argumentative essay on the willow project

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The Willow oil project debate comes down to this key climate change question

The alaskan oil project is a symbol of a larger argument: what matters more, curbing demand or keeping fossil fuels in the ground.

When President Biden approved an $8 billion Alaskan oil drilling project on Monday, many reacted with outrage. “Wrong on every level,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, wrote on Twitter. “This decision betrays Biden’s own climate promises,” Jeff Ordower, the North America director of the environmental organization 350.org, said in a statement.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden had promised to prevent new oil and gas drilling on federal lands — a vow that runs contrary to his administration’s approval of ConocoPhillips’s operation, known as Willow, in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. In the weeks before the decision, environmentalists, activists, and young people united to try to block the project: For weeks, #StopWillow was even a trending topic on TikTok.

But the Willow project, which the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management estimates will produce 576 million barrels of oil over the course of 30 years, is a small stand-in for what is actually a much larger debate. In recent years, the Democratic Party — and, by extension, the climate movement — has been divided on a key question. What matters more — cutting fossil fuel demand, by encouraging consumers to shift to things like renewable energy and electric vehicles, or tamping down on supply by preventing oil and gas drilling in the United States?

The Biden administration, with its huge investments in a build-out of clean energy, has largely focused on the former. Activists who paddle their kayaks out to ocean oil rigs or participate in climate marches tend to lean toward the latter. But who is actually right?

The ‘leakage’ argument

On the one hand, there is a kind of intuitive obviousness to the climate benefits of cutting fossil fuel supply: Surely if we don’t dig up oil and gas, no one can burn it and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But the global oil market throws a wrench into that argument. “There’s plenty of oil and gas in the world,” said Samantha Gross, director of the energy security and climate initiative at the Brookings Institution. “If we don’t produce that oil, and there’s still demand for it, someone else will.”

In economics-speak, this is known as “leakage.” The idea is that if there is a decrease in fossil fuel supply — through a ban on drilling in one country, for example — fossil fuel prices will rise, and then another company will expand drilling elsewhere in the world. Simple supply and demand.

This also creates an accounting problem when assessing the project. Activists and opponents referred to the project as a “carbon bomb” — and indeed, according to a federal analysis released last month , the project would produce around 277 million metric tons of carbon dioxide during its lifetime, or around 9.2 million tons per year.

But that number assumes that, if the ConocoPhillips project didn’t go forward, no other oil companies would pick up the slack. Accounting for leakage, the Biden administration’s estimate for the additional CO2 from the project is closer to 70 million metric tons, or around 2.3 million tons per year — not nothing, but significantly smaller. (2.3 million tons would be around 0.03 percent of U.S. emissions in 2021.) The administration also estimates the project would release an additional 60 million tons of CO2 from increased oil consumption overseas.

Those who say supply doesn’t matter much point to these numbers as evidence that the real place to focus attention is on demand — shifting people over to electric vehicles, for example, or rapidly building up renewable energy. If people stop needing fossil fuels, they argue, there will be no need to extract them. “I ultimately think it’s more efficient and effective to go from the demand side,” Gross said.

The counterargument

But there’s another form of economic “leakage” as well. Brian Prest, an economist at the environmental group Resources for the Future, says that policies like electric vehicle tax credits or investments in clean energy can have unintended effects. If the government offers a $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles, for example, that will push people away from gas-powered cars and reduce demand for fossil fuels — thus lowering the cost of oil and gas. Paradoxically, that can cause more fossil fuel use.

“If we use less gas in U.S. vehicles, that makes it cheaper for folks in other countries to consume more oil,” said Prest. “It’s conceptually symmetric.”

In a report published last year by Resources for the Future, Prest argued that the best approach is “both/and." If the United States encouraged consumers to shift away from fossil fuels, while at the same time taking careful measures to reduce extraction of oil and gas, fossil fuel prices would stay roughly constant — thus preventing “leakage” and leading to lower emissions overall. (His analysis doesn’t include possible external price shocks that could affect the oil market.)

The Biden administration, however, has not taken drastic steps to cut fossil fuel supply, even as the government spends hundreds of billions of dollars boosting clean energy. Some of this is politics: Mary Peltola, the first Alaskan Democrat elected to the House of Representatives in 50 years, supports the project.

Legal considerations also come into play. Once the federal government issues oil and gas leases, it becomes much harder to claw them back, and top administration officials feared that if they denied the Willow project outright they would face a lawsuit from ConocoPhillips, putting taxpayers potentially on the hook for billions of dollars.

So far the Biden administration’s strategy has framed climate change as many carrots and few sticks — cash incentives for clean energy, without halting oil and gas extraction outright. (The president has banned drilling in some place s, such as the waters that the United States controls in the Arctic Ocean.)

