The media have been largely silent on a Biden administration energy project that one conservationist said would be “armageddon” for public lands. It’s a far cry from how reporters covered similar proposals under former president Donald Trump.

In December 2022, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced that her department would expedite plans to build solar energy farms across tens of thousands of untouched public land in 11 Western states. The announcement has garnered little to no national attention, save for the occasional report that the Biden administration is expanding renewable energy production.

National outlets took a far more critical approach to Trump-era land use proposals. “Where Will Trump’s War on Public Lands End?” the New Yorker wondered in 2017. The following year, a New York Times headline lamented that a “Trump Drilling Plan Threatens 9 Million Acres of Sage Grouse Habitat.” The coverage gap indicates a media bias, not just against Trump, but also for green energy.

The Biden administration’s plan would expand on an Obama-era agreement that spurred solar developments in six southwestern states, some of which piqued the ire of locals and environmentalists. The Bureau of Land Management now wants to relax the initial deal’s development restrictions and expand solar developments into five additional states.