James Wiegand on Fish and Wildlife Service Regulations Change for Bald Eagles

: Category: Editorials Editorials; Published: 01 September 2016 01 September 2016

In response to:

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Fish and Wildlife Service
50 CFR Parts 13 and 22
[Docket No. FWS-R9-MB-2011-0094;
FF09M20300-167-FXMB123109EAGLE]
RIN 1018-AY30
Eagle Permits; Revisions to Regulations for Eagle Incidental Take and Take of Eagle Nests
AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior.
ACTION: Proposed rule.

I have reviewed the recently completed FWS status report on bald and golden eagles: "Bald and Golden Eagles: Status, trends, and estimation of sustainable take rates in the United States and the associated DPEIS for the proposed rule. Golden eagle populations are far from being stable nor are they increasing."

My comments provided here prove both of these reports are filled with methodology bias, filtered and highly flawed non-scientific information rendering these reports useless in determining any Action on the proposed rule. In fact, these two reports are a complete fabrication created for the benefit of the wind industry.

It defies all logic and moral conduct that enough cheap energy is being exported from the US that could produce triple the energy production from all of America's eagle killing wind turbines, while dirtbags with fraudulent research are peddling these worthless turbines to Americans. I have integrated and provided links with these comments. The information found at these links are to be included as part of my comments.

James Wiegand

Harvesting Eagles - Part 1

On May 6, 2016 the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Department of the Interior announced a plan that would set massive industry "bag limits" (permission or license to kill) for an eagle population that in many areas of America no longer or barely exists. In the case of the golden eagle, most of this eagle harvest will come from migratory eagles that nest outside the Lower 48 States.

Since 2008, I have been sharing my knowledge of wind industry impacts with the public. Even though I had been studying raptors and wildlife for decades before, that was the year I first became aware of the industry's bogus research and the terrible fate coming to our eagles. Since then I have written many articles pointing out how the wind industry has been using fake research to hide the slaughter to eagles and other species. I have also made my opinions very clear about the ongoing collusion that has existed for decades between the wind industry and Interior Department.

For years wind industry and USFWS have been claiming to America in the media that eagle fatalities are a relatively uncommon occurrence at wind energy facilities, with the raptor slaughterhouse known as Altamont Pass being a lone aberration. This industry black eye was said to be the result of older small turbines with lattice towers being placed in a migration corridor. The industry has since replaced these turbines declaring the new monopole turbines to be not only much safer turbines for eagles, but they have learned how to site their turbines to avoid fatalities.

Wind Farms impact very few eagles...
"only a handful of bald eagles have been lost in the history of the industry in the U.S."

All these assertions have been false and now in sharp contrast to previous proclamations, the FWS announced a plan on 5/6/2016 that would allow wind energy companies to legally kill or injure up to 4200 bald eagles annually without penalty. If they can get away with this, the industry would also pocket untold billions while doing it.

But as bad as this is, it gets worse because several newly released reports pertaining to eagle management were created to help sell this new wind industry slaughter of eagles. The obscure Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (DPEIS) , which is by far the most important FWS document, has an extremely short comment period that ends 6/6/16. A mere 30 days after being released.

With these reports the FWS claims "We pooled western U.S., Alaska, and eastern U.S. population estimates to develop a total estimate of golden eagle population size for the U.S. in 2014 for the purpose of computing contemporary harvest limits."

For Bald Eagles these reports conclude, "Nationally, the annual bald eagle take limit with these rates would be approximately 6,300 eagles under the liberal alternative and under 4,200 eagles under the conservative alternative." For an already rapidly declining population of golden eagles the "sustainable take under these conditions is close to 2,000 individuals."

The FWS fails to point out to the public that they relied upon outside sources for their current eagle population estimates. These sources have major conflicts of interest having produced false nonscientific turbine mortality studies for the wind industry since the 1990's.

This incredible allowance of 2000 golden eagles annually will insure that most of the golden eagles still surviving in the lower 48 states will disappear because of wind industry developments.

The reality of this dire situation is that we are witnessing a government wildlife agency that was created to protect highly important species, now laying out a red carpet so a devastating industry can kill many more thousands of eagles. The FWS might as well be sending our eagles to Auschwitz.

