was approved before that existed. A county weighing a future project on BLM land would now have a federal payment to set against the costs, on top of Idaho's 3 percent production tax on wind under Idaho Code 63-3502B. NRDC reported that first distributions may not arrive until March 2027.

Either way: permitting reform. The Senate permitting bill released September 30, 2026 would, as Utility Dive described it, bar revoking or suspending most federal energy permits already issued and let applicants sue over denials or delays driven by the type of project. If it becomes law, a future wind approval would be harder for a later administration to undo the way Lava Ridge's was. It had not passed either chamber as of mid-October 2026. Utility Dive's account adds the context. Bipartisan talks stalled in December 2025 after the administration ordered work stopped on five offshore wind projects, and courts later ruled against the administration on all five. Separately, in April 2026 U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Massachusetts granted clean energy groups a preliminary injunction against federal actions that paused or added review for wind and solar permits. Lava Ridge was stopped by a different road, a January 2025 memorandum and an August 2025 cancellation. Whether the bill's protection would reach a cancellation like that one is a question for the text, once it is filed.