Senate Democrats are pushing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to retract a legal memo stating that accidental bird deaths cannot be prosecuted under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
The memo, issued in December, reversed a decades-old policy of prosecuting companies that unintentionally killed birds protected under the law.
Energy companies paid the brunt of fines due to birds dying from development such as wind turbines, solar panels (pictured), and power lines.
Democrats on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works wrote to Zinke Wednesday.
“For the 1,000 species of birds protected by the MBTA, the menace of market hunting and the plume trade have since disappeared, but the threats to birds have not,” the letter, led by Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Tom Carper of Delaware, states. “The rapid industrialization of the of the country in the 20th century created new threats, as millions of waterfowl, raptors and songbirds began to die tragic deaths after being trapped in oil pits, electrocuted on power lines and more.”
The Department of the Interior (DOI) decision to end fines for accidental killings falls in line with previous court rulings made during the Obama administration. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals criticized former President Barack Obama’s implementation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) in 2015.
“If the MBTA prohibits all acts or omissions that ‘directly’ kill birds, where bird deaths are ‘foreseeable,’ then all owners of big windows, communication towers, wind turbines, solar energy farms, cars, cats, and even church steeples may be found guilty of violating the MBTA,” the court ruling states.
Prosecutors under Obama used discretion in finding companies for MBTA violations, only pursuing those deemed the worst offenders.
President Donald Trump’s DOI held that whether fines are handed out prudently or not is not the issue.
Read more at Daily Caller
I demand all democrats stop supporting Bird Maiming Wind Turbines and defund the Various Eco-Wacko groups that support Wind Farms and Solar Panels i demand they cut off all funding of wind farms and solar panels
Amen, Spurwing, Our tax money should not go to support these bird and bat killing machines and the companies who build and use them should be fined heavily for each animal they destroy. (and they should be charged with cruelty to animals and do some jail time for that.)
That picture in the article! The solar facility! OH WOW….
That is the BrightSource Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Facility Located in California’s Mojave Desert. The ultimate mother lode LIE of all things “sustainably free solar energy”!!!
Ivanpah was built at a cost of ABOUT 2.2 Billion dollars, took ABOUT 4 years to complete and can generate enough electricity to power 140,000 homes annually for about 7 hours a day, weather and operational issues permitting, and cost ABOUT $16,000.00 per home to construct. All subsidized at taxpayers’ expense of course.
Occupying 3,500 acres of public land and when fully operational, the 392 megawatt (377 megawatt net) plant will generate enough electricity to power 140,000 homes annually. Wow! Annual electrical generation data seems rather scarce to date? And, of course, “natural gas must be burned at night and during overcast days as a maintenance requirement to heat the towers and keep the turbines online”
But the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating project is so luminary, so so visionary, and sooo technically sound…will never pay for itself, never provide any meaningful or reliable electrical service and will have to be sold for scrap or just abandoned.
There is good news??? The news (LIE?) from California’s wildly subsidized Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is that it has reduced its rate of incinerating birds from 10 to 2 per hour. So 500 overcooked birds a month is a reasonable sacrifice for an unknown quantity of a sometimes reliable power source? Must be. I don’t hear the animal rights groups screaming about it. Just don’t try this at home!
And the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System can be seen from space. OMG SOOO COOL
Just to be fair, you can check the BrightSource Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Facility status at: http://www.ivanpahsolar.com/ The last update was 09.24.13 so sign up now for email updates. (he he) Or just wait for all those press releases touting the HUGE suck this project is.
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/01/23/solar-inconvenient-truth-ivanpah-plant-top-fossil-fuel-burner/
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/09/05/cal-subsidized-solar-power-incinerates-2-birds-hour/
http://www.baltimoresun.com/la-me-ivanpah-technology-pictures-013-photo.html
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System as seen from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, an imaging instrument on board Terra, the flagship satellite of NASA’s Earth Observing System.
https://www.wired.com/2016/05/huge-solar-plant-caught-fire-thats-least-problems/
Ivanpah initially struggled to fulfill its electricity contract, and it would have had to shut down if the California Public Utilities Commission didn’t throw it a bone this past March. “Ivanpah has been such a mess,” says Adam Schultz, program manager at the UC Davis Energy Institute and former analyst for the CPUC. “If [the fire] knocks them offline, it’s going to further dig them in.” On top of the technical challenges, the plant has had to deal with PR headaches like reports of scorched birds and blinded pilots from its mirrors.
https://www.wired.com/2016/05/huge-solar-plant-caught-fire-thats-least-problems/
https://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/02/19/largest-solar-thermal-plant-completed-ivanpah 4 reasons the Ivanpah plant is not the future of solar
4 reasons is a good start but…
http://www.ivanpahsolar.com/ last update = 09.24.13
While not a frequent traveler between LA->Vegas, I’ve made the drive several times over the past few years and it seemed every time I pass Ivanpah there is at least one tower down for the day. Sometimes two. I’m also a bit skittish about the intense mirrored rays shooting into the sky when flying cross country from LAX and seeing the glints of sunshine hitting the plane even from many miles away. What happens if the pilots are momentarily blinded by an unanticipated flash?
Wind and solar power companies need to be held accountible for every protected bird lost to to solar power places and wind farms the facts that to Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is so cuaght up in this Global Warming/Climate Change hoax their actualy supporting these bird maimer’s and fryers and they need fined $500 for each bird lost to these things