A deceptive history

While the FWS is currently busy selling their eagle slaughter plan to the public I want to point out that they are blatantly ignoring what has taken place over the years at the Denver eagle repository. At this location (2016 numbers) over 33,000 eagle carcasses have been secretly received at this location since 1997. A gruesome number that has been growing each year at a rate of about 2500-3000 or more each year thanks in part to the wind industry. Today the majority of these eagle carcasses are Bald Eagles.

Unknown to the public is that this repository for eagles in Denver has secretly become the Wind industry's Eagle mortuary. But unlike other mortuaries autopsies and information pertaining to the origin of these eagles corpses has never been released.

Those wanting this eagle mortality information will find that the industry is 17 years ahead of you because this information is now protected by the Freedom of information Act. Obtaining any this eagle carcass information as it relates to the wind industry ended late in the Clinton administration when a newly modified version of the freedom of information Act became the law of the land on 12/01/1999.

Wiegand article 1

As shown above after more than 2 decades of hiding carcasses, telling lies and rigging wind industry mortality research, the turbine peddlers were finally able to seal this terrible information from the public.

Years before the Clinton Era protections were put into place for this industry, information regarding the National Eagle repository (1974-1997) and the Denver Eagle repository (1997- ), was disclosed by USFWS agents. These agents could speak freely without the fear of retribution. What these agents said is very important because it was provided from an era before wind energy developments.

One thing that is very clear from reading early FWS statements, at one time this agency was very serious about protecting eagles and they knew exactly what was killing America's eagles.

In November of 1997 when California still had most of America's installed wind energy and a healthy population of eagles, the FWS made an alarming disclosure about wind energy. They listed wind turbines as a brand new primary cause of death for the repository's eagles. That year the Repository received just over 1000 bald eagle and eagle carcasses.

Wiegand article 2

In the 1970's the Repository was receiving about 200-250 eagle carcasses a year.

Today the Repository is receiving thousands of eagles and severed parts of eagles each year. Thanks to the Clinton administration, the autopsy and specific cause of death information for all these eagles will never be released again because it would incriminate this industry.

This repository recycles eagles and eagle parts to American Indians. It would seem that since these eagles being slaughtered in such disgraceful way and coming from such a tainted source, that this source of eagle parts for the American Indian would have a greatly diminished spiritual meaning.

Hidden information about the "safer" Altamont Pass turbines

In 2007 a National Academy of Sciences report to congress pertaining to wind turbine impacts it was noted that "Bird displacement associated with wind-energy development has received little attention in the United States. This statement was true then and it is even truer today.

For example it was also disclosed in this 2007 congressional report that in 2005 there were 58 nesting eagle territories that were occupied within in 30 km (19miles) of the Altamont Wind resource Area. This information is 11 years old and even in 2012 there was proof available that these 58 occupied eagle territories no longer existed. Golden eagle territory abandonment that has taken place around this wind farm it is extremely relevant because this impact coincides with the installation of the industry's new turbines falsely declared safer for eagles.

Today in the Altamont Region, I would be shocked if even a third of these originally reported 58 active golden eagle territories occupied by two adults remain.

But we will never know because in this Altamont region there has been a complete blackout pertaining the golden eagle nesting activity and nesting failures that have occurred from wind turbines killing adult eagles. I know this impacts occurs from talking with an eyewitness and from reading the vague references in wind industry studies to eagle nests described as unsuccessful, unoccupied or non-active found in industry studies.

This raptor displacement takes place from the older small turbines as well as the newer "declared safer" turbines. Research regarding these impacts has been avoided for decades across America. This deception has taken place for the same reasons the public knows nothing about the thousands of eagle carcasses received by the Denver Eagle Repository.

For years the media, the wind industry and FWS have been claiming that the Altamont region has one of the highest, if not the highest known concentration of golden eagles in the world. If the FWS would ever look at this population using scientific principles instead of using fake data from contaminated sources for eagle harvest reports, they would find most of these eagles have disappeared.

Instead the public is being fed statements likes this one about golden eagle populations, "Golden eagle abundance in California is unknown." I will add that this information would not be hard to find out and studies would not even be needed if the FWS would just compare the golden eagle carcasses shipped from CA to the Denver Repository between the years 1997-2015.