The debate also shows that the way the world counts carbon emissions matters a great deal. In the days after the decision, many outlets reported that the project’s estimated 9.2 millions tons of carbon dioxide per year were equivalent to adding roughly 2 million gas-powered cars onto the road. That’s true — and also not true. Most emissions are counted at the point of consumption — that is, when drivers put the oil in their cars and burn it for fuel. If we count the emissions both at the point of extraction and at the point of consumption, that amounts to double-counting.

But for activists and environmentalists, any amount of economic discussion doesn’t change a few simple facts: The United States has promised to reach net-zero carbon emissions, but is still extracting oil. Eventually — if the world is really going to stop emitting carbon dioxide — all fossil fuel production will have to halt. If not now, they might wonder, then when?

This piece has been updated.

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Why the Willow Project Is a Bad Idea

The oil drilling proposal would be disastrous for Alaska and the planet (not to mention President Biden’s climate legacy).

A view over the northeast section of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska

Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management

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While the Biden administration has passed powerful climate-fighting legislation, it has also consistently made moves to placate the oil and gas industry. Such a strategy is counterproductive, to be sure, but the approval earlier this year of the Willow project—a massive, $8 billion ConocoPhillips oil drilling operation on federally protected land on the North Slope of Alaska’s Brook Range—is downright climate sabotage. Environmental groups,  including NRDC , are currently appealing the decision of a U.S. district court judge to allow the project to go forward.

What is the Willow project?

ConocoPhillips, a multinational fossil fuel company with headquarters in Houston, has been drilling in Alaska for decades. Currently, the company owns and manages the only extant drilling operations within the 37,000-square-mile National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A), the federally owned parcel of land on the state’s North Slope. As the home to half a million caribou and a crucial nesting ground for millions of migratory birds, the NPR-A is of major ecological significance. The reserve also happens to be the single-largest tract of undisturbed public land in the country. In a corner of Alaska that’s  already suffering from coastal erosion, melting sea ice, and thawing permafrost, the Biden administration is consenting to the extraction of huge amounts of oil that would ultimately make these problems worse (while also exacerbating climate consequences elsewhere on the planet).

Learn More About the Case

Center for Biological Diversity et al. v. Bureau of Land Management et al. (Willow Project)

A map showing the land approved for use in the Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska

The Trump administration approved ConocoPhillips’s proposal for Willow in 2020, but a federal judge reversed that approval the following year, citing flaws in the environmental review process. After the ruling, the company modified the plan for Willow in an attempt to address the inadequate review. In 2023, as the deadline for a final White House decision approached and word spread about a possible approval, climate activists mobilized, racking up hundreds of millions of views for the #StopWillow campaign  on social media . Still, in mid-March, the White House announced that it would allow ConocoPhillips to proceed with what would be the country’s  largest oil development project . 

The climate and environmental impacts of Willow

Just a week after the Willow project’s approval, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued  a new report , observing that the world’s governments are currently veering off track from their pledges to keep global average temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all,” the report noted. Once passed, the  1.5 degree-tipping point would precipitate a cascade of devastating effects, including rising sea levels and extreme heat waves, that could lead to millions of deaths worldwide by the end of the century. The only way to prevent the worst from happening, say the IPCC authors, is for the nations of the world to  stop burning fossil fuels —an activity responsible for more than three-quarters of the carbon emissions that are driving global temperatures upward. 

The Biden administration acknowledges that Willow, if completed, would release an additional 9.2 million metric tons of carbon pollution into the atmosphere each year— roughly equivalent to the pollution generated by two million gas-powered cars. Figures such as these have led  Christy Goldfuss , NRDC’s chief policy impact officer, to characterize the decision as “green-lighting a carbon bomb.” On top of the climate devastation, Willow’s development would require the building of hundreds of miles of roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure that would bring harm to the NPR-A’s currently near-pristine ecosystem. Some conservationists estimate the project alone could result in the loss of 532 acres of wetlands, 619 acres of habitat disturbances for  polar bears , and more than 17,000 acres of such disturbances for birds. 

Fighting the Willow project

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the federal agency in charge of the approval, has  given the impression that its hands were tied; that ConocoPhillips’s valid leases on NPR-A land meant the administration had little choice but to allow the project to continue. In the end, the agency considered several different project scenarios—but every one of them would have allowed ConocoPhillips to extract more than 90 percent of the oil it sought.

NRDC, in partnership with several other environmental groups,  challenged the agency’s claim that it lacks the authority to limit the scope of the project any further. The lawsuit also asserted that the BLM failed to adequately calculate the full climate impact of other drilling projects that Willow’s infrastructure would welcome into the region. The agency’s own review estimates that Willow alone could yield more than 600 million barrels of oil over the next 30 years. Meanwhile, ConocoPhillips—which reported  $18.7 billion in earnings last year—estimates that there might be as many as 3  billion barrels’ worth of oil equivalent to be extracted in nearby areas. As the  Center for American Progress notes, burning that much oil would be “equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of every car, truck, plane, and other form of transportation used in the United States combined.” If ConocoPhillips’s estimates are correct, and the oil industry is allowed to drill in the region to its heart’s content, the result would blow U.S. carbon emissions targets out of reach. 

