Bishop Hill Obama wants to let windfarms kill eagles with impunity
May 14, 2013 Corruption Energy: wind AP is reporting that the Obama administration is considering new rules that would allow wind farms to kill eagles with impunity:
Eagle deaths have forced the Obama administration into a difficult choice between its unbridled support for wind energy and enforcing environmental laws that could slow the industry's growth.
Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, in an interview with the AP before his departure, denied any preferential treatment for wind. Interior Department officials said that criminal prosecution, regardless of the industry, is always a "last resort."
"There's still additional work to be done with eagles and other avian species, but we are working on it very hard," Salazar said. "We will get to the right balance."
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has proposed a rule that would give wind-energy companies potentially decades of shelter from prosecution for killing eagles. The regulation is currently under review at the White House.
The article notes that oil companies have been handed enormous fines for killing wolves. This looks like an extraordinarily unevenhanded approach to the law. Coming on top of the revelation that the tax authorities in the US targeted Obama's political opponents one can sense something of a pattern emerging.
And not a pretty one either.
Reader Comments (21)
Green legs good, black legs bad...
Climate change was a non-event in the Presidential election. Nonetheless, judging from his inaugural address, Obama seems to assume he has a mandate for drastic action to control energy production and consumption. The press needs to give him a harder time.
The damage that the environmental lobby does to the world knows no bounds. I've been struggling through Terry Pratchett's latest collaborative with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, a book on science from perspective of the Discworld universe. It is full of the usual swipes at sceptics and how smart scientists are compared to everyone else. Pratchett can't bring himself to admit that the serious plight of the orangutan, a creature he has done much to champion, is made far worse by green bio-fuel directives introduced in the name of climate change prevention.
Birds killed by oil = Bad.
Birds killed by windmill = Good.
OT but hey what can you do...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22524597
US shale oil supply shock shifts global power balance
A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says.
Over the next five years, the US will account for a third of new oil supplies, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In 2009 Exxon was fined $7000 per bird killed after said migratory birds landed in waste water:
How Much is a Bird's Life Worth?
Add this hypocrisy to that of the "Green" groups in the UK and the RSPB and you get an accurate picture of life (and death) in the Brave New Green World.
Well, to balance the special arrangements for eagles, we have the special arrangements for bedbugs. So while the eagles are threatened, the bedbugs are thriving over there.
http://www.abc-oriental-rug.com/bedbugs.html
I expect we shall soon see UN-backed recipes promoted for how best to eat them.
Oh what a tangled web they weave ...
Here in the UK today the Ptarmigan breeding season is threatened by unseasonable falls of a white powder enabling hordes of skiers and snowboarders to disturb their nesting areas. It's a travesty.
http://www.cairngormmountain.org/
The government picking industry winners and losers to fit a political agenda. No wonder the economy is still struggling.
Wrong thead -comment deleted
John Shade - bed bugs
It's also the green obsession with saving energy by not washing bed linen above 30 degrees. Bed bugs and all other kinds of nasties love temperatures around blood temperature. I mean that's what they're designed for.
AP reports?
Obama secretly seizes AP's phone records.
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/05/14/us-govt-tapping-journalist-phone-lines-massive-intrusion-says-ap-boss
Didn't they change the law here to protect windmills by de-criminalising killing endangered birds?
Mailman
N. Hallam - 14.21
An impressive list of links between the US administration and the media can be found at Suyt's Space on 12 May 2013. CNN, ABC etc.
It helps explain why Obama gets such an easy ride over so many thorny problems - including bird mincers.
GW,
Barry is the second coming if Christ for the overly left leaning pro-democrat, Repiblican hating MFM in America. They see supporting him through self censorship as a religious duty to their man god (plus it reinforces their hatred of republicans and Fox News).
Mailman
"We had to destroy the environment to save it." Now where have we heard that idea before?
The number of scandals, involving the Obama administration, seems to be on the increase. All involve some sort of attempted cover-up. Of course these events never seem to reach the news room of the BBC.
If you are on the left, there is no need to be consistent. The struggle against those currently designated the bad guys trumps all. Thus oil companies are bad, while wind companies are not. So a dead eagle from one is not at all the same thing as a dead eagle from the other. Bedbugs on the other hand are developing into a protected species thanks to the demonisation of DDT and other suitable squishers of them, but this is just an unfortunate spin-off from the deification of 'the environment', and its displacing of 'the proletariat' as the main focus of concern for all good lefties. So, the facts that many Americans suffer from bedbugs, and many eagles are killed by windfarms, are neither here nor there. You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs - is that not how the argument goes?
Would be nice if he stuck to golf to get his birdies and eagles
Glenn Greenwald, the security and freedom man for The Guardian, was on fine form yesterday in The major sea change in media discussions of Obama and civil liberties:
That I think really is news, from a newspaper that should know.