Harvesting Eagles - Part 2

A case study on how government agencies use their power to betray our trust. Jim Wiegand

Since 1997 when the FWS repository first disclosed that wind turbines were a major cause of death for eagles, wind energy has increased its deadly footprint by more than tenfold into golden eagle habitats in the Western United States . The Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (DPEIS) created for the Eagle Rule Revision completely ignored the many thousands of eagle carcasses and autopsy records that exist in the Denver repository. Even so, the limited and filtered data provided by the FWS does inadvertently give us a glimpse at the mortality impacts to eagles from wind turbines.

What the FWS DPEIS is hiding

During the 1990's, Grainger Hunt conducted a seven-year study in the Altamont Pass region on radio-tagged golden eagles. Its summary statement is revealing - and chilling.

"We recorded the deaths of 100 radio-tagged eagles during the seven-year study. Wind turbine blades killed at least 42, the actual number being higher because the blades occasionally destroyed the transmitter. Adding 12 electrocutions, all outside the WRA, at least 54 percent of all fatalities were attributed to electrical generation or transmission."

Not only did these turbines kill at least 42 golden eagles this figure did not include nest site mortality from adults killed during their nesting cycle. This was a documented mortality rate more than 3-1/2 times greater than from electrocution. The DPEIS even states that wind turbines are a major cause of golden eagle deaths. This statement is presented on page 99 and again with more details on page 195.

"Overall collisions from all sources (vehicle, line strikes and turbine blade strikes) are estimated to kill about 500 golden eagles a year."

The latest FWS report makes it clear that the Fish & Wildlife Service relied heavily on eagle mortality information from "a data set of unbiased cause-of-mortality information for a sample of 386 satellite-tagged golden eagles from 1997-2013, to estimate the effect of current levels of anthropogenic mortality on those survival rates."

Wiegand article 3

Of the 97 "observed" and reported deaths of satellite-tagged eagles, 11.3% (see Table) died from electrocution. Another 7.2% died from collisions. The Altamont Hunt study also reveals that wind turbines were killing eagles at a rate at least 3-1/2 times greater than electrocution, and more than five times greater than wire strikes, vehicle strikes and other collisions.

By multiplying the FWS 11.3% eagle fatality rate from electrocution by 3.5, we can reasonably conclude that 38.5% of all golden eagle mortality in this region is the result of wind turbines. We get a similar turbine mortality rate by multiplying the FWS collision data by 5.25 - which again results in a very reasonable conclusion that 36.8% of golden eagle mortality results from wind turbines.

If we apply these wind turbine mortality rates to eagles in the Denver eagle carcass repository, we find that the FWS may have explained the cause of death for 12,000 to 13,000 of the 33,000 bald and golden eagle carcasses that the repository has received since 1997. They were killed by wind turbines!

More Fish & Wildlife Service dishonesty

The FWS Eagle harvest reports also make this statement: "Based on the cause-specific mortality rates analyzed, we estimated that 500 (20^th quantile = 280) golden eagles are electrocuted in the U.S. annually."

If this were a true statement, applying the 3.5% turbine/electrocution kill ratio from the Hunt studies would mean that turbines are killing 1,750 golden eagles each year. However, 500 golden eagles each year are not being electrocuted in the United States.

I know this mortality figure is not even close because it was derived by using its grossly over-estimated population numbers. Of course, if we knew the actual number of electrocuted golden eagles shipped each to the Eagle Repository each year, we could easily clear all this up. However, we cannot get those numbers (or other accurate data) because they are viewed as proprietary, top secret information - the private property of wind turbine companies - and thus off limits to citizens, watchdogs and even Congress.

A close examination of the chart summarizing satellite-tagged golden eagles from 1997-2013 reveals that vital information about 292 of the 386 satellite-tagged eagles is missing. This chart does not include all anthropogenic eagle mortality. Mortality figures for eagles taken to rehab centers from wind farms and later euthanized are missing. That is, if injured birds are recovered but cannot be nursed back to health - and must be put down - their deaths are not counted.

Even more glaring, also completely missing from this table is information on wind turbine mortality to satellite-tagged eagles. Data on this major source of mortality does exist, but it is ignored. Even more glaring, also completely missing from this table is information on wind turbine mortality to satellite-tagged eagles. Data on this major source of mortality does exist, but it is ignored. In fact, the Interior Department is in possession of far more eagle tracking data and this article discusses some of that missing satellite tracking data.

