“The Obama administration crafted the [court invalidated] rule to offer wind farms a legal path to accidentally kill eagles, as long as they agree to a suite of mitigation and monitoring requirements to ensure eagle populations remain stable. But it hit major opposition from bird advocacy groups, which argued FWS lacked the resources or know-how to ensure the permits actually benefit the nation’s official bird and its golden kin.”
– Phil Taylor, “Court Strikes Down FWS’s Eagle ‘Take’ Rule,” E&E News, August 12, 2015.
The American Bird Conservancy, [1] where I am director of public relations, issued the following press release yesterday in response to a U.S. District Court ruling that the federal government should follow federal environmental law.
(Washington, D.C., August 12, 2015) The U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, in San Jose has ruled that the Department of the Interior violated federal laws when it created a final regulation allowing wind energy and some other companies to obtain 30-year permits to kill protected Bald and Golden Eagles without prosecution by the federal government.…