So far, the Biden administration has shown leadership on climate action. The  Inflation Reduction Act , for instance, invested nearly $370 billion in clean energy and greenhouse gas reduction, making it the single-most significant piece of climate legislation in U.S. history. That achievement and others signaled that this administration was serious about fulfilling President Biden’s pledge to  cut climate pollution in half by 2030.

Yet the Willow project would make reaching this goal much more difficult—and certainly weaken American leadership on the international climate stage at a time when global leaders so urgently need to walk the walk on cutting carbon emissions. Approving Willow is a tragic mistake, one the United States, and the world, can’t afford. 

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How Biden Got From ‘No More Drilling’ to Backing a Huge Project in Alaska

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

By Lisa Friedman

WASHINGTON — As a candidate, Joseph R. Biden promised voters worried about the warming planet “No more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period.” On Monday, President Biden approved an enormous $8 billion plan to extract 600 million barrels of oil from pristine federal land in Alaska.

The distance between Mr. Biden’s campaign pledge and his blessing on that plan, known as the Willow project, is explained by a global energy crisis, intense pressure from Alaska lawmakers (including the state’s lone Democratic House member), a looming election year and a complicated legal landscape that government lawyers said left few choices for Mr. Biden.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican and one of the chief advocates for Willow, which is projected to generate 2,500 jobs and millions in revenue for her state, said the president was inclined to oppose it and “needed to really be brought around.”

Mr. Biden was acutely aware of his campaign pledge, according to multiple administration officials involved in discussions over the past several weeks. Environmental activists had also openly warned that Mr. Biden’s climate record, which includes making landmark investments in clean energy, would be undermined if he approved Willow, and that young voters in particular could turn against him.

Approval of the Willow project marks a turning point in the administration’s approach to fossil fuel development. Until this point, the courts and Congress have forced Mr. Biden to sign off on some limited oil and gas leases. Willow would be one of the few oil projects that Mr. Biden has approved freely, without a court order or a congressional mandate.

And it comes as the International Energy Agency has said that governments must stop approving new oil, gas and coal projects if the planet is to avert the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.

Ultimately, the administration made the internal calculation that it did not want to fight ConocoPhillips, the company behind the Willow project.

ConocoPhillips has held leases to the prospective drilling site for more than two decades, and administration attorneys argued that refusing a permit would trigger a lawsuit that could cost the government as much as $5 billion, according to administration officials who asked not to be identified in order to discuss legal strategy.

“The lease does not give Conoco the right to do whatever they want, but it does convey certain rights,” said John Leshy, who served as the Interior Department’s solicitor under President Bill Clinton. “So the administration has to take that into account. I would not say their hands were tied, but their options were limited by the lease rights.”

The leases are basically 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. Leshy said. It would be unusual for a court to simply order the government to issue permits; more likely a judge would award damages, he said.

That figure could include not just compensation for investments ConocoPhillips has already made but also profits that the company could have gotten if it had been allowed to drill, Mr. Leshy said, putting a potential judgment into the billions of dollars.

Ms. Murkowski said she believed the legal argument was the turning point for Mr. Biden. “There was no way around the fact that these were valid existing lease rights,” she said. “The administration was going to have to deal with that reality.”

To try to minimize the fallout, the Biden administration demanded concessions. It slashed the size of the project from five drilling sites to three. ConocoPhillips agreed to return to the government leases covering about 68,000 acres in the drilling area, which lies within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. And the administration said it would put in place new protections for a nearby coastal wetland known as Teshekpuk Lake. Those measures would effectively form a “firewall” that would prevent the Willow project from expanding, the administration said.

Mr. Biden also intends to designate about 2.8 million acres of the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean near shore in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska as off limits for future oil and gas leasing. 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.

But several of those measures could be revoked by a future administration, and none of them seemed to appease environmental groups, which termed the project a “carbon bomb.”

“The announcement is nothing more than window dressing,” Ben Jealous, president of the Sierra Club, said in an interview. “If President Biden were sitting here I’d tell him don’t spit on us and tell us that it’s raining, Mr. President.”

He called the Willow approval “a major breach of trust” and warned that with it, Mr. Biden has alienated many of his supporters, particularly young voters.

“ President Biden’s decision to move forward with the Willow Project abandons the millions of young people who overwhelmingly came together to demand he stop the project and protect our futures,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate change advocacy group.

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. Environmental groups argued that the administration had the legal authority to deny ConocoPhillips a permit and should have done so based on a federal environmental review that found “ substantial concerns ” about the project’s impact on the climate, the danger it poses to freshwater sources and the way it threatens migratory birds, caribou, whales and other animals that inhabit the region.