"Most shocking," it notes, "several witnesses reported a mortality rate of 90% for birds mounted with Bittner's transmitters, during one nine-month period, when experts said an 85% survival rate should have been expected. Yet Bittner reported only a 20% mortality rate during that nine month period in 2011."

This satellite tracking information from a region in California that is inundated with wind turbines has never been released. It is apparent that the satellite-tagged eagle information included in the Fish & Wildlife Service's Draft Programmatic EIS is highly filtered and deceptive.

Without accounting for all these 386 satellite-tagged eagles, it should probably be assumed that these 292 unaccounted-for eagles may have died from wind turbines - because once wind turbines are placed in eagle habitats they become their Number One Killer. The report likewise presents no information on locations or regions where these eagle fatalities occurred, or where the satellite tagging took place.

Migratory eagles are now threatened - including many from Canada and Alaska

This National Park Service map depicts the winter range habitat area for some of North America's satellite-tagged migratory northern golden eagles. Those eagles are flying right into the heart of America 's rapidly expanding wind energy developments - where many of them are likely to be struck, killed by turbine blades and their fatalities unreported.

Wiegand article 4

This information about migrating golden eagles is vitally important and well known by the FWS. However, it and related information are missing from the Fish & Wildlife Service DPEIS that would allow the continued and expanded slaughter of these magnificent raptors.

This huge winter range is in the midst of massive new wind energy developments in the western USA. Also known as FWS Region 6, this area is now shipping far more golden eagle carcasses to the Denver Eagle Repository than any other region in the United States.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates there are about 143,000 bald eagles in the United States, and 40,000 golden eagles."

This is an especially noteworthy false statement because the FWS cannot even document 750 active/adult occupied golden eagle nesting territories existing in all of CA, Oregon and Nevada. Northern Nevada also happens to be one of the last strongholds in the US for this species. The large majority of bald eagles are found in Alaska, and many in the Lower 48 States nest and hunt in areas that are increasingly encroached upon and threatened by large wind turbine installations.

Harvesting Eagles - Part 3

How agencies charged with protecting our wildlife continue to betray our trust. Jim Wiegand

This map of the United States and Canada shows the Bird Conservation Regions (BCRs) with the corresponding DPEIS golden eagle population estimates, used to compute the proposed Fish & Wildlife Service's annual eagle "harvest."

Wiegand article 5

Computing the proposed FWS annual eagle "harvest"

These FWS golden eagle population estimates are demonstrably false - perhaps deliberately so. Multiple problems, discrepancies and delusions surround the estimates. In fact, there are far too many problems to list in this short article. I will thus touch on only a few.

First, California does not have a golden eagle population of approximately 1,000-1,200 birds. If that were the case, there would be yearly records for about 200-250 adult-occupied nesting territories producing young. As it is, the State of California, California Department of Fish and Wildlife and USFWS cannot even document that there are a mere 100 of these productive nesting territories. However, these agencies do know of hundreds of empty golden eagle nests and abandoned eagle territories in California.

Contrary to DPEIS assertions, there are not 5,122 golden eagles living in the Eastern USA; there are not even 5,122 golden eagles living to the north in Eastern Canada. In the Eastern USA, this species is a rare winter resident and, to the best of my knowledge, there has not been a single reported case of a golden eagle nesting East of the Mississippi River for decades.

There is just no credible research anywhere to support such numbers, and this eastern North America population is probably limited to just a few hundred pairs living in Eastern Canada.

Since most of the golden eagles living in Eastern Canada migrate, these eagles cannot possibly be in two places at the same time. Either the FWS estimates show winter residency numbers for a non-existent nesting population or they were just made up. This could be true for all the DPEIS eagle population estimates given, because none of them are close to reality.

The number of carcasses shipped annually to the Denver Repository also supports my assessment of this eastern population of Golden Eagles. From the repository records I have, the western US is shipping more than 20 times more golden eagle carcasses to Denver than the eastern states are, even though there are far more transmission lines, vehicle traffic and people in the East.

