In the Pipeline: 5/21/13

Guns don’t kill birds; turbines kill birds. IER (5/20/13) reports: “Besides receiving federal subsidies and other financial incentives, the wind industry is getting special treatment from the Obama Administration: wind farms are allowed to kill protected bird species. The Associated Press has found that the Obama Administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind farm for killing eagles and other protected birds, thus shielding the wind industry from liability. Further, the Obama Administration has kept the scope of the deaths secret. According to an estimate from the Wildlife Society Bulletin, U.S. wind farms kill more than 573,000 birds each year.”

Of course the automakers and United Auto Workers support these new regulations. They get a free license to raise prices on the little guy and pat themselves on the back for what more or less amounts to imaginary benefits. TreeHugger (5/20/13) reports: “The public overwhelmingly supports the proposed Tier 3 standards. According to a survey conducted by the American Lung Association, 62 percent of Americans surveyed support the EPA setting stricter standards and tightening limits on tailpipe emissions from new cars. Automakers and the United Auto Workers support them as well… Now is the time to add your voice to the growing chorus of citizens who are standing up for children and clean air — and standing up to Big Oil. It is crucial that the standards be finalized this year — failure to do so would result in losing at least an entire model year worth of benefits at a time when the climate crisis has become critical.”

If the previous Obama administration is any sort of clue, Sally will throw a few REI tents and sleeping bags at the exploration crew and take credit for their work later (oh and don’t forget your bear mace!).Politico (5/21/13) reports: “Alaskan officials are hoping to prod the federal government into measuring the amount of oil and gas beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and are offering state money as part of their plan to push the project forward… ‘Alaska is willing to help complete the work the federal government seems unwilling to do,’ Gov. Sean Parnell said via webcast from a Chamber of Commerce event Monday announcing the initiative… In a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Parnell said he would seek up to $50 million in state funding for seismic testing and proposed a winter-based exploration plan to mitigate environmental impact. The hope is that the plan will not only spur Interior to act but will help the country figure out the best course for ANWR, he said.”

The enviros and their vacuous leaders in Congress are sowing the seeds of their ultimate demise by going down this road. No good can come from this for them. And there will be no sympathy. The Daily Caller(5/21/13) reports: “So, you may have a question for me,” Whitehouse said. “Why do you care? Why do you, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, care if we Republicans run off the climate cliff like a bunch of proverbial lemmings and disgrace ourselves? I’ll tell you why. We’re stuck in this together. We are stuck in this together. When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas. It hits Rhode Island with floods and storms. It hits Oregon with acidified seas, it hits Montana with dying forests. So, like it or not, we’re in this together.”

It looks like they’re digging holes just to fill them back up over in Britain. What’s great is you can create even more jobs if everyone digs with a spoon. Express (5/19/13) reports: “WIND FARM operators are being paid millions for “wasted” electricity under a complex system known as constraint payments.The money is paid out when turbines are spinning but the electricity they are generating is surplus to requirements… Freedom of Information documents reveal that since 2011 more than £26.5million has been paid out under the scheme.”

They say black is the new gr33n.