A wind turbine at the University of Minnesota's Eolos Wind Energy Research Field Station dismembered a bald eagle into three pieces — and the Department of the Interior has now slapped the university with a violation notice and a proposed civil penalty of $14,536.

According to Fox News, the turbine in Dakota County, Minnesota, was built with a $7.9 million grant from the Obama Department of Energy, awarded in 2010. The university was in the process of testing its collision detection sensors when the eagle was struck. Technicians found the bird's lower torso and tail near the site. The head and wings weren't recovered until over a month later.

DOI spokesperson Matthew Middleton didn't mince words:

"America's bald eagles are a national treasure, not collateral damage for costly wind experiments."

The Enforcement Shift

The violation notice, issued in January, charges the university with violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act by killing the eagle without an incidental take permit. Following the incident, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent the university a letter urging it to reassess the turbine's danger to eagles and to consider applying for a long-term incidental take permit. The January notice indicates the university still hasn't obtained one.

Middleton framed the action as part of a broader posture under the current administration:

"Under President Donald Trump and Secretary Burgum, the department is enforcing the law to protect these iconic birds and demand accountability from an industry that has jeopardized these protected species."

And the Minnesota turbine isn't the only case. In a separate enforcement action, the Fish and Wildlife Service finalized fines totaling $32,340 against Ørsted Onshore North America after two bald eagles were discovered dead near wind turbines in Plum Creek, Nebraska, and Lincoln Land, Illinois. Ørsted did not respond to requests for comment.

The pattern is clear: the wind industry operated for years with minimal accountability for avian kills. That era is ending.

The Money Trail

The turbine that killed the eagle traces directly back to the Obama-era spending surge. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 appropriated $90 billion to clean energy, of which $35.2 billion flowed to the U.S. Department of Energy. The $7.9 million grant that funded the Eolos research station came from that pipeline.

This is the bargain green energy advocates never want to discuss honestly. Billions in taxpayer dollars subsidized an industry that kills protected wildlife — and for years, nobody in Washington seemed particularly interested in enforcing the laws already on the books. The permits exist. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act exists. The university simply didn't bother obtaining the permit, and until now, nobody made them.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has been direct about the broader failure of the green energy buildout. Speaking on Jesse Watters' Primetime in June, he put it plainly:

"When you think about the green new scam, it was pro-China, and it's anti-American, and it's also unaffordable and unreliable."

Burgum has also argued that solar and wind projects are destabilizing the grid and driving up prices — a claim that grows harder to dismiss as energy costs remain a top concern for American households.

A $14,536 Question

The proposed fine is modest. Fourteen thousand dollars against a major research university backed by nearly $8 million in federal grant money is not exactly a crushing penalty. But the signal matters more than the dollar amount. Middleton made the new expectation explicit:

"Wind companies will no longer get a free pass as this administration safeguards bald eagles and advances energy policies that prioritize affordability and strengthen America's economy."

The University of Minnesota, for its part, confirmed it received the notice and said it is "currently under review." Not exactly a profile in urgency for an institution that let a federally protected bird get carved into three pieces by its own equipment.

The Quiet Cost of "Clean" Energy

Something is clarifying about this story. For over a decade, the green energy lobby has marketed itself as the environmentally virtuous choice — the moral alternative to fossil fuels, the industry that cares about the planet. Yet here sits a taxpayer-funded wind turbine on a university campus that killed the national symbol of the United States, and the operator didn't even have the legally required permit to account for that possibility.

No incidental take permit. No accountability — until this administration decided to enforce the law.

The left built an energy policy on the assumption that green means good, that subsidies equal progress, and that the rules apply to everyone except the people saving the planet. A dismembered bald eagle in Dakota County suggests otherwise.