Save the Eagles International (STEI); North-American Platform against Windpower (NA-PAW); and the World Council for Nature (WCFN) just issued a biodiversity warning concerning the California Condor. The press release, slightly edited, follows.
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Having spent tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to recuperate the species, politicians are now allowing its habitat to be invaded by hundreds of wind turbines, of the kind that are killing an estimated 2,000 vultures a year in Spain.
Compared to Spain’s population of 40,000 vultures, there are only 400 California condors, most of them likely to have close encounters with Kern County’s projected wind turbines at some point in their long lives–unless the birds are kept captive, as many presently are.
Kern County Problem
As reported by Forbes Magazine in the January 16, 2012, piece, Wind vs.…
Continue ReadingToday and tomorrow, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will mark up H.R. 3548, the “North American Energy Access Act,” Rep. Lee Terry’s (R-Neb.) bill to nullify President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The bill requires the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to issue a permit for the pipeline within 30 days of receiving an application. If FERC fails to act on the application within the 30-day period, the bill deems the permit to have been granted.
Waxman and Markey: From Cap-and-Trade to Ban-the-Trade
Committee Democrats lack the votes to defeat the bill, but they hope to use the markup to turn the rhetorical tables on Republicans, who claim Keystone XL will enhance U.S. energy security by reducing our dependence on Middle East oil.
Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)…
Continue ReadingIn the closing act, we have the protagonist foisting on the world a set of insights, which we proceeded to dissect in Act II and Act III. Is there a happy ending to our play? Alas, it is a tragedy.
The Bradley Project, which can be overviewed at his website Political Capitalism, brilliantly narrates the ethos of what he calls “Heroic Capitalism” in contrast with “Political Capitalism.” As applied to energy policy, Bradley is largely correct in his insights that the energy industry has become so mixed up with the mixed economy that corporate leaders legitimately fear that capitalist advocacy will be punished.
As an out-of-the-closet energy policy market advocate, I have often been privately besieged to take public positions that corporations were loath to take publicly because of their fear of regulatory retribution.…
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