USFWS MEDIA RELEASE
American Bird Conservancy
Washington, D.C., September 20, 2011) The Department of the Interior (DOI) has released a revised, third version of its voluntary wind development siting and operational guidelines that fails to ensure
that bird deaths at wind farms are minimized, says American Bird Conservancy, the nation’s leading bird conservation organization.
Furthermore, the public has been given only ten days to comment. The final opportunity for the public to discuss these guidelines with DOI will be at a federal advisory committee meeting today and tomorrow.
“ABC is very much pro wind energy. America has the potential to create a truly green energy source that does not unduly harm birds, but the Department of the Interior is squandering the opportunity to be ‘smart from the start’,” said Kelly Fuller, Wind Campaign Coordinator for American Bird Conservancy (ABC), the nation’s leading bird conservation organization. “The latest draft of the wind guidelines is not only voluntary, making industry compliance unlikely, but also offers assurances that wind companies won’t be prosecuted for illegally killing federally protected birds such as Bald and Golden Eagles. These guidelines set a dangerous precedent for other energy industries to seek the same freedom to break America’s wildlife protection laws without repercussions,” said Fuller.
“Astonishingly, the current draft of the guidelines allows wind power companies to unilaterally determine whether they are in compliance with the ’guidelines’ and, on that basis, to immunize themselves from any prosecution under federal wildlife protection statutes regardless of how many eagles, hawks, warblers, or other protected species they wind up taking. This would be unfathomable as applied to any other energy sector or, for that matter, any other regulatory sphere. This goes way beyond merely being bad policy; it is a flagrant violation of the protective schemes adopted in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act,” said Eric Glitzenstein, a Founding Partner at Meyer, Glitzenstein & Crystal, a Washington, D.C. based public-interest law firm.
One wind power development area in California is already estimated to have killed over 2,000 eagles in what would appear to be significant violations of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Yet not a single wind energy company has been prosecuted or even charged, and meaningful operational changes have only been implemented in recent years following legal action taken not by the federal government, but by environmental groups.
This version of the wind industry guidelines was issued on September 13, 2011. The Department of the Interior will accept comments on the proposal until September 23, 2011.
“Giving a mere ten days to look over this 130-page package makes it almost impossible for the public to provide a meaningful response,” Fuller said.
Recommendations on wind energy were developed over a two-year period by an industry-dominated, 22-member Federal Advisory Committee and forwarded to the Secretary of the Interior in March 2010. Over the next year, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists made a series of changes to those recommendations to improve protection for birds. Those revised guidelines were then published for public comment in February 2011. An overwhelming number of the comments called for the guidelines to be strengthened, not weakened. The guidelines also underwent scientific peer review.
"Right now we have a chance to get wind power right from the start - with little added costs. But if we push these voluntary guidelines forward without making them bird-smart to protect the environment, it may be our children who may ultimately regret our hasty decisions," said Fuller.
A second set of proposed guidelines was then issued by DOI on July 12, 2011, but rather than strengthening the initial draft, it removed many key bird protection elements, reversing recommendations from professional DOI wildlife staff and adding unrealistic wind project approval deadlines that ABC concludes would lead to “rubber-stamping” of wind development.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that in 2009, the wind industry was killing about 440,000 birds per year, yet has ignored its own estimate. With the Federal Government targeting a 12-fold increase in wind generated electricity by the year 2030, annual bird mortality is expected to increase into the millions absent meaningful changes in the industry. Species of conservation concern appear to be particularly at risk including the Golden Eagle, Greater Sage-Grouse and the endangered Whooping Crane.
More than 60 groups and over 20,000 individuals organized by ABC have called for mandatory standards and bird-smart principles in the siting and operation of wind farms. The coalition represents a broad cross-section of respected national and local groups, as well as scientists, bird lovers, conservationists, and other concerned citizens.
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American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit membership organization whose mission is to conserve native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. ABC acts by safeguarding the rarest species, conserving and restoring habitats, and reducing threats, while building capacity in the bird conservation movement.
11 comments:
It's like asking us to voluntarily refrain from holding up the Cape bank. The natural resource agencies that are charged with protecting the public's resources are out to lunch and asleep at the switch on the wind issue. We'd be better off if they just ignored the issue and did nothing. Their half-ass actions only make it more difficult for others to make constructive suggestions, since lead agencies will always maintain how can anyone be more restrictive than those agenies whose purpose is to protect natural resources. The answer is obvious, the agencies have all be corrupted by blinded, renewable pols who are clueless, but like big wind's cash. "It sucks, doesn't it?"
CASH is the word. If you ask where it comes from you would have to believe in an organized conspiracy to defraud the public at large. According to one comment, this is just a few bumbling idiots with a bad idea and by simply getting rid of a few bad apples will solve the problem. Since it was reported that the original plan was kept secret, then wouldn't that explain why the public at large had no idea what was going on until it was too late? Don't you suppose those very conflicted people actually signed an agreement to keep their contracts secret? Wouldn't that also imply there is a well organized conspiracy by two global corporations with the help of the federal government behind it? (subsidies and manipulation of scientific fact) According to one comment I read, this is all just a few disorganized buffoons and not some grand conspiracy to defraud the people.
Right. We all know that never happens, right? The condescending can chase their own tails if they want to, I'll keep my focus on the real enemy here.
6:39, there you go again -
"The condescending can chase their own tails if they want to, I'll keep my focus on the real enemy here."
