Joel Hefley: “Mr. Chairman, this week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was proceeding with the development of new…”

“Mr. Chairman, this week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was proceeding with the development of new voluntary guidelines to protect migratory birds from electrocution and collisions with power lines. This is an important development. For the past 70 years, the Nation's rural electric cooperatives have provided power to millions of people in rural America. Distribution and transmission lines cross many miles of wide open spaces and sometimes those wide open spaces are filled with migratory birds. Under two laws, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Golden and Bald Eagle Protection Act, electric utilities can be found guilty of so-called takings if birds fly into those lines or land on them and are killed. Many utilities have responded by redesigning the towers for new power lines and locating these lines outside of known flyways. Yet birds continue to fly into power lines and as things currently stand, these utilities are liable for penalties under these two laws. Mr. Chairman, no one in their right mind, when these laws were enacted, would have thought that these laws would be interpreted in this kind of a way.”