The DPEIS golden eagle population for Alaska is reported to be 4,091 - and yet a few years ago, before the rapid expansion of wind energy developments along their southern migration routes (FWS region 6), this northern eagle population was listed at 2,077 birds. My eagle population estimates for BCR Management units 9, 10, 16 and 17 concludes that there are now 1,500-2,000 nesting pairs of golden eagles in this area. This estimate is based upon known golden eagle nesting densities, habitat type, human disturbances, precipitation, elevation, food sources and my on the ground knowledge of this vast region.

Yet the DPEIS golden eagle population estimated for these four BCR units is an astounding 26,366. This population estimate did not take into consideration any of the principles, skill sets and wildlife training that I used for my estimate. Instead, it is based on a computer "model that integrated data from late summer aerial transect surveys." Aerial transect surveys are easy to rig and, as I pointed out six years ago, they also can collect highly flawed data.

But the elephant in the room here is that the public is supposed to believe golden eagle population survey results from a company with a history of underreporting wind turbine mortality with nonscientific studies (see links below and these previously submitted comments) going back 2 decades. Now these same people want us to believe there is a golden eagle population 6.5 times than all of Alaska, living in a several state region of about the size. It is absurd and it is not true.

Even more absurd is that the FWS DPEIS claims that 1,000 more golden eagles live in the Eastern US than in all of Alaska.

I hope the public understands that these false claims about our disappearing golden eagles are rapidly leading to their extermination. By claiming that golden eagle populations are 5-10 times higher than they actually are - without employing any honest, accurate studies of eagle populations - these Fish and Wildlife Service lies will allow ten times more turbines to be built, and ten times more eagles to be killed.

While there is much more wrong about this latest FWS report, I hope it is crystal clear to everyone that creating a vast imaginary population of eagles, avoiding true scientific research, falsely calculating an enormous, supposedly "sustainable" yearly harvest rate, and deliberately ignoring the huge eagle slaughter taking place around the wind farms really is fraud. The perpetrators should be prosecuted.

Having said that, amid this false eagle slaughtering assessment, the FWS defines "local area population" as: "the bald or golden eagle population within the area of a human activity or project bounded by the natal dispersal distance for the respective species."

This slimy language conveniently allows the FWS, California wildlife department and wind industry to completely ignore the carnage taking place around wind projects placed in eagle habitats. These agencies all know that eagles disperse or migrate seasonally, so that eagle dispersal covers thousands of miles.

As previously noted A 2007 National Academy of Sciences report to Congress on wind turbine impacts noted that "Bird displacement associated with wind-energy development has received little attention in the United States." This statement was true then, and it is even truer today.

For example, this 2007 NAS report also stated that 58 nesting eagle territories were occupied in 2005 within 30 km (19miles) of the Altamont Wind Resource Area. However, this information is 11 years old, and even in 2012 proof was available that these 58 occupied eagle territories no longer existed.

Today in the Altamont Region, I would be very surprised if even a third of these originally reported 58 active golden eagle territories (occupied by two adults) remain.

An agency and industry blackout on honesty

In this Altamont region, there has been a complete blackout pertaining to golden eagle nesting activity and nesting failures that have caused by wind turbines killing adult eagles during their nesting cycles. I know this from conversations with an eyewitness and from analyzing vague references in industry studies of nests described as "unsuccessful" or "non-active."

Nothing about this devastating wind turbine mortality impact has ever been revealed or scientifically documented by the wind industry or the FWS.

In the case of bird displacement, the industry and wildlife agencies have avoided turbine impact studies of raptor populations for decades. This deliberate failure has been for the same reason that the public knows nothing about all the eagle carcasses sent to the Denver repository: like the repository data, nesting information would incriminate the wind energy industry and reveal the massive destruction it is inflicting on our nation's wildlife.

For years the media, wind industry and FWS have claimed that the Altamont region has one of the highest, if not the highest, known concentration of golden eagles in the world. If the FWS looked again at this eagle population - using scientific principles, instead of fake abstract data - it would find that most of these eagles have disappeared.

Under the new proposal, companies would pay a $36,000 fee for a long-term permit allowing them to kill or injure eagles. These companies would also have to commit to additional measures if they kill or injure more eagles than estimated, or if new information suggests eagle populations are declining markedly.

Think about the obvious here. An honest, ethical proposal regarding "additional measures" would include funding for real studies around wind projects, showing current eagle nesting densities, nesting success rates, fledging rates, nesting failures and, most importantly, complete eagle territory abandonment. An honest and ethical eagle harvest proposal would also include significant fines - and back payments for the thousands of eagles that wind turbine companies have already killed without permits to do so.