The Willow project would be constructed on the nation’s largest swath of undeveloped land, about 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Some analysts said Mr. Biden’s decision could ultimately help him with moderates and independents, given elevated gas prices amid an energy crisis created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Republican attacks that Democratic climate policies are jeopardizing American energy independence.

“I think the White House feels the president has strong climate credentials now, but that he does need to reach out to working class voters in swing states who care about gasoline prices,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former climate aide in the Clinton administration who now works at the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank.

But Mr. Bledsoe said he also thought the administration needed to make a stronger case publicly that the Willow project will not make a large contribution to the climate crisis.

“The problem with climate is not supply, it’s demand,” he said. “The world is awash in oil and other countries will supply the oil if we don’t. The question is, can we reduce demand through substitute technologies? And that’s where the administration has been very strong.”

The burning of oil produced by the Willow project would cause 280 million metric tons of carbon emissions, according to a federal analysis. On an annual basis, that would translate into 9.2 million metric tons of carbon pollution, equal to adding nearly two million cars to the roads each year. The United States, the second-biggest polluter on the planet after China, emits about 5.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

A key factor was the widespread support Willow enjoyed from lawmakers of both parties, including Mary Peltola, a Democrat and the state’s first Alaska Native elected to Congress; labor unions; and most Indigenous groups in Alaska.

In 2021 the Biden administration defended a Trump-era decision to allow the Willow project to go forward. Last year, it issued a new draft environmental statement that signaled support for Willow and in February, a federal analysis telegraphed that the administration would look for ways to approve a limited version of the project.

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. Ms. Haaland had fought the Willow project when she served as a member of Congress before joining the administration.

A few days later, Alaska lawmakers met with Mr. Biden. “I had had enough conversations with people to believe that there was a better-than-even chance it was going to go our way,” Ms. Murkowski said.

On Sunday night, Ms. Haaland’s deputy, Tommy Beaudreau, who grew up in Alaska and is friendly with many of the state’s lawmakers, called Ms. Murkowski and others to walk them through the decision, members of Congress said.

ConocoPhillips praised the approval and said the company expected to immediately begin construction on a gravel road to the drill sites. 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.

Nevertheless, the company, oil industry leaders and the state’s lawmakers cast the approval as a signal that Mr. Biden agreed with their argument that he cannot demand the oil industry ramp up production to keep gas prices low while also imposing restrictions.

“Alaska cannot carry the burden of solving our global warming problems alone,” Ms. Peltola said.

Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, said administration officials have told lawmakers that they will defend the decision in court from environmental groups. Mr. Sullivan said the Alaska delegation and others were already preparing an amicus brief in defense of the decision.

“This is going to be the next hurdle, and it will be a big battle,” Mr. Sullivan said.

Lisa Friedman reports on federal climate and environmental policy from Washington. She has broken multiple stories about the Trump administration’s efforts to repeal climate change regulations and limit the use of science in policymaking. More about Lisa Friedman

Why did the Biden administration approve the Willow Project's oil drilling in Alaska?

ConocoPhillip's new drilling project has drilled into conflict

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The Biden administration has approved a large oil drilling project in Alaska known as the Willow Project. The move quickly sparked outrage and debate among climate advocates and Indigenous communities. Here's everything you need to know:

What is the Willow Project?

The Willow Project is a multi-billion dollar oil drilling proposal by the oil company ConocoPhillips. The drilling is planned to take place in northern Alaska and is expected to produce approximately "180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak," according to ConocoPhillips .

According to The New York Times , the petroleum reserve is located 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle and "is the country's largest single expanse of pristine land." The oil company had originally proposed five pads for drilling, but negotiations brought it down to three pads, still "a site large enough for them to move forward," per ConocoPhillips officials .

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When the project was announced, a fierce debate broke out on whether the administration should approve it. Many climate advocates staunchly disapproved, citing that it could produce an additional 9.2 million metric tons of carbon pollution per year. TikTok had #StopWillow as a trending hashtag and the public created a Change.org petition with close to three million signatures, CNN writes .

On the other hand, many Indigenous groups as well as Alaska native Rep. Mary Petolta (D-Alaska) were in favor of the proposal. Petolta along with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) and Dan Sullivan (R) wrote in an opinion for CNN that, "clean energy cannot manifest overnight," and "we have to work our way there," claiming "a major gap between our capability to generate [clean energy] and our daily needs."

Why did the Biden administration approve the project?

Negotiations over the Willow Project took place over months, but the project itself was in the works for decades . The decision comes despite President Biden's campaign promise of "no more drilling on federal lands, period." This is largely due to lobbying and the courts.

ConocoPhillips as well as the Alaska legislature reportedly lobbied heavily in favor of the project. Also, the project had already been approved by former President Donald Trump and "had few options to cancel or significantly curtail the project" legally . Biden had initially hoped to only approve two pads for drilling but was told that it would not be sufficient to meet the goals of the project.

