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The U.S. energy transition runs through rural America: As of last year, 87% of U.S. clean energy generation happened in areas far outside the country’s urban centers, per a Rural Climate Partnership analysis. That makes sense — wind, solar, and battery installations need a lot of open land.

But not everyone is welcoming new clean energy development with open arms. The number of counties with some kind of ban, moratorium, or barrier on renewable energy projects is growing nationwide. More than 60% of the counties that have such restrictions are rural, according to a Daily Yonder and Canary Media analysis of data from USA Today and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

Meanwhile, at the federal level, rural clean energy development is under attack. The Trump administration has gutted the Rural Energy for America Program, which for more than a decade helped farmers pay for solar panels that slashed their power bills. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has crusaded against ​“subsidizing solar projects on prime farmland,” and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has painted wind and solar as ​“environmentally damaging” and an inefficient use of land.

In reality, despite being by far the fastest-growing energy source in America, utility-scale solar takes up just 0.07% of the country’s farmland. The footprint of golf courses is almost three times bigger.

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