Bald Eagles Killed by Obama's Green Energy: Who Cares?

A double standard? Who cares! It's about the ideology, the agenda and the means to accomplish it that's important. That it conflicts with common sense and what's right for all concerned only means, for most of us that complain, we aren't thinking straight and need a refresher in finding the proper balance between what the government wants and our ability to deliver to that need.

The environmental lobby finds the conflict here nonsense in that the greater need to crush fossil fuels and there by the economy and industry of this country more important then a few birds, and yet find an easy task to sue all those that even come close to breaking the law they so easily ignore. Double standard? Nah - not for the progressive liberal - remember, its all about the agenda and accomplishing those ends.

Also remember the slogan for the progressive left to accomplish their goals for a weaker and more subservient America, 'by any means necessary'.

Bald Eagles Fall to Green Energy
Source: Deroy Murdock, "Bald Eagles Fall to Green Energy," National Review, May 21, 2012.

The Obama administration has promoted "green" energy more than any of its predecessors, arguing that it is a vital next step in the country's energy future. And while the president's environmental team has painted its efforts in the best light possible, there remains a dirty little secret about wind energy specifically: it has a nasty tendency to kill birds, including bald eagles, says Deroy Murdock, a media fellow with the Hoover Institution.

All cleanliness and energy production aside, wind turbines are still essentially giant fans with blades that can move up to 200 miles per hour. The result is dozens if not hundreds of mutilated eagles.

•The current annual bird mortality rate due to wind turbines is approximately 440,000 birds, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).
•This figure is estimated by the FWS to increase to more than a million by 2030, when the number of wind turbines will likely exceed 100,000 turbines.
•Eagles are killed regularly -- because they are birds of prey, they often glide while scanning the ground, failing to see wind turbines.
•The Altamont Pass wind farm in Northern California alone is estimated to kill 67 golden eagles annually.

Perhaps of greatest interest in this case is the double standard maintained by the Obama administration. While politically favored wind energy projects are allowed to go about their business despite these bloody consequences, the law is exacted harshly on all others.

•First-time violators of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940 can receive $5,000 fines and one-year prison sentences.
•Second offenses double those punishments, and felony convictions can trigger $250,000 fines.
•Last August Obama-appointed U.S. attorney Timothy Purdon prosecuted seven petroleum producers for the 28 dead birds in or near their open waste pits (none of which were eagles), with maximum fines of $15,000 per bird and six months behind bars.
•Last July, FWS threatened to fine Alison Capo of Virginia $535 for illegally possessing a woodpecker that her daughter saved from a hungry cat and soon released.
•Three years ago, after FWS investigated, a utility called PacifiCorp paid $10.5 million in fines after accidentally electrocuting 232 golden eagles.