To curb the criticism from environmental groups, the Department of the Interior made three million acres "indefinitely off limits" in the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean to protect wildlife "in perpetuity from extractive development,″ BBC reports . The protections are to create a " firewall " against future oil leasing projects.

What was the reaction?

Many environmental groups condemned the decision. Greenpeace USA called the approval a "betrayal to our planet & people," on Twitter. "The climate crisis does not compromise."

"We are too late in the climate crisis to approve massive oil and gas projects that directly undermine the new clean economy that the Biden administration committed to advancing," said Abigail Dillen , president of environmental group EarthJustice. "We know President Biden understands the existential threat of climate, but he is approving a project that derails his own climate goals."

Others, including the Alaska legislature, applauded the decision. Petolta thanked the Biden administration "for listening to the voices of Alaskans when it mattered most" citing "consistent, determined advocacy for this project, from people all across the state and from every walk of life." Sullivan celebrated the approval but criticized Biden's measures to protect part of the land saying it "demonstrates that the Biden administration's unprecedented lock-up of [Alaska] will continue."

"This is in direct conflict with the Biden-Harris administration's goals of cutting climate pollution in half by 2030," commented Tiernan Sittenfeld for the League of Conservation Voters. "The new protections announced for the threatened Arctic are important, but they do not make up for Willow's approval."

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 Devika Rao has worked as a staff writer at The Week since 2022, covering science, the environment, climate and business. She previously worked as a policy associate for a nonprofit organization advocating for environmental action from a business perspective.  

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Biden approves Willow Project. What to know about the move to allow oil drilling in Alaska

The controversial Willow Project is set to move forward after a previously uncertain future under President Joe Biden. The administration approved the project Monday despite fierce opposition from environmental groups. 

Here are some things to know about the Willow project:

Massive oil project greenlit: Biden approves massive oil project in Alaska, moves to bar future drilling in Arctic Ocean

What is The Willow Project?

The project is currently the largest proposed oil project on U.S. federal land as ConocoPhillips, a Houston-based petroleum company, looks to drill within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska

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ConocoPhillips predicts it could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, which would account for 1.5% of total U.S. oil production. 

Did the Willow Project get approved?

The administration greenlit the project Monday. However, Biden approved a scaled-back version of the plan after the Interior Department only approved three of the five drilling sites proposed by ConocoPhillips.

The exclusion of those additional sites reduced the size of the 200-well project by about 40% and eliminated the need for 11 miles of road, 20 miles of pipelines and 133 acres of gravel. 

The company also agreed to forfeit 68,000 acres of existing leases in the National Petroleum reserve-Alaska to reduce its footprint on the land by one-third.  

Alaska oil drilling: Willow project critics go viral with petition pressuring Biden

Why did Biden approve the Willow Project?

The Biden administration was limited by legal restraints in reviewing the Willow oil project, according to a White House official who said the company had valid rights on the land because of decades-old leases.

The administration was convinced the courts would have blocked an outright rejection of the Willow project and potentially imposed fines on the government, said the official, who spoke about the White House’s considerations on the condition of anonymity. 

What are environmental activists saying?

Two lawsuits were immediately filed by environmentalists and one lawsuit was filed by an Alaska Native group following Biden’s approval of the massive oil project. 

Environmental law firms Earthjustice and Trustees for Alaska both filed separate lawsuits against several federal agencies and some of the administration’s top officials, including the Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, citing the irreversible environmental impacts.     

The Willow Project faced a similar challenge in 2021, with U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason blocking the project after it was first approved by the Trump administration in 2020. Gleason struck down the project under the National Environmental Policy Act, citing issues with the approval process and inadequate consideration of the full-scale climate consequences.

Where is The Willow Project in Alaska?

The project will be located in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska , which spans approximately 23 million acres on the Beaufort Sea north of the Arctic Circle and about 200 miles west of existing oilfields at Prudhoe Bay.

When is The Willow Project starting?

A date to begin the newly approved project has not yet been announced. 

Contributing: Joey Garrison, Trevor Hughes and Nada Hassanein, The Associated Press

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What’s the Willow project? An explainer on the battle over the major Alaska oil proposal

The Biden administration is weighing  approval of a major oil project  on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope that supporters say represents an economic lifeline for Indigenous communities in the region but environmentalists say is counter to President Joe Biden’s climate goals.

A decision on ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project, in a federal oil reserve roughly the size of Indiana, could come by early March.

Q: What is the Willow project?

A: The project could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, according to the company — about 1.5% of total U.S. oil production. But in Alaska, Willow represents the biggest oil field in decades. Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said the development could be “one of the biggest, most important resource development projects in our state’s history.”

On average, about 499,700 barrels of oil a day flow through the trans-Alaska pipeline, well below the late-1980s peak of 2.1 million barrels.

