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US President Joe Biden’s administration said on Monday it had approved a major Willow oil project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope, a decision condemned by environmentalists who say it flies in the face of the Democratic president’s climate pledges.
The announcement came a day after the administration, in a major conservation move, said it would block or limit drilling in several other areas of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.
Willow Biden’s plan would allow for three initial drilling sites, which project developer ConocoPhillips said would include about 219 wells. A fourth proposed drilling site for the project will be rejected. The company said it considers a three-site option feasible.
Houston-based ConocoPhillips will relinquish rights to about 68,000 acres of leases located in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Climate activists are outraged that Biden appears open to giving the green light to the project, which they say will jeopardize the climate legacy. Allowing ConocoPhillips to move forward with drilling plans would also violate Biden’s campaign promise to stop new oil drilling on public lands, he said.
The administration’s decision is not always the final word, with litigation expected from environmental groups.
Strong support in the country
ConocoPhillips said the Willow project could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, create up to 2,500 jobs during construction and 300 long-term jobs, and generate billions of dollars in royalties and tax revenue for federal, state and local governments.
The project, located in the federally designated National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, enjoys widespread political support in the state. The country’s indigenous MPs recently met with Home Secretary Deb Haaland to ask for their support for Willow.
But environmental activists have been promoting the #StopWillow campaign on social media, seeking to remind Biden of his pledge to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy.
Christy Goldfuss, a former Obama White House official who is now chief of policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said she was “deeply disappointed” in Biden’s decision to approve Willow, which NRDC believes will produce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. equivalent to over a million homes.
“This decision is bad for the climate, bad for the environment and bad for the Alaska Native communities who oppose this and feel their voices are not being heard,” Goldfuss said.
Protected area
Anticipating a backlash among environmental groups, the White House announced on Sunday that Biden would prevent or limit oil drilling in an area of 16 million hectares in Alaska and the Arctic Ocean. The plan would block drilling in nearly three million acres of the Beaufort Sea — shutting it off from oil exploration — and restrict drilling to more than 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve.
The withdrawal of offshore areas ensures that important habitats for whales, seals, polar bears and other wildlife “will be protected in perpetuity from extractive development,” the White House said in a statement.
The US Bureau of Land Management, as part of an environmental review, advanced in February development options for Willow to call up the first three drilling sites.
The Alaska Republican US senator warned that further restrictions could kill the project, making it uneconomic.
A bipartisan congressional delegation from Alaska met with Biden and his advisers in early March to plead the case for the project, while environmental groups rallied opposition and urged project opponents to pressure the administration.
Community concerns
Nuiqsut Town Mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, whose community of about 525 people is closest to the proposed development, has been outspoken about her opposition, worried about the impact on caribou and residents’ subsistence lifestyle. The Naqsragmiut Tribal Council, in another North Slope community, also raised concerns.
But there is a “majority consensus” on the North Slope that supports the project, said Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat group, whose members include leaders from many of the regions.
The conservation act announced on Sunday full protections for the entire Beaufort Sea Planning Area, based on President Barack Obama’s 2016 action on the Chukchi Sea Planning Area and the majority of the Beaufort Sea, the White House said.
Separately, the administration moved to protect more than 13 million acres in petroleum reserves, 23 million acres of land on Alaska’s North Slope set aside a century ago for future oil production.
The Willow project is in reserve, and ConocoPhillips has long leased the site. About half of the reserves are off-limits to oil and gas leases under Obama-era rules that were reinstated by the Biden administration last year.
Areas to be protected include Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon and Peard Bay Special Area, which are collectively known as globally important habitats for grizzly and polar bears, caribou and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.
Abigail Dillen, president of the environmental group Earthjustice, welcomed the new conservation plan, but said that if the Biden administration believes it has the authority to limit oil development in petroleum reserves, officials should extend those protections to the Willow site.
“They have the authority to block Willow,” he said in an interview Sunday.
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