Trump’s Concern About Eagles and Wind Turbines Is a Joke

In a interview This week on Fox News, former President Donald Trump, a climate skeptic and staunch ally of planet-warming fossil fuels, continued his already long record of exaggerating the impact of the wind industry on birds.

But this time he relied on his alleged concern that wind companies were killing eagles without punishing them.

“If you shoot a bald eagle or any kind of eagle, they put you in jail for two years,” he told Fox News anchor Jesse Watters. “Go under a windmill, see how many eagles are under there. Nobody goes to jail.”

It was a remarkably rich topic of discussion given that during his presidency, Trump made easier for the energy sector, including wind companies, to kill eagles and other migratory birds with impunity.

In late 2017, Daniel Jorjani, Trump’s chief Interior Department lawyer and a former longtime adviser to fossil fuel magnates Charles and David Koch, issued a highly controversial statement legal opinion This law effectively legalized all accidental deaths of migratory birds, including those caused by wind turbines, oil and gas operations, chemical spills, and power lines. As long as a company or individual did not intend to kill birds, they were immune from prosecution.

The decision breaks with decades of jurisprudence, guts the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act and opens the door to gross negligence by the industry. HuffPost reported At the time, investigations into MBTA-protected bird deaths due to industrial activities were immediately halted.

In 2020, a federal judge reversed Trump’s decision to cut the MBTA. Yet in the final days of Trump’s term, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a rule aimed at codifying Jorjani’s legal interpretation into regulation. The Biden administration quickly revoked the setbacks of the Trump era.

Trump, who is now eyeing a second term in the White House, has repeatedly said spread false information attack wind power while promising to restore the so-called “energy dominance” of fossil fuels. At an April meeting with oil and gas industry executives, Trump would have been requested $1 billion in campaign donations in exchange for promises to reverse many of the president’s policies Joe BidenGreen energy policies.

It is true that wind turbines are often deadly to birds, including eagles. But Trump fails to mention that the number of birds killed each year by wind turbines is dwarfed by those killed by skyscrapers, power lines, and domestic and feral cats.

If Trump wins the 2024 election, migratory bird protection will likely be back on the agenda. The new Republican Party platform, endorsed by Trump, promises to “unleash American energy” and “reduce costly and burdensome regulations.”

And while Trump has tried to claim he knows “nothing about Project 2025,” the policy plan — a document in which at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration played a role — specifically calls for reinstating the Trump-era MBTA rule.

Make no mistake, this would give industry, including wind energy companies, the green light to kill eagles and all manner of migratory birds without legal repercussions.