It took a while, but 440,000 eagle, hawk, falcon, crane, egret, goose, and other bird corpses finally made a pile so large that even the Obama administration could no longer ignore the stink.
Last Friday Duke Energy Corp. pled guilty to killing 14 eagles and 149 other federally protected birds at two of its wind farms located outside Casper, Wyo., and agreed to pay a $1 million fine.
This is historic because as reporter Dina Cappiello observed, “Until the settlement announced Friday … not a single wind energy company had been prosecuted for a death of an eagle or other protected bird — even though each death is a violation of federal law, unless a company has a federal permit. Not a single wind energy facility has obtained a permit.”
Now you may be wondering how this could happen under an administration that wants to regulate carbon dioxide, which is expelled by humans and absorbed by plants.
Cappiello has an answer for that, too: “Killing these iconic birds is not just an irreplaceable loss for a vulnerable species. It's also a federal crime, a charge that the Obama administration has used to prosecute oil companies when birds drown in their waste pits, and power companies when birds are electrocuted by their power lines. But [until now] the administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company, even those that flout the law repeatedly.
"Instead, the government is shielding the industry from liability and helping keep the scope of the deaths secret.”
Unless you’ve actually seen one of these windmills you may be laboring under what I call the ‘Dutch misconception’ and I’m not referring to my father. When we hear the word ‘windmill’ most of us think of quaint windmills in the Netherlands that are used to make wooden shoes or something similar.
But power–generating wind turbines are different by several orders of magnitude. These monsters can equal the height of a 30–story building and the span from blade tip to blade tip is as wide as the wingspan of a jet airplane.
Standing on the ground, blades appear to move majestically, but the end of the blades can reach speeds that approach 170 miles per hour, creating a wind whirlpool that sucks birds into the blade’s unforgiving maw.
That’s why many wildlife fanciers call them "bird blenders." And according to Paul Driessen, the bird deaths are in vain. He reports “wind energy is a net jobs and economic loser.” Right now there are approximately 39,000 wind turbines in the U.S. and the Obama administration wants to subsidize more using your tax dollars.
Wind energy is such a scam that even the Mafia is trying to harness the wind. So far almost one–third of the wind farms located on Sicily have been seized by law enforcement, according to The Washington Post, because of Mafia fraud.
Meanwhile the administration blocks construction of the Keystone Pipeline and does it’s best to prevent or delay and fossil–fuel drilling on federal land, because the administration doesn’t approve of fossil fuels. While wind, solar and battery power soak up taxpayer dollars and slaughters birds.
Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan. He is president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation and chairman of the League of American Voters. Mike is an in-demand speaker with Premiere. Read more reports from Michael Reagan — Go Here Now.