Obama doesn't care if he kills the country, or our eagles

[Libertarian Lilly]

A double standard?

Wind Farms Killing �America�s National Symbol�
The federal government last August imposed hefty fines on seven petroleum
companies in North Dakota over the death of 28 birds near their open waste
pits.
The wind farms championed by promoters of �green energy,� by comparison,
kill more than 400,000 birds a year � including dozens of eagles � yet
they pay not a penny in fines. �Team Obama wants to give wind-power
companies long-term permits to butcher
bald eagles, America�s national symbol, on the altar of green energy,�
writes Deroy Murdock, a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War,
Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS) disclosed: �With more than 100,000
turbines expected to be in operation in the United States by 2030, annual
bird
mortality rates alone (now estimated at 440,000 a year) are expected to
exceed one million.� Among those avian victims are bald eagles and golden
eagles that fly into the turbine blades revolving at up to 200 miles per
hour. Determining an exact count for dead eagles is difficult because
other animals may eat the carcasses, but 67 golden eagles are estimated to
die annually at just one California wind farm, at Altamont Pass. Overall,
the toll could surpass
500 golden eagles a year at wind farms in the eagles� habitat in the
western
United States. But a 2009 Obama-era law allows wind farms and others to
kill eagles if the
harm is unintentional. This loophole lets wind companies escape �the
penalties that can befall those with eagle blood on their hands but
without political connections,� notes Murdock, a nationally syndicated
columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service whose article appeared on
National Review Online. First-time violators of the Bald and Golden Eagle
Protection Act can receive $5,000 fines and a one-year prison sentence,
and second offenses can double those punishments � with wind farms
exempt. Three years ago, following an FWS investigation, PacifiCorp paid
$10.5 million in fines after 232 golden eagles and other protected birds
were electrocuted when they landed on its power lines in Wyoming during a
2�-year period. In the North Dakota case, an Obama-appointed U.S.
attorney brought charges against the oil companies for the deaths of
mallard ducks and other birds that mistook open waste pits for natural
ponds. Facing fines of at least $15,000 per bird and six months in jail,
the companies pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1,000 per bird, although
a federal judge later dismissed the case. Last July, the FWS took
enforcement to a new level of absurdity by threatening to impose a fine
of $535, plus imprisonment, on the mother of an 11-year-old girl in
Virginia accused of illegally possessing a woodpecker she saved from a
hungry cat and soon released. The woodpecker is a protected species under
the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. But after the story garnered national
attention, the FWS decided the situation was a �misunderstanding� and
withdrew charges, according to a Heritage
Foundation report.
Murdock concludes: �If bald eagles dropped dead beside oil derricks,
Washington would pound the petroleum industry. Instead, wind propellers
chop bald eagles in half. Team Obama then lets wind companies eradicate
even more of
this republic�s innocent national bird,� which is being �sacrificed in
the name of environmental correctness.