When It Comes to Birds and Wind Energy, Consider Your Sources

The recently published report ("primer") by the John Locke Foundation on wind energy, among other criticisms, posits that wind turbines are "exceedingly deadly" to bird (and bat) wildlife. This puts them, perhaps surprisingly, in opposition to the National Audubon Society, which supports further development of wind energy as an alternative to fossil fuel-based energy sources.

Can this be right? Can a organization that claims to be committed to "individual rights, free enterprise, property ownership, [and] limited government" really be calling for a "'Coast Law' to prohibit construction of industrial wind turbines on the [North Carolina] coast" (emphasis added)?

And what of the Audubon Society? Has an organization dedicated to bird habitat and welfare suddenly elected to neglect its core mission, or worse yet, does it welcome the deployment of "exceedingly deadly" bird-killing machines?

Prompted by recent coverage (1, 2) and criticisms of the JLF's report here on BlueNC, I—not even yet a resident of the state, and ignorant of the existence of the JLF until I joined this community— elected to look into the matter for myself.

***

(This post expanded from a recent comment of mine.)

When considering matters of public policy, it is almost always helpful to consider what agendas, affiliations, and alliances people are bringing to the table, so that one can weigh possible conflicts-of-interest¹.

The best place to start such analyses is with the goals and affiliations policy proponents explicitly claim for themselves, so that charges of distortion or snooping are less easily bandied about.

What does the Audubon Society regard as its mission? They state it as follows:

Audubon's mission is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth's biological diversity.

Our national network of community-based nature centers and chapters, scientific and educational programs, and advocacy on behalf of areas sustaining important bird populations, engage millions of people of all ages and backgrounds in positive conservation experiences.

(quoted w/o permission, but this is only two sentences--in the meantime, as an advocacy organization, the National Audubon Society needs to adopt a more sensible copyright policy than "All Rights Reserved"...)

Let us now turn to Daren Bakst, the author of the John Locke Foundation study; according to his bio at the Carolina Journal, a JLF website:

• Mr. Bakst was formerly the "Policy Counsel for the National Legal Center for the Public Interest in Washington, DC", with an eye on analyzing issues of interest to the "business community". (That would likely be the business community as already constituted by entrenched interests, rather than the business community as it will look after brash upstarts deploying disruptive technologies have changed it.)
• Anyway, National Legal Center for the Public Interest. Sounds like some vaguely liberal, community-oriented outfit, like Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, right? Must be! Going to their website, we find ourselves redirected to the American Enterprise Institute, due to a merger between the organizations in 2007.
• I could not find any list of officers or trustees for the NLCPI at the AEI's website for the organization, but such lists for the AEI itself are easily found (officers, trustees).

  The AEI's Board of Trustees sports an impressive roster of CEOs, Founders, Chairmen, Senior Avisors, and Managing Directors (Commonwealth-ese for "CEO") of such scrappy young small business as International Paper Company, Merck, American Express, Exxon Mobil, State Farm, CIGNA, and Dow Chemical, along with a slew of investment and capital management outfits (of whom I am sadly under-informed).

• Just to keep the scales balanced, there is one AEI Trustee who represents the notorious academic left: James Q. Wilson of Pepperdine University, which describes itself as:

  A Place of Faith, Guided by Christian Values

  As a Christian university, Pepperdine expresses its Christian principles through all aspects of academic life and administrative policy. Pepperdine draws no separations between the "sacred and the secular" in daily life and conduct, there are many ways in which the University encourages and accentuates the Christian way of life in the Pepperdine community. While all major social events and official ceremonies are opened in prayer, it is not unusual that University business meetings will likewise be convened with a request to God for prudence, understanding, and guidance. Many of Pepperdine's Christian professors and administrators take the time to spiritually encourage and pray with students and others who need the care that those who profess faith are called to give.

  Well, perhaps not too balanced. One might hope for a humble prayer for divine guidance in undertaking rigorous and objective scholarship, but perhaps that virtue did not survive the editing process.

• Popping the stack back to Mr. Bakst's CV and moving on from his flagship credential we find that he founded and serves as president of the Council on Law in Higher Education, which states of itself:

  CLHE's work reflects a belief that the regulatory and legal burden on colleges and universities has become excessive and sensible reforms are needed.

• Next up, Mr. Bakst has written for "Competitive Enterprise Institute" and "Frontiers of Freedom". Let us examine these organizations more closely.
• The CEI describes itself as "a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government", which "believe[s] that individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace." (One wonders if a Rothbardian taste for free markets in courts and police, fire, and military services also fall under this anti-interventionist penumbra.) Exploring the board of CEI we see a familiar name, Michael S. Greve, who also has written several publications for NLCPI.
• Frontiers of Freedom, which has chosen the abbreviation FOF for itself (but uses the domain name ff.org), states the following at a page entitled "What We Believe":

  FOF is an educational institute (or think tank) whose mission is to promote conservative public policy based on the principles of individual freedom, peace through strength, limited government, free enterprise, and traditional American values as found in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

  FOF was founded by Malcolm Wallop, a former Republican Senator from Wyoming. Among FOF's executive staff are President George C. Landrith, who ran twice (unsuccessfully) for Congress as a Republican from Virginia's 5th district; a former aide to then-Congressman Christopher Cox (Republican from California); the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism; "the energy and environment analyst for the Senate Republican Policy Committee under Chairman Jon Kyl"; and Mr. Aaron Lee, who lists membership in the Utah College Republicans as a bona fide.

• Finally, we also see that Mr. Bakst serves on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society's Labor and Employment Law Practice Group. Lest anyone be unfamiliar with the Federalist Society (for Law and Public Policy Studies), they characterize themselves as:

  ...a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order.

