[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11200]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   ENVIRONMENTALISTS HAVE GONE BATTY

  (Mr. POE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, out on the arid, dusty high plains of west 
Texas, where the land was once the home of thousands of oil derricks, 
the landscape is now dotted with windmills--the new turbine clean 
energy. Texas is the wind energy capital of North America, supplying 
power to over 1 million homes.
  But now the environmental fear lobby wants to stop these turbines 
because they may pose a threat to bats and birds. They are the same 
radicals who have successfully prevented America from drilling for more 
crude oil at home, like in west Texas. These are the same batty people 
who have demanded we go to wind energy in the first place.
  Now they are worried about the bats and the birds that fly at night 
may be running into the windmills. Of course, there is no evidence to 
support this bat mania claim. Anyway, we all learned in third grade 
bats have a radar-like ability to navigate at night in caves and open 
terrain. The National Academy of Sciences stated: Birds have more to 
fear from high buildings, power lines, and cats than they do from the 
blades of windmills.
  We cannot allow the rich elites of the environmental fear lobby to 
destroy America's energy production. Otherwise, we will all end up 
going back living in the dark caves, with the bats.
  And that's just the way it is.

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