Tell us who the real enemy is then.
My view is this: We are dealing with a combination of ingredients (roughly about 4 of them) that are coming together to make a bad stew. These ingredients are:
1) Inattentive lazy citizens who fail to pay attention and study major public policy matters.
2) Environmental zealots who have gone off the deep end on climate change fears to the point that they are so urgent to address it that they are willing to spend billions throwing unproven technology at it -- with the silly attitude that "We must do something!!!---right now!!!" (I happen to think that a sizeable number of such zealots are looking for a form of secular religion to believe in. It will ultimately disappoint them.)
3) Corporate opportunism (call it corporate greed, if you prefer) Where politicians and activist zealots create an opening by defining a "need," there are always businesses lurking or waiting to be formed to jump in and cash in. And those corporations hire lobbyists whose job it is to create whole new realities. This is a reality that has been with us for many centuries. A lot of good things have come from such opportunism and some bad things.
3) National and state politicians who fall victim to the same fads their constituents fall victim to, and then conclude they can gain political mileage by supporting the popular fads that the people have already swallowed.
4) And -- in the case of Big Wind targeted towns like Cape Vincent --local politicians who can be bought and paid for -- on the cheap and for most self-serving reasons.
Not saying there is not greed in this mix. Just saying that there are ants in the anthill behaving stupidly and selfishly. There is no master design to most things we would call a mess. There is no conductor controlling this non-orchestra; there is no master chef in the kitchen stirring the pot and adding ingredients at precise times.
Al Gore, The Sierra Club, Acciona, the White House, Goldman Sachs and Andrew Cuomo are not all on the phone working out the next steps.
What happens in the world day-to-day is much closer to rolling chaos bouncing down the road marked by happenstance and human venality.
TI, I really don't care what you think. You say one thing like "citizens should oay attention to what's going on" and then attack someone for doing just that. You may pass yourself off to your friend as intelligent, but you're just another scumbag in sheep's clothing. If I was in the same room as you I would have you pegged as an informant. You can't have it both ways. Corruption doesn't start with the corrupted, and it doesn't get exposed by people such as you. I would suggest that people watch you more carefully. If your friends are as ignorant as yourself, then by all means indulge. You have no clue as to reality, only what you are told to think. I'll think for myself. Even though you seem to think otherwise. Congratulations. You have made it to the scumbag list.I learn things long before they become issues , but you seem to think that all we have to do is listen to learn. If you don't know who the enemy is, then you must be one of them. Tell me something I don't know. It's obvious you don't know much. Want to attack me personally? Go ahead. You'll lose in the end anyway. All you have to do is crawl back under a rock and deny it ever happened.
Yup, a Republican. How did I guess? I'm neither Republican or Democrat, so I don't have to stay within your controlled diatribe. I wrote a paper called "False Premise, Controlled Diatribe". Next thing I expect to hear from you is how the "liberals" control the media. If you can say that , then you will truly show your ignorance. Maybe the "liberals" are putting Rupert Murdoch out of business? Maybe that's how they "control the media". The Republican party has been controlling everything that happens and the democrats help them do it. So, spare me the pseudo neo-con diatribe. You will be exposed for who you are. You will betray yourself. You are afraid. I am not. GWB was the biggest criminal ever to sit in the White House. That is what I believe. I'm not afraid of idiots like you. You are a hypocrite.
Good night, 8:49.
I won't bother you anymore.
I will get back to the job at hand. Trying to save Cape Vincent and other Thousand Island Region towns from a pervasively destuctive transformation in the name of a (a primarily but not entirely liberal) politically popular energy fad.
The problem with people who even use the word "liberal" is they get their diatribe from radio talk show hosts. You don't "bother " me any more than Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly "bother" me. People like yourself confuse socio-political rhetoric with empirical fact. When you realize that it's all about the money and control of our resources you might be able to develop your own opinions. Your comments are right out of the mouths of the very people who really are the problem. "Liberals" and democrats all put on a show, but are simply tools for the real crooks to get what they want. It's all about who gets the money, and nothing else. You seem to know more about "liberals" than fascists. Did you know the term "faggot" came from fascism? Or is history only for conspiracy buts?
I wonder how many people see the real absurdity in all of this. The biggest hypocrisy is concern for the environment on both sides. One side says it's cutting emissions, saving on energy costs and helping the planet.A lie. Killing birds and causing all sorts of social problems, thet truth. The other side trying to save the town's environment and the birds and the bees, and fighting corruption. From a true socio-political viewpoint, this is really messed up. It's like watching milk homogenize. So where will it end?
The cream goes to a handful of disorganized corporations and politicians. The public gets dead birds, annoying humming, higher energy prices or they get the promise of natural gas energy and a clean environment. I also wonder how many people really believe we'll get an honest government out of it. You can have an honest government and still have dead birds, annoying humming, and higher energy prices. Who really believes they would all of a sudden give us natural gas technology that quick? T Boone Pickens has been driving a converted NG car for years. It ain't rocket surgery.
"Who really believes they would all of a sudden give us natural gas technology that quick?"
Who do you mean by "they?"
Who do you mean by "us?"
The derogatory term "faggot" has an obscure origin but might have
originated from the word "fagot" (a bundle of sticks) and before that
from the word "fasces" or "fascis" (a bundle of sticks symbolizing
"authority" in ancient Rome), which was the origin of the political term "fascist" and "fascism."
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