Trump made Iowans really mad by ranting about wind energy
President Trump is a little bit obsessed with the evils of wind energy, a topic that did not go over so well at his rally in Iowa earlier this week. "I don't want to just hope the wind blows to light up your house and your factory as the birds fall to the ground," Trump told the crowd. His comment "didn't go over well across Iowa, where the rapid growth of the state's wind energy industry has been a bipartisan success story," The Associated Press writes.
Additionally, "environmentalists and politicians said the president's suggestion that wind is unreliable was outdated and off-base," AP adds. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), a longtime supporter of wind energy in his state, said that Trump's anti-wind ambitions would only be enacted "over my dead body."
And as for the bald eagles? Just 134,000 to 327,000 birds die in wind turbine collisions annually compared to a minimum of 365 million that die from window collisions, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates.
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"There are way more bird deaths from birds striking tall buildings, like the type of towers that the president owns, than there are from birds striking wind turbines," said Environmental Law and Policy Center attorney Josh Mandelbaum, who is based in Des Moines. "If the president's concerned, maybe he should take a look at his own portfolio."
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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