The Biden administration released a long-awaited study Feb. 1 that recommends allowing an $8 billion oil development on Alaska’s North Slope that supporters say could boost U.S. energy security but that climate activists decry as a “carbon bomb.”
The move — while not final — drew immediate anger from environmentalists who saw it as a betrayal of the president’s pledges to reduce carbon emissions and promote clean energy sources.
ConocoPhillips had proposed five drilling sites as part of its Willow project. The approach listed as the preferred alternative by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in its environmental review calls for up to three drill sites initially.
Even as the land agency released its report, the U.S. Interior Department said in a separate statement that it has “substantial concerns” about the project and the report’s preferred alternative, “including direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence.”
The Bureau of Land Management, which falls under the Interior Department, also said in the report that identifying a preferred alternative “does not constitute a commitment or decision” and notes it could select a different alternative in the final decision.
U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who fought the Willow project as a member of Congress, has the final decision on whether to approve it, although top White House climate officials are likely to be involved. Haaland has multiple options, including outright approval or rejection or a middle ground that allows some drilling but blocks other development. A final decision is expected no sooner than early March.
ConocoPhillips would like to start preliminary work at Willow before the end of winter.
Opponents of the project have raised concerns about the impacts of oil development on wildlife, such as caribou, and efforts to address climate change.
Willow is in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a vast region roughly the size of Indiana on Alaska’s resource-rich North Slope. ConocoPhillips said the project, at its peak, could produce an estimated 180,000 barrels of oil a day, almost 40% more than the entire North Slope produced last month.
The Arctic Slope Regional Corp., an Alaska Native corporation, and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope joined the North Slope Borough in praising the proposed three-site alternative and calling on the administration to move ahead on the project. In a joint statement, they said advancing the project “is critical for domestic energy independence, job security for Alaskans and the right of Alaska Natives to choose their own path.”
Other Alaska Native groups have expressed concerns.
Leaders of the Native Village of Nuiqsut and city of Nuiqsut in a recent letter said they do not believe the Bureau of Land Management is listening to their concerns. The community is about 36 miles from the Willow project.
The Bureau of Land Management’s “engagement with us is consistently focused on how to allow projects to go forward; how to permit the continuous expansion and concentration of oil and gas activity on our traditional lands,” Native Village of Nuiqsut President Eunice Brower and City of Nuiqsut Mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak wrote in a letter.
ConocoPhillips has estimated the project would create as many as 2,000 jobs during construction and 300 permanent jobs and generate between $8 billion and $17 billion in federal, state and local revenue over the life of oil production.
The project would bring miles of roads and hundreds of miles of pipeline to the area, disrupt animal migration patterns and erode habitat if it goes forward, said Earthjustice, an environmental group.
Jeremy Lieb, an attorney with the group, said Willow is currently the largest proposed oil project in the U.S. He said it is “drastically out of step with the Biden administration’s goals to slash climate pollution and transition to clean energy.”
Biden “will be remembered for what he did to tackle the climate crisis, and as things stand today, it’s not too late for him to step up and pull the plug on this carbon bomb,” Lieb said.
The 30-year project is estimated to add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere equivalent to roughly a third of all U.S. coal plants, according to BLM.
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