Willow project

The Biden administration has approved the massive Willow oil drilling project in Alaska, angering climate advocates and setting the stage for a court ...

“This was the right decision for Alaska and our nation,” Ryan Lance, ConocoPhillips chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. “The new protections announced for the threatened Arctic are important, but they do not make up for Willow’s approval.” The White House on Monday made the entire US Arctic Ocean off limits to future oil and gas leasing. “After years of consistent, determined advocacy for this project, from people all across the state and from every walk of life, the Willow Project is finally moving forward,” said Democratic Rep. “Industrial development in this unspoiled landscape will not age well.” “I would like to thank the President and his administration for listening to the voices of Alaskans when it mattered most.” The administration felt it was constrained legally and had few options to cancel or significantly curtail the project – which was initially approved by the Trump administration. Reducing the drill-pads to two would have allowed the company to drill about 70% of the oil they were initially seeking. “We know President Biden understands the existential threat of climate, but he is approving a project that derails his own climate goals.” The Willow Project is a decadeslong oil drilling venture in the National Petroleum Reserve, which is owned by the federal government. Environmental advocates are expected to challenge the project in court. “We finally did it, Willow is finally reapproved, and we can almost literally feel Alaska’s future brightening because of it,” Republican Sen.

Drilling for more oil in the Alaskan Arctic would be, in the President's own words, a “big disaster.”

“In giving the greenlight to drilling, President Biden is now risking the support of many young people who voted for him in large numbers in 2020,” the BBC noted. An immense new oil project—Willow is expected to include more than two hundred wells—is obviously at odds with the goal of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. [Barack Obama](https://www.newyorker.com/tag/barack-obama)’s all-of-the-above energy strategy?) And it’s the reason that, even as the country takes steps to reduce emissions, it never seems to really get anywhere. The decision to approve the Willow project is—to use the President’s words—“a big disaster.” This is not just because of the impact that the project will have, though certainly that is bad enough. In the form in which it was approved on Monday, the Willow project will produce roughly five hundred and seventy-five million barrels of oil in the course of the next thirty years. In an opinion piece published on CNN’s Web site last week, all the members of Alaska’s congressional delegation—two Republican senators and a Democratic representative—expressed their support for the project. Of course, for those who oppose the project, the politics play differently. [Inflation Reduction Act](https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-democrats-finally-deliver), which contained both billions of dollars’ worth of tax credits to speed the transition away from fossil fuels and a stipulation that millions of acres of federal land be auctioned off for oil and gas drilling to provide more fossil fuels. On Monday, the Biden Administration granted ConocoPhillips approval for an immense new drilling project—the Willow oil project—in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Biden, in response, pledged, “No more drilling on federal lands, period, period, period.” It was, he added, “a disaster” to drill for oil in the Arctic—“a big disaster, in my view.” As the Times pointed out, the Willow project “would be one of the few oil projects that Mr. By the Administration’s own estimates, burning all that oil will result in the emission of about ten million tons of carbon dioxide per year, or some three hundred million tons over the life of the project.

The limits on oil and gas drilling in Alaska and the Arctic Ocean come as a huge project may be approved.

The reserve is a 23-million acre area on Alaska's North Slope that was set aside a century ago for future oil production. "There are not many opportunities to do much else that's why you will see local support [for the proposal]. Alaskan politicians, trade unions and some indigenous communities have also urged for it to be approved due to its potential economic benefits.

Environmental groups have already said they will sue to block the Arctic oil development, which would be Alaska's largest in decades.

Three years ago, the Bureau of Land Management approved Willow in a decision similar to the one announced Monday, but environmental groups sued and a U.S. “This is significant in the fact that not only will this mean jobs and revenue for Alaska, it will be a resource that is needed for the country and for our friends and allies. “This was the right decision for Alaska and our nation,” said Ryan Lance, ConocoPhillips chairman and chief executive officer in a prepared statement on Monday. “So we’ve just got to get through it, and hopefully sooner rather than later.” Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics. That campaign hit a climax two weeks ago when the three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation had an Oval Office meeting with President Joe Biden. We will continue to fight this project with all means at our disposal.” Those go to the federal government, which splits them with North Slope communities. Donny Olson, D-Golovin, who represents the region. You might arrive with a dirty carburetor and half-blown spark plugs, he said, but you made it. Josiah Patkotak, I-Utqiagvik, said getting the final approval felt like arriving home after a long snowmachine trip. By comparison, the trans-Alaska Pipeline System carries about 480,000 barrels of oil per day.