I would have simply quoted Mr. Bakst's bio in its entirety, but the JLF claims the following blanket copyright policy for all of its websites, including the Carolina Journal:

You cannot reproduce, republish or redistribute material from any JLF website in any way without the express written consent of the JLF.

(Presumably, quoting the JLF's own copyright policy is an infringement of their copyright. On the other hand, that must not be what I have done, as the JLF holds that people "cannot" do such things, not that they "may not"; and here I thought lawyers were paid to be careful with language.

Also, let it not be said that "classical liberal" conservatism is an inflexible doctrine. As we can see, the JLF is quite comfortable with 21st-century notions of copyright law—including the broad, expansive notion of reserved rights and the de rigueur disregard of Fair Use—when it happens that their namesake, John Locke, was already moldering in his grave years before the world's first copyright law, the Statute of Anne, was ever passed.)

Given Mr. Bakst's allegiances and affiliations, I suppose he deserves our congratulations for breaking with his ideological brethren and enthusiastically advocating the application of the heavy hand of the state in the private business of wind farming. While Bakst cites North Carolina Senate Bill 3 (2007) as imposing on utility companies a transition of 7.5 percent of electricity production to renewable resources, the law does nothing to mandate wind farming in particular. But wind farms are not being constructed by a modern-day Works Progress Association—is it not private entrepreneurs who threaten to bring wind farming to North Carolina?

When the Director of Conservation Policy for the National Audubon Society testifies before Congress and 1) acknowledges that wind turbines do not have negligible effects on bird mortality, habitat and migration; 2) emphasizes that the factual record on these issues is very spotty; 3) recognizes that other threats to bird habitat and migration from our reliance on fossil fuels could be much more severe than the effects of wind turbines; and 4) calls for further study before encouraging the application of state power to halt wind turbine operations...

...I am tempted to conclude that the needs of the free market are being better represented by the NAS than by the market's own self-described champions.

Recall the JLF's language: "Wind power plants have proven to be exceedingly deadly to wildlife, especially birds [...]" (emphasis added). What level of deadliness is being exceeded? The JLF's report offers no answer to this question. Birds smack, often with consequences fatal to themselves, into the glass office buildings of fossil-fuel energy corporations, and into the automobile grilles and windshields of fossil-fuel companies' employees. The JLF invites us to draw a comparison but does not offer a metric by which to make one. Are they appealing to emotion rather than reason?

Could it be that the JLF, along with the NLCPI, the AEI, the CLEH, the CEI, and the FOF, are selective in their proposed applications of free market and limited government principles? I would hope so, as most of us have values that trump even these. We would not, for example, refuse to render aid to a drowning police officer, even if we disagreed with the intrusive laws he enforces or his means of doing so.

But could those principles see selective application in the furtherance of values we don't all regard as more fundamental?

In 2005, the Independent Weekly took a look into the JLF's sources of funding—since it claims to be a 501(c)3 "nonprofit, nonparistan research institute", I expected to be able to research this fact myself. Unfortunately, the JLF's records are sadly unavailable to the public. The IW provides too much detail for me to quote here, so I will cite just a few sentences and invite the reader to consult the original article for more.

[...] While Locke does not take money directly from Exxon, it does receive funding from other fossil fuel interests and from organizations that are themselves funded by ExxonMobil. But it does not openly disclose that fact.

[...]

[...] complete returns for the past three years obtained through the New York-based Foundation Center show Locke received at least $81,500 from organizations with fossil fuel ties during that period.

[...]

In fiscal year 2003, [...] Locke's second-largest contributor was the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation. One of the Koch Family funds, [...] the foundation is operated by David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, the largest privately held oil conglomerate in the United States and a leading contributor among gas and oil companies in the 2004 federal election cycle, according to a recent report by the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity (CPI).

[...]

In 2001, the John Locke Foundation received $6,500 from the Center for Energy and Economic Development (CEED), an Amarillo, Texas-based nonprofit whose Web site says it is "dedicated to protecting the viability of coal-based electricity." [...] Locke has also taken money from groups funded by ExxonMobil, according to www.exxonsecrets.org, a database sponsored by Greenpeace USA. In 2002, for example, Locke got $5,000 from The DCI Group of Phoenix, a Republican lobbying firm whose Tech Central Station Web site is sponsored by ExxonMobil, and in 2001 it received $10,000 from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation (AERF) of Fairfax, Va., which in turn has received more than $500,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

How likely is it that a not-for-profit research foundation will reach conclusions favorable to its patrons (i.e., "regulate my competitors, not me")?

Another quote from the article points out a principle of reasoning espoused by the JLF's president, John Hood:

"I don't necessarily see interest groups that are personally or financially involved in the global warming debate as being out of bounds," Hood says. "That's fundamentally contrary to the scientific process. You ought to be evaluating ideas on the basis of their validity--not on the basis of who's bringing them to the table."

I would argue that we should evaluate ideas based not merely on their validity, but also on their soundness. For example, the argument "All men are immortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is immortal." is perfectly valid—structurally. I trust that it is not difficult to spot the fallacious premise.

The assumptions, interests, and unstated premises of those bringing an argument for consideration must be considered as well. Or, as Daniel S. Greenberg put it:

Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut.

(via Howard Kahane, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric, 3rd Edition)

By the same token, principles of sound reasoning suggest to me that we should not ask those who derive their livelihoods from the fossil fuel industry whether their competitors need to be regulated.

Your mileage may vary.

¹ also known as "confluences", "compatibilities", or "coherences" of interest among those who regard self-aggrandizement as a civic virtue

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