Legislation like MI Act 233 and MA S.2967 have tried to balance community input with centralization of permitting authority. This approach, along with expanded use of Community Benefits Agreements and early community engagement, could be a path forward.

I wrote more about this here!

However, states like Tennessee and Kentucky have made it so difficult to build new wind farms that there are hardly any potential projects to contest

States in the northeast are rejecting more than their fair share of projects, given the relatively smaller scale of their clean energy potential compared to states like Ohio and California

These general trends are corroborated in the other available data set of contested projects, Robert Bryce's "renewable rejections database"

Individual contestations of clean energy projects have also increased, especially for solar PV projects as the solar market has grown in recent years

Restrictive policies tracked in the report have almost tripled since 2020, with at least 395 policies enacted in 43 states. These include temporary moratoria, outright bans, and zoning regulations so strict they serve as de facto bans

As part of a program that, overall, made money for taxpayers

Agree with your basic point, but "orders of magnitude higher" is a gigantic exaggeration. It's off by...orders of magnitude.