When Minnesota Governor Tim Walz when he walked on stage to welcome a conference of clean energy advocates to Minneapolis in May, he was quick to note that his state now gets just over half of its energy from renewables. In the next breath, Walz said Minnesota would never reach 100% — a goal he helped set — without changing what he called “outdated” permitting laws.

“There are things we do that are too cumbersome, they don’t fit where we are, they add cost, and they make it more unaffordable to get us where we need to go,” Walz told the industry group American Clean Power.

A few weeks later, he signed a law to speed things up. Developers no longer have to demonstrate that a clean energy project — that is, solar and wind, storage and transmission projects — is needed as part of Minnesota’s energy system. And they no longer have to study alternative sites and transmission lines—a requirement that would have effectively doubled the number of possible opponents to a project.

Walz’s effort to solve a major obstacle to the clean energy transition nationwide has received renewed attention since he was hired as Kamala Harris’ running buddy. His experience passing such laws in Minnesota could position him as a leader on climate issues if Harris wins in November.

“If Gov. Walz becomes our VP, I hope he can help bring some of this thinking to the federal level,” said Amelia Vohs, climate program director at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, a group that was involved in helping to take forward the permit reforms. “It would make an incredible difference in the nation’s progress on climate change.”

What Minnesota did won’t be easily replicated at the federal level because of a sharply divided Congress. But experts say most renewable projects are developed on private land, making them subject to state or local siting authority or both, and other states may follow Minnesota’s lead. Offshore wind is a notable exception, with regulation by federal agencies for development in federal waters.

New York, California, Illinois and Michigan have already made their own changes to allow in recent years to accelerate the deployment of clean energy, with different approaches depending on whether the state or local government retains control of the siting process.

“The speed of the energy transition matters, it matters a lot,” said Matthew Eisenson, a senior fellow at Sabin Center for Climate Change Law which tracks legal barriers to renewable energy installations and develops strategies to overcome them.

“The faster we can reduce emissions, the faster we can stabilize the climate and avoid the worst effects of climate change. So at the macro level, speed matters. At the micro level, speed matters. Projects can die on the vine if they take too long.”

Most wind and solar projects take four to six years from being announced to begin operating, with about two-thirds of that time spent in permitting, according to research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. About 20% of the projects take more than six years.

Berkeley Lab asked the developers of large-scale wind and solar projects across the country last year about their experiences in permitting. Developers said local ordinances or zoning and community opposition were leading causes of significant delays and cancellations. Researcher Robi Nilson said the two are often linked — community opposition made the permitting process longer in some cases, and in others the process was already long due to previous opposition to other projects.

The developers said about a third of their wind and solar applications submitted over the past five years had been cancelled, while about half experienced delays of six months or more. Survey respondents came from companies that together account for roughly half of wind and solar power development nationwide from 2016 to 2023.

“Any state proposal that makes it easier to build clean energy infrastructure and get connected is really critical to all of our climate goals,” said Ben Pendergrass, vice president of government affairs at the Citizens Climate Lobby, a nonpartisan, nonprofit climate advocacy organization.

Before its new law, Minnesota permits were handled in a half-century-old process that was slow and getting slower. The time it took to get a solar project approved increased from about 10 months in 2015 to 18 months from 2019 onwards, 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 law that set the state’s 100% clean energy goal. As soon as that passed, they turned their attention to allowing. Walz’s appointees to the state Public Utility Commission pulled together broad task forces with the goal of having something in place for this year’s legislative session, Long said.

Changing the law did not happen without some resistance.

Lawmakers had to address concerns from environmental groups who worried that speed would hurt the environmental review and wanted to be sure there was enough time for public participation in the permitting process. Those groups also wanted to be sure the bill only accelerated wind, solar and transmission projects — not nuclear, biomass, fossil fuel-generated hydrogen or waste incineration. Democrats, who control the Minnesota Legislature, advanced the bill over objections from Republicans who wanted it to include fossil fuel projects and nuclear power.

The final bill drew support from utilities, renewable energy developers, labor, environmental advocates and energy policy nonprofits, whose recommendations to speed up the process became the heart of the bill. Walz and his team remained involved throughout to see the eventual bill through, said Long, the bill’s house author.

Walz signed it at a wind farm in the southern Minnesota district he represented in Congress before becoming governor.

“The legislation achieved a really difficult thing in terms of finding a balance between creating efficiencies and not having other projects that we didn’t intend to facilitate,” said Vohs, of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. “It maintained the integrity of the process and didn’t throw out too much in the name of efficiency.”

Virginia-based Apex Clean Energy said it took nearly two years to get permits for each of two large wind and solar projects it developed in southwestern Minnesota’s Cottonwood County. Chris Kunkle, Apex’s senior director of government affairs, said he expected the new law to roughly cut the time for permitting in half, which he called “fantastic.”

Xcel Energy, the state’s largest utility, said it expected to save several months by allowing a single transmission line or large electrical facility. Given the number of companies pursuing projects to deliver carbon-free electricity to customers, the cumulative time saved will be measured within decades.

Doug Loon, president and CEO of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, said there was a clear recognition that the system was not working. He said the House believes the state should now apply the reforms to the entire industry, not just one segment.

Long said he hoped other states would follow Minnesota’s lead.

“I think if a state like ours, which isn’t very deep blue or coastal, can come together and find a way to get business, labor and the environment to support a package, that’s a strong message that it can be done,” he said .

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