The US government has approved the huge Willow oil and gas drilling project in Alaska, to the approval of Alaskan officials and the oil industry but drawing ...

Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska said the congressional delegation is expecting an imminent legal challenge and is preparing an amicus brief to defend the project in court. "I feel the people of Alaska have been heard," US Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat from Alaska, said on a call with reporters. Alaska's elected officials say the project will create hundreds of jobs and bring billions of dollars in revenue to state and federal coffers.

The Biden administration has approved ConocoPhillips Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve. Oil drilling proponents see it as a win for domestic ...

We’ll discuss the Willow decision on this Talk of Alaska. Post your comment during or after the live broadcast on social media (Comments may be read on air). The Biden administration has approved ConocoPhillips Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve.

US government decision to greenlight ConocoPhillips Alaska's $8bn Willow oil project received praise and condemnation.

The Willow project “is about producing oil for decades when the US needs to be on a steep reduction path”, said Michael Lazarus, a senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute. The withdrawal of the offshore area ensures important habitat for whales, seals, polar bears and other wildlife “will be protected in perpetuity from extractive development″, the White House said in a statement. These are the types of emissions that we cannot afford if we’re going to avoid the worst of climate change,” Grafe told Al Jazeera. Supporters have called the project balanced and say communities would benefit from taxes generated by Willow to invest in infrastructure and provide public services. Willow is currently the largest proposed oil project on US public land. ConocoPhillips Alaska proposed five drilling sites as part of the project.

The "carbon bomb" is opposed by environmentalists, but other factors also influenced the president.

This helped push down prices at the pump. Last year, in response to the Ukraine war, the White House authorised the release of millions of barrels from the US strategic petroleum reserve. So, in an effort to limit the impact of the Willow approval, the White House has Mr Biden came to COP27 in Egypt and spoke of the big picture of climate change, threatening the "very life of the planet" - but he's also attuned to US bread-and-butter issues, especially the price of gas. The White House will likely say that the role of the courts has also influenced the Willow decision. US President Joe Biden has approved a major oil and gas drilling project in Alaska, intended to create local investment and thousands of jobs.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, President Joe Biden and Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Kevin Dietsch/Alex Wong/Getty Images.

“But we’ve got to get moving to the court.” The prevailing sense was that they should instead try to shape the project in other ways by adding more protections to federal land and water in Alaska. “This was not something that was ultimately going to reside with the secretary of interior; I think a decision had been made some time ago that this was at the highest political level.” Peltola told the president she believed Willow was an example of a managed, just transition from fossil fuel to clean energy, and that it would benefit impoverished communities on Alaska’s North Slope. “There was no way around the fact that these were valid existing lease rights,” Murkowski said. The group’s lawyers say the Biden administration’s authority to protect surface resources on Alaska’s public lands includes taking steps to reduce planet-warming carbon pollution – which Willow would ultimately add to. “Were there people within the administration that were working to actively kill this? “We realized some time ago this was going to be a decision that was ultimately made at the White House level – not only by senior leaders, but actually with the president’s direct involvement,” Republican Sen. “And this project is a key piece of transitioning, at least for Alaska.” Up until the moment the decision was posted, “I think there were still folks working to kill this.” Haaland did not explicitly say which way the department was leaning on the decision at the time. Those constituents prevailed on her to reject the massive ConocoPhillips drilling venture.

Despite heavy opposition from environmental activists, a viral TikTok campaign and a campaign promise by President Joe Bien to move the U.S. away from ...

In the future, social media will likely continue to play a larger role in environmental activism, but that could be "dangerous," because people en masse likely are uneducated about what they're really protesting against, Van Susteren said. "President Biden is delivering on the most aggressive climate agenda of any U.S. The decision also requires ConocoPhillips to relinquish its leases for 68,000 acres to create a buffer between the infrastructure for the Willow site and migratory routes for a nearby caribou herd. Young people are poised to become the largest bloc of voters in America by 2025, Fisher said. president of all time -- a promise he made while running for office in 2020, the experts said. Instead, young activists used a "very common tactic" to mobilize TikTok users in a growing topic on the platform to educate users, Fisher said.

Joe Biden continues to confound on the climate crisis. Hailed as America's first “climate president”, Biden signed sweeping, landmark legislation to tackle ...

“Instead, we must end the expansion of oil, gas and coal and embrace the abundant climate solutions at our fingertips.” “We all recognize the need for cleaner energy, but there is a major gap between our capability to generate it and our daily needs,” Peltola [wrote in an op-ed](https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/opinions/willow-project-alaska-murkowski-sullivan-peltola/index.html) on Friday with Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, the Republican senators from Alaska. This sort of “rhetorical dualism [is] a call for ‘one last fossil bender before America goes green and sober’”, according to a note by analysts at ClearView But the approval of the project is consistent with an administration that has approved nearly 100 more oil and gas drilling leases than Donald Trump had at the same point in his presidency, federal data shows. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine roiled global energy markets and triggered a push to build new export terminals to ship US oil and gas to European allies, even as Biden toiled to pass Biden’s approval of this is “a colossal and reprehensible stain on his environmental legacy”, according to Raena Garcia, fossil fuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth. [Gore told the Guardian on Friday](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/10/al-gore-biden-alaska-oil-drilling-willow-development). All members of Alaska’s congressional delegation, including And yet, on Monday, his administration decided to approve one of the largest oil drilling projects staged in the US in decades. [$370bn in clean energy spending](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/nov/06/inflation-reduction-act-climate-crisis-congress) in the Inflation Reduction Act. [long beyond the time](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/22/rich-countries-must-stop-producing-oil-and-gas-by-2034-says-study) scientists say that wealthy countries should have kicked the habit, in order to avoid disastrous global heating. [green light given to the Willow development](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/13/alaska-willow-project-approved-oil-gas-biden) on the remote tundra of Alaska’s northern Arctic coast, swatting aside the protests of millions of online petitioners, progressives in Congress and [even Al Gore](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/10/al-gore-biden-alaska-oil-drilling-willow-development), will have global reverberations.

A major oil project will be conducted in Alaska that seems contrary to US climate goals.

The administration said it would make available the proposed rule for public comment in the coming months. The Willow project “is about producing oil for decades when the US needs to be on a steep reduction path”, said Michael Lazarus, a senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute. They listened to the delegation as we pressed the case for energy security and national security”. Environmentalists say approval of the project represents a betrayal by Biden, who promised during the 2020 campaign to end new oil and gas drilling on federal lands. The Biden administration also said it plans to consider additional protections for the more than 5.3 million ha within the petroleum reserve that are designated as special areas for their wildlife, subsistence, scenic or other values. A federal judge later found flaws with the analysis, setting aside the approval and returning the matter to the land management agency for further work. City of Nuiqsut Mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, whose community of about 525 people is closest to the proposed development, is a prominent opponent who is worried about impacts on caribou and her residents’ subsistence lifestyles. “After years of consistent, determined advocacy for this project, from people all across the state and from every walk of life, the Willow Project is finally moving forward.” “Today, the people of Alaska were heard,” said US Rep. Supporters have called the project balanced and say communities would benefit from taxes generated by Willow to invest in infrastructure and provide public services. The company also agreed to give up rights to about 27,500ha in existing leases within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, where Willow is located. Dan Sullivan said the development could be “one of the biggest, most important resource development projects in our state’s history”.

High gas prices, a looming election and fears of a costly legal battle seem to have shifted the political calculus for the president.

In 2021 the Biden administration defended a Trump-era decision to allow the Willow project to go forward. At its peak, Willow will produce about 180,000 barrels of oil a day, but it will be several years before the crude begins to flow. The burning of oil produced by the Willow project would cause 280 million metric tons of carbon emissions, according to a federal analysis. Murkowski and others to walk them through the decision, members of Congress said. And the Interior Department plans to issue new rules to block oil and gas leases on more than 13 million of the 23 million acres that form the petroleum reserve. When advocates met with Deb Haaland, the Interior secretary, in late February in a last-ditch attempt to persuade her to block the permits, she choked up twice and explained that her agency often had to make difficult choices, according to several people who were present. “The administration was going to have to deal with that reality.” Those measures would effectively form a “firewall” that would prevent the Willow project from expanding, the administration said. Earthjustice, an environmental group, said it would sue to stop the project as soon as Wednesday and expects to be joined by several other organizations. The leases are essentially a contract and if the Biden administration denied the permits, essentially breached the contract, without what a court considered a valid argument, a judge would likely find in favor of the company, Mr. Now, the federal government may have to step in and [make a difficult decision](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/podcasts/the-daily/colorado-river-water-cuts.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-biden-climate&variant=show®ion=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc). Willow would be one of the few oil projects that Mr.