ConocoPhillips Alaska had proposed five drilling sites as part of the project. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management in early February identified up to three drill sites initially as a preferred alternative, which ConocoPhillips Alaska said it considered a viable option. But the U.S. Interior Department, which oversees the bureau, took the unusual step of issuing a separate statement expressing “substantial concerns” with the alternative and the project.

The alternative showed extracting and using the oil from Willow would produce the equivalent of more than 278 million tons (306 million short tons) of greenhouse gases over the project’s 30-year life, roughly equal to the combined emissions from 2 million passenger cars over the same time period. It would have a roughly 2% reduction in emissions compared to ConocoPhillips’ favored approach.

Q: Is there support for Willow?

A: There is  widespread political support  in Alaska, including from the bipartisan congressional delegation, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and state lawmakers. There also is “majority consensus” in support in the North Slope region, said Nagruk Harcharek, president of the group Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, whose members include leaders from across much of that region. Supporters have called the project balanced and say communities would benefit from taxes generated by Willow to invest in infrastructure and provide public services.

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. But opposition there isn’t universal. The local Alaska Native village corporation has expressed support.

U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat who is Yup’ik, said there is “such consensus in the region and across Alaska that this project is a good project.” She hoped to make a case to Biden that the project would create well-paying union jobs.

Ahtuangaruak said she feels voices like hers are being drowned out.

Q. What are the politics of the decision?

Biden faces a dilemma that pits Alaska lawmakers against environmental groups and many Democrats in Congress who say the project is out of step with Biden’s goals to  slash planet-warming carbon emissions in half by 2030  and move to clean energy. Approval of the project would represent a betrayal by Biden, who  promised during the 2020 campaign to end new oil and gas drilling on federal lands,  environmentalists say.

Biden has made fighting climate change a top priority and backed a landmark law to accelerate expansion of clean energy such as wind and solar power, and move the U.S. away from the oil, coal and gas.

He faces attacks from Republican lawmakers who blame Biden for gasoline price spikes that occurred after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Q: Didn’t the Biden administration support Willow?

A: Justice Department attorneys in 2021 defended in court an environmental review conducted during the Trump administration that approved the project. But 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. That led to the review released in early February.

Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was concerned the Biden administration would “try to have it both ways” by issuing an approval but including so many restrictions it would render the project uneconomical.

Earthjustice, an environmental group, has encouraged project opponents to call the White House, urging Willow’s rejection.

Q: What about greenhouse gas emissions?

A: Federal officials under former President Donald Trump claimed increased domestic oil drilling would result in fewer net global emissions because it would decrease petroleum imports. U.S. companies adhere to stricter environmental standards than those in other countries, they argued.

After outside scientists rejected the claim and a federal judge agreed,  the Interior Department changed  how it calculates emissions.

The latest review, under the Biden administration, is getting pushback over its inclusion of a suggestion that 50% of Willow’s net emissions could be offset, including by planting more trees on national forests to capture and store carbon dioxide.  Reforestation work  on federal lands was something the administration already planned and needed to meet its broader climate goals, said Michael Lazarus, a senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute.

“That doesn’t help you meet a reduction goal. It’s absurd,” said Lazarus, whose work was cited by the judge who overruled the Trump-era environmental review. “It doesn’t address the fact that we’re increasing global emissions by doing this project. … We’re locking in emissions for 30 years into the future when we should be on a reduction schedule.”

Q: What about Biden’s promises to curtail oil drilling?

A: Biden  suspended oil and gas  lease sales after taking office and promised to overhaul the government’s fossil fuels program.

Attorneys general from oil-producing states convinced a federal judge to lift the suspension — a ruling later  overturned  by an appeals court. The administration ultimately dropped its resistance to leasing in a compromise over  last year’s climate law . The measure requires the Interior Department to offer for sale tens of millions of acres of onshore and offshore leases before it can approve any renewable energy leases.

The number of new drilling permits to companies with federal leases spiked in Biden’s first year as companies stockpiled drilling rights and officials said they were working through a backlog of applications from the Trump administration. Approvals dropped sharply in fiscal year 2022.

The Biden administration has offered less acreage for lease than previous administrations. But environmentalists say the administration hasn’t done enough.

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a recent interview declined direct comment on Willow but said that “public lands belong to every single American, not just one industry.”

The Associated Press

Related articles more from author, alaska house rejects constitutional amendment guaranteeing formula-based pfd, anchorage sees third-snowiest winter, second place still possible but hitting all-time mark unlikely, the cook inlet gas crunch | alaska insight.

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OPINION: For the truth about the Willow project, listen to local communities

FILE - This 2019 aerial photo provided by ConocoPhillips shows an exploratory drilling camp at the proposed site of the Willow oil project on Alaska's North Slope. The Biden administration issued a long-awaited study on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023, that recommends allowing three oil drilling sites in the region of far northern Alaska. The move, while not final, has angered environmentalists who see it as a betrayal of President Joe Biden's pledges to reduce carbon emissions and promote green energy. (ConocoPhillips via AP)

As elected Iñupiat leaders and lifelong residents of Alaska’s North Slope, we are fiercely proud of our ancestors and their quest for self-determination. Despite living in the most extreme climate in the United States, the Iñupiat have sustained our communities while staying true to our cultural values and traditional subsistence way of living.

