The report provides another illustration of how energy policies guided by capitalist concerns to promote growth of their enterprises always trumps environmental concerns. While the government of the ruling capitalist class must appear, in response to citizens' concerns, to be promoting environmental policies, they will always in reality be guided by concerns of profits and power.
The Department of Interior released its Proposed Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Buffalo planning area in north-central Wyoming. The Bureau of Land Management currently manages 780,000 acres of surface lands and 4.8 million acres of federal minerals in the Buffalo planning area under a 30-year-old management plan. The updated plan authorizes the production of 10.2 billion tons of coal, estimated to produce nearly 17 billion tons of carbon pollution, and thousands of new oil and gas wells. Not included in the updated plan are reclamation plans for old, idle, or abandoned wells and mined lands, consideration of the climate impacts of new fossil fuel development, and adequate conservation measures to protect vulnerable wildlife populations and their habitats....