"Wind farms" kill birds. Dilemma for "environmentally friendly" Democrats!

Headline in Washington Post: "Energy company to pay up to $35 million after turbines killed eagles"

By U.S. law, eagles are protected.  It's illegal to kill them.  But it's been known for decades that big power-generating windmills--with blade tips traveling 200 miles per hour--kill birds.

Lots of birds: one group estimated between 150,000 and 300,000 per year.  And among those are eagles.

This puts Democrats in a dilemma: They LOVE windmills cuz windmills support one of the Democrat party's top crusades: fighting "global warming" by reducing CO2 emissions.  But if too many voters learn that windmills kill up to 300,000 birds every year, the Dems risk losing some votes.

Oooh, can't have that, eh?

Cynics might also point out that pushing policies that kill protected species breaks U.S. law, but of course breaking "laws"--whether those governing storing classified material on a Democrat server or accepting illegal campaign contributions from foreign donors--is never a concern for Democrats since they're protected by the Mainstream Media.  

So if a few hundred eagles are killed each year by windmills, the fact that there's a law protecting eagles doesn't bother the Dems at all.  The problem is that they don't want to look *too* contemptuous about one of their pet projects killing lots of eagles because it might cost them some votes.

Oooh, what to do now?  Can't let bird-loving Dem voters know that our faaaabulous "green energy" windmills kill up to 300,000 birds every year, but we need to constantly push dat faaabulous wind power or a few tens of thousands of "green" voters might stay home in November.

Ah, solution!  Find just ONE wind energy company that doesn't donate much to our party, get 'em to admit killing a few eagles and hit 'em with an impressive, headline-making fine!  Then both bird-lovers and greenies love us!

So the biden regime's DOJ has pressured one American wind-energy company--ESI Energy--to admit that its "environmentally friendly" wind turbines have killed at least 150 bald and golden eagles at just three of its facilities in Wyoming and New Mexico, and agree to pay an
$8 million fine.  

But to make the biden regime's so-called "justice department" look like this was an even bigger penalty (i.e. that the regime was really working hard to keep wind-energy companies from killing birds protected by some quaint "law"), WaPo headline writer bumped this up to "...company to pay *up to* $35 million."  I'll explain the "up to" part below.


In March 2019 ESI decided to build a wind-turbine "farm" (described by the Post as "wind power facilities") in Wyoming.  As part of the permit process the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service noted that there were an “unusually high number” of golden-eagle nests in the area, and warned that "up to 44 golden eagles and 23 bald eagles could collide with a turbine blade within the first five years."

That last quote is from the Post.  Note how the author used the phrase "collide with a turbine blade" instead of the far more accurate "could be killed."  

ESI moved forward with the project anyway.  And as it turns out, the FWS estimate of bird fatalities was far too low, as in the two years the windmills have been operating they've killed 150 eagles instead of the estimated 67.

A spokeswhore for duh DOJ said “For more than a decade, ESI has violated [eagle-protecting federal] laws, taking [?sic] eagles without obtaining or even seeking the necessary permit.”  

Note how "killing" is carefully altered to the much less emotional "taking."  As in, taking a picture.  Taking a vacation.

As part of a plea agreement, ESI agreed to pay $8 million in fines.  Here's the kicker: "The company has also agreed to implement up to $27 million in measures to minimize future eagle injuries and deaths, prosecutors said."

Those "measures" were carefully not specified.  Gosh, that seems...odd, cuz you know the Environmental Justice Division of the DOJ wants to look like the great enforcer of environmental laws and savior of doomed eagles, eh?  So you'd think that if what ESI proposed in "measures to minimize future eagle injuries and deaths" were...uh...halfway effective, the EJD of the DOJ would have bragged about how well they were doing in enforcing federal law and saving the eagles, right?

Eh, probably doesn't matter.  At least the DOJ law-enforcers said that from now on ESI will pay $29,623 for each bald or golden eagle killed by its "environmentally-friendly" wind turbines.

The DOJ added that the settlement agreement gives the company three years to apply for permits for any "unavoidable killing of eagles."

Note that psychological nudge: "unavoidable."  I mean, how can any good Democrat blame wind turbines for killing eagles if even the DOJ itself says that's "unavoidable," eh?  And it's just coincidence that Rebecca Kujawa, president of ESI parent NextEra, criticized the government’s enforcement policy, saying some animal deaths are “unavoidable” with wind turbines.  So there ya go.

Unfortunately the eagles haven't found a way to sue.

Kujawa again:  “Unfortunately the federal government, at odds with many states and a number of federal court decisions, has sought to criminalize *unavoidable accidents* related to collisions of birds into wind turbines while at the same time failing to address other activities that result in far greater numbers of accidental eagle and other bird mortalities.”

Say, what might those "other activities that result in far greater numbers" of bird killings BE, Becky?  And that was plural.  So could you tell us exactly what "activities" you mean?

In 2017, a group at Oregon State University announced that it was working to make wind turbines safer for eagles, using cameras to determine whether one is approaching the blades and, if so, triggering a deterrent using brightly colored facsimiles of people to make them go the other way.

“If we strike a generic bird, sad as that is, it’s not as critical as striking a protected golden eagle,” said an associate professor at the university. That, he said, “would cause the shutdown of a wind farm for a period of time, a fine to the operator, big losses in revenue, and most important the loss of a member of a protected species.”

Really?  You're implying that the feds shut down wind "farms" when an eagle is killed (or as he more soothingly puts it, "struck")?  Examples, please.  Never heard of that happening.  But surely since you said it, you have examples, right?

Cuz no one could *possibly* believe the WaPo would...um...lie to readers, eh?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/04/09/eagle-turbine-deaths-settlement/