Any non-Indian even possessing a single bald eagle feather - even one found lying on the ground, and even one killed by a wind turbine - can be fined $5,000 and sentenced to a year in jail. The 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act also prohibits "pursuing, shooting, shooting at, poisoning, wounding, killing, capturing, trapping, collecting, molesting or disturbing a bald or golden eagle. The law also makes it illegal to "possess, sell, purchase, barter, offer to sell, offer to purchase or barter, or transport GǪ any bald eagle GǪ alive or dead, or any part, nest or egg thereof. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act has similar provisions.

However, wind turbine companies can slaughter thousands of bald and golden eagles with impunity - and have done so for years. Under the proposed Programmatic EIS, they will now have a blanket 30-year exemption from the law to continue killing these magnificent birds. Just don't YOU possess a feather.

If readers remember nothing else, they should remember this about the wind industry's turbines:

If the industry and USFWS had been telling the truth all these years about turbine impacts, these newly proposed regulations allowing a wind turbine "harvest" of up to 4,200 bald eagles and 2,000 golden eagles would never have been issued. Instead, the industry would be asking for permission to kill only a "handful" of eagles each year, and paying significant fines for doing so.

Still more deliberate, calculated lies

The American Wind Energy Association falsely claims that wind farms impact very few eagles - that "only a handful of bald eagles have been lost in the history of the industry in the U.S."

This is a blatant lie. The truth is that nothing on this planet slaughters our eagles like wind turbines spinning in their habitat. Bald eagles being killed by wind turbines can be traced back many years, but this slaughter to our National Symbol has been routinely covered up. The first incident I could find relating to this industry's concealment of bald eagle fatalities occurred at Altamont back in 1989.

With new mortality allowances taken from highly embellished eagle populations and the expansion of wind turbines into our wetland habitats, the numbers of bald eagle carcasses shipped to Denver will also escalate. With these annual bag limits will come failed nesting and abandonment of eagle nesting territories around all wind projects located in eagle habitats. This deceptive FWS DPEIS discloses none of these impacts.

Other wind energy considerations

Despite noble claims from President Obama and others, industrial wind turbines are not about reducing carbon dioxide emissions, preventing climate change or even saving humanity. They are about rigging the law, carving out exemptions, conducting fraudulent research, killing thousands of eagles, acquiring massive profits, and gouging Americans. None of which is good or admirable.

If President Obama's message were at all true, America would not be exporting enough coal and fossil fuels each year to generate more than twice the kilowatt-hours of electricity now produced from all of America's 75,000 MW of installed wind energy. This total would be three times higher if rising US natural gas exports were included.

Yet since 2008, under the Obama Administration, these exports have skyrocketed. Coal exports have nearly doubled and crude oil exports are up about 1500 percent. Even worse, this same relatively inexpensive energy, which other countries are consuming in ever more prodigious quantities, could have been used in the USA to produce cheap electricity for the grid at a fraction of the cost of wind energy.

Even the billions of dollars wasted on Production Tax Credits for wind energy could have purchased this cheap energy.

As stupid as all this seems, it also underscores how broken our system of democracy, ethics and justice have become.

Bald and golden eagles are protected by state and federal laws. Slaughtering eagles is illegal, and nothing is "incidental" or "unavoidable" where fraud and species extermination are involved - or when billions of taxpayer and consumer dollars are being handed to faceless American and international investors who knowingly place the number one killer of eagles - enormous wind turbines - into remote habitats.

And yet the Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and supposedly "green" Obama and Jerry Brown administrations treat Big Wind with the utmost deference, exempt it from endangered species and other environmental laws, and allow it to "harvest" up to 6,300 bald and golden eagles every year - as though the energy industry were a privileged sacred cow.

If this industry and its government protectors want their eagle "harvest" plan, Americans should demand the truth from the Interior Department, instead of accepting filtered and fraudulent information like this DPEIS. This proposed "license to kill" grants the Big Wind industry a license to virtually exterminate two of our most iconic and magnificent species. Americans should also demand that Interior first produce all their FWS eagle repository and eagle autopsy records, going back to 1974. Or there should be no deal.

Important wind energy links that are part of my official comments: