Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

News

Biden Throws Bone To Environmentalists Before Greenlighting Oil Project

The Biden administration announced a drilling ban on several million acres of land and ocean in Alaska Sunday, ahead of the administration’s expected approval of a massive drilling project in the state Monday, according to several reports.

The administration’s new rule would bar the sale of future oil drilling leases on three million acres of the Beaufort Sea and 13 million acres across the Natural Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), blocking future access to more than half of the 23 million acres set aside for oil exploration, according to the Associated Press. The White House is expected to approve ConocoPhillips’ $8 billion Willow project, also situated on the NPR-A, over the objections of green activists, according to multiple reports.

The White House had few options to directly limit the scope of the Willow project, since oil firm ConocoPhillips held leases for the project since 1999, a Biden administration official told Bloomberg. The administration views the rules barring future leases as a “firewall” to prevent future oil and gas investments in the arctic, the official said.

Environmentalists have opposed Willow, and while they largely hailed the administration’s proposal, they stressed that it did not offset the harms that would be caused by the Willow project, according to Bloomberg.

“These unparalleled protections for Alaskan landscapes and waters are the right decision at the right time, and we thank the Biden Administration for taking this significant step,” Athan Manuel, Lands Protection Program Director at the Sierra Club, said in a press release Sunday.

“However, the benefits of these protections can be undone just as quickly by approval of oil and gas projects on public lands, and right now, no proposal poses a bigger threat to lands, wildlife, communities, and our climate than ConocoPhillips’ Willow project. Oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters must end — full stop.”

Willow has received strong bipartisan support from Alaskan lawmakers, which the company estimates will generate $8 billion to $17 billion in revenue for federal, state and local governments. The project is “one of the biggest, most important resource development projects in our state’s history,” Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska said, according to the AP.

UPDATE:

The Biden administration announced Monday that it is moving forward with approving a massive 30-year oil drilling project in Alaska over objections from climate activists and Democratic lawmakers about its environmental impact.

The Department of Interior (DOI) approved three of the five drilling sites proposed by oil company ConocoPhillips as part of its Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve (NPR-A) located in North Slope Borough, Alaska. ConocoPhillips previously stated that, for the project to remain economically viable, the federal government would need to approve at least three of the sites.

According to the record of decision published by the Bureau of Land Management, the administration is also flatly rejecting the two other drilling sites and associated infrastructure proposed by ConocoPhillips. And the Houston-based company agreed to forfeit about 68,000 acres of drilling rights that it owns for a separate project.

The decision noted that the approved option would produce the fewest greenhouse gas emissions compared to all alternatives and the DOI said, by denying two of the drilling sites, it was “substantially reducing the size of the project.”

“The permitting and environmental review process encompassed a period of well over two years and included multiple rounds of public comment and public meetings with Alaska Native stakeholders,” Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) President Julie Kitka wrote in a letter to Haaland last year.

“AFN understands that the need for a proactive whole of government approach to deal with climate change; however fossil fuels will be with us for quite some time to come, and projects like Willow can help bridge the gap,” Kitka continued. “The Willow Project could jumpstart our economy with thousands of jobs and be a model in community and environmental stewardship for future opportunities.”

TOP STORIES

News

2 min readPresident Trump said Friday he would end the terms of multiple members of the Kennedy Center board and make himself chair of...

News

2 min readThe Trump administration cut the US Agency for International Development’s workforce to the bone Thursday, reducing the embattled agency’s global staff from...

News

2 min readPresident Trump announced Friday that he is “immediately revoking” former President Joe Biden’s security clearances and access to daily intelligence briefings –...

News

2 min readEllen Weintraub, a Democratic commissioner and chair on the Federal Election Commission, revealed Thursday night that President Donald Trump fired her last...

Advertisement