Editorial: Lady Justice wears blindfold for a reason
The Daily Dispatch | May 14, 2013 | www.hendersondispatch.com
The Daily Dispatch | May 14, 2013 | www.hendersondispatch.com
In Raleigh, protestors are claiming the Republican-dominated lawmakers’ actions are “morally indefensible.”
We hope those same protestors get a good look toward Washington, D.C., and the actions of President Barack Obama’s administration.
According to an impact report from The Associated Press, the Obama administration has turned a blind eye toward eagles and the laws of our country versus the commerce and political platform of renewable energy.
In assessing the lengthy report and its evidence presented, we believe a sense of fairness among prosecutions does not exist. And that is not defensible.
Eagles need five years to reach an age for reproduction. They often produce a single chick a year. If they are killed, without a permit, it is a federal crime. And in the past five years alone, tens of millions of dollars in fines and settlements have come from businesses, including oil and gas companies.
One company, PacifiCorp, has been fined for electrocution deaths of eagles at coal plants but not for those caused by its wind farm turbines.
The Obama administration, according to the AP report, has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company. Wind power is a key to Obama’s energy plan, and the industry is favored through a $1 billion-a-year tax break.
Not surprisingly, wind power has doubled in Obama’s first term.
The damage is about 573,000 birds killed annually by wind farms, including 83,000 that are either eagles, hawks or falcons. The numbers vary, in part because the Obama administration refuses to make it public and hides it as a trade secret or part of an investigation.
Keep in mind, a wind turbine can typically be as tall as a 30-story building, the spinning rotors are the size of jetliners reaching speeds of 170 mph and eagles don’t look up while they’re looking down for food.
The industry is feeding Obama’s plan, and they’re getting preferential treatment – nothing new between government and industry there. But our environment is the collateral damage.
Wind power is good. Killing eagles is not. There can be solutions.
But the president’s administration hiding or ignoring these federal crimes, or removing the blindfold on Lady Justice in choosing which prosecutions to pursue, is not one of them.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/05/14/editorial-lady-justice-wears-blindfold-for-a-reason/