Yet when it comes to Alaska’s proposed Willow Project, the voices of the people whose ancestral homeland is most impacted have largely been ignored.

We know our lands and our communities better than anyone, and we know that resource development and our subsistence way of life are not mutually exclusive. Responsible resource development with the inclusion and engagement of North Slope Iñupiat has taken place for over 50 years. It exemplifies a positive model of cultural, economic and ecological interdependence.

Our nation’s past and present have relied on responsible natural resource development, and the sustainability of our Alaska Native communities on the North Slope requires it to be a part of our future.

Located in the northeast portion of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A), the Willow Project has widespread support across Alaska — especially from the entities that represent the Iñupiat people of the North Slope. Its potential economic benefits would represent a once-in-a-lifetime investment in our region and state, not to mention the entire country.

Willow is expected to generate $1.25 billion in taxes for the North Slope Borough — funding that will be used to provide basic services like education, fire protection, law enforcement and more. The project is also expected to add more than $2.5 billion to the NPR-A Impact Mitigation Grant Program. Our respective cities rely on revenues from this program to fund projects that provide long-term quality-of-life improvements in our communities.

The city of Wainwright has been fortunate to receive NPR-A Impact Mitigation funding since 1994 to support local government operations, including local government and municipal administration, cultural and recreational activities, staff and facilities. Funds since 2007 have gone toward city’s youth program, including providing a safe, supportive environment for youth as well as recreational and cultural activities. Our city park would not be here if not for NPR-A funding, nor would the city’s lagoon boat ramp, used by residents for subsistence activities.

We anticipate future NPR-A grant funding will continue to support important local government and youth programs for the city and, in the long term, will play a critical role in funding a new recreation center for youth and community programs, a replacement of the aging Wainwright City Hall and other important community facilities.

Utqiaġvik is considered the hub of the North Slope, home to 5,000 residents as well as the regional tribal college, hospital and borough government. Funding from NPR-A has already covered fire and alarm security systems in municipal buildings, much-needed renovations to our community recreational center, and a variety of subsistence and recreational operations. Grant funding will help us design a community soup kitchen to ensure our neighbors do not go hungry in winter. We have also been able to purchase equipment to dig graves in year-round permafrost — critical because our city does not have enough freezers to keep the deceased, requiring us to bury a loved one within days even in the dead of winter.

These are not basic services Utqiaġvik takes for granted. We need a stable, healthy economy to continue receiving them.

Here in the North Slope, we straddle the line of a traditional subsistence way of living and the economic realities of the modern world. Yet without critical funds made available through responsible natural resource development, many of our people would be forced to leave the lands they have inhabited for thousands of years, thereby extinguishing many of the important characteristics of Iñupiaq culture.

We never cease to be amazed that our remote corner of the world offers such a valuable resource to the rest of the country and beyond. Resources under our ancestral lands have helped sustain not just the North Slope, but all Alaskans and fellow Americans living in the Lower 48.

For the past 50 years, we have worked to ensure that our ancestral homelands and traditional subsistence lifestyles are protected while development occurs. We are not ready to give up that balance now — and Willow is respectful of the future we envision.

It’s time for Washington, D.C. to listen to the voices of Alaska Native communities on the North Slope and approve Willow without further delay or deferral.

Asisaun Toovak is mayor of the City of Utqiaġvik and Chester Ekak is mayor of the City of Wainwright. Both localities sit in Alaska’s North Slope, the site of the proposed Willow Project.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com . Send submissions shorter than 200 words to [email protected] or click here to submit via any web browser . Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here .

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Rethinking the Willow Project: Did BLM Have Other Options?

On March 13, 2023, the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) approved a major oil drilling operation on the North Slope of Alaska. The so-called “ Willow Project ” will be developed by ConocoPhillips and involve the drilling of up to 199 new oil wells, spread across three well pads, along with the construction of various related infrastructure, including pipelines, processing facilities, roads, and boat ramps. All of this activity is expected to have serious adverse impacts on the local environment and nearby communities. It will also worsen global climate change. The Willow Project is expected to produce as much as 180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak and result in around 130 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent over its lifetime.

Approval of the Willow Project runs directly counter to President Biden’s campaign promise to stop oil and gas drilling on federal lands. It is also counter to his administration’s goal of halving economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and reaching net zero emissions by 2050. The approval has angered many climate activists and others who see it as a “ stain ” on President Biden’s climate legacy. In the weeks since the approval was announced, the Biden administration has tried to paint a different picture, suggesting that it had no choice but to approve the Willow Project. But is that really the case? This post explores the scope of BLM’s authority to block oil and gas drilling on federally-owned land in situations where the land has already been leased to a private party for the specific purpose of developing oil and gas resources.

