President Trump, aka stupid fucking asshole, will never be accused of being an environmentalist. The stupid assholes who write editorials at the Wall Street Journal have the same problem.

Wall Street Journal - Letters to the Editor

The Trump administration’s new interpretation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), endorsed in your editorial “Birds of Regulatory Prey” (Dec. 29), misconstrues the act. It will make it hard to take sensible and much-needed steps to conserve North America’s migratory bird species, 40% of which have declining populations.

The new interpretation reverses a long-standing U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service interpretation that the MBTA covers both the direct and, in some circumstances, the unintentional killing or “taking” of birds, particularly involving conduct known to cause bird deaths that could be avoided by reasonable precautions. In practice, the agency has been very judicious in its enforcement of the law. Only a handful of companies have faced prosecution for failing to adopt best industry standards—and only after multiple warnings from the government.

Take one example: energy companies placing screens over their oil-waste pits to keep birds from becoming trapped, a proven and efficient conservation measure. If screens aren’t in place, the government asks the company to install them, and gives multiple warnings about noncompliance before taking enforcement action. This strikes a reasonable balance between conservation and industrial production, and is a far cry from what the editorial board calls “open season on energy companies.”

The new opinion, by contrast, would make it hard to hold companies accountable for conduct that knowingly but needlessly kills birds.

Steve Holmer

American Bird Conservancy

Washington

Your editorial describes a situation purposely kept hidden by wind-energy companies and the federal regulators who issue their construction and operating permits. Wind farms in naturally optimal locations sited to take advantage of constant winds have resulted in the deaths of thousands of birds, especially large raptors like our national emblem, the bald eagle. Such birds (and bats too) have used those same steady wind locations. The editorial cites the previous administration’s “calling open season on energy companies whose activities ‘incidentally’ harm birds.” This large loss of wildlife, not intentional to be sure, is hardly “incidental.”

Bill Mattox

Meridian, Idaho