History of Oil and Gas Development on Alaska’s North Slope

ConocoPhillips has held leases on federal land on Alaska’s North Slope since 1999. The leased land forms part of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (the “NPR-A”)—an area covering approximately 23 million acres that was set aside in 1923 by President Harding who, believing the land contained significant fossil fuel resources, designated it as an emergency oil supply for the U.S. Navy.

In 1976, in the National Petroleum Reserves Act (“Reserves Act”), Congress transferred authority over the NPR-A from the Secretary of the Navy to the Secretary of the Interior. As originally enacted, the Reserves Act prohibited the Secretary of the Interior from leasing land in the NPR-A for oil, gas, or other development (subject to limited exceptions). However, in 1980, Congress amended the Reserves Act to remove the prohibition and direct the Secretary of the Interior to “conduct an expeditious program of competitive leasing of oil and gas” in the NRP-A. The Secretary of the Interior delegated this leasing authority to BLM, which held its first oil and gas lease sale , covering 1.5 million acres of land in the NPR-A, in December 1981.

In the decades since, BLM has continued to lease land in the NPR-A for oil and gas development, offering a total of 59.7 million acres between 1999 and 2019. Interestingly, though, oil and gas developers only bid on about 7 million acres or 11% of the total land offered for lease. (As discussed in a previous post on this blog, this is consistent with BLM’s experience in the contiguous U.S., where only a small portion of the federal land it has offered for lease in recent years has received bids.)

The Legal Effect of Oil and Gas Leases

Oil and gas leases issued by BLM grant the lessee “the exclusive right to drill for, mine, extract, remove and dispose of all the oil and gas . . . in the land.” This, together with the fact that ConocoPhillips has held oil and gas leases in the NPR-A for over 20 years, has led some to conclude that BLM had to approve the Willow Project. For example, in defending BLM’s approval of the project, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters : “some of the company’s leases are decades old, granted by prior administrations. The company has a legal right to those leases. [BLM’s] options are limited when there are legal contracts in place.”

It is certainly true that ConocoPhillips has a legal right to the leases. As discussed in a previous blog post , BLM can only cancel NPR-A leases in two, limited circumstances:

• If a lease is not producing oil and gas, it may be cancelled if the lessee fails to comply with any legal requirement imposed on him/her/it.
• If a lease is producing or “known to contain valuable deposits of oil or gas,” it can only be cancelled “by court order.”

The land covered by ConocoPhillips’ NPR-A leases falls into the second category. It is known to contain valuable deposits of oil and gas because, in 2016, ConocoPhillips drilled two exploratory wells that “encountered significant pay.” The Biden administration could not, therefore, unilaterally cancel ConocoPhillips’ leases. But there might be other ways for the administration to limit, or perhaps even block, extraction of oil and gas pursuant to those leases.

As noted above, BLM leases grant the lessee exclusive rights to extract oil and gas, but those rights are “granted subject to applicable laws, the terms, conditions, and . . . stimulations of th[e] lease, [and] the Secretary of the Interior’s regulations and formal orders.” (It should be noted that this quote is from the current “ form lease ” used by BLM. The author was not able to review the leases BLM entered into with ConocoPhillips and thus cannot confirm that they contain similar language. Statements by BLM suggest they do, however. For example, BLM has previously said that ConocoPhillips’ leases entitle it to extract oil and gas resources, “subject to regulation.” The analysis that follows assumes the ConocoPhillips leases contain the language quoted above.)

The “applicable laws” include the Reserves Act, which directs the Secretary of the Interior to take steps to protect the “environmental, fish and wildlife, and historical or scenic values” within the NPR-A. The Reserves Act further provides that, when issuing oil and gas leases, the Secretary of the Interior “shall include or provide for such conditions, restrictions, and prohibitions as the Secretary deems necessary or appropriate to mitigate reasonably foreseeable and significant adverse effects on the surface resources of the NPR-A.”

One way in which BLM seeks to minimize the adverse impacts of oil and gas development on surface resources is by regulating drilling operations in the NPR-A. Under BLM regulations , before any oil or gas well can be drilled under an NPR-A lease, the lessee must submit an application for permit to drill (APD) to BLM. The APD must include a surface use plan of operations specifying, among other things, the location of any proposed drill pads, the method of pad construction, and other activities to be undertaken in connection with drilling. A lessee can choose to submit a single plan—known as a master development plan (MDP) – that covers multiple APDs.

BLM regulations provide that, upon receiving an APD, BLM “shall take one of the following actions . . . (1) Approve the application as submitted or with appropriate modifications or conditions; [or] (2) Return the application and advise the application of the reasons for disapproval.” The regulations are clear that, if BLM selects option (2) and disapproves the APD, “[n]o drilling operations, nor surface disturbance preliminary thereto, may be commenced.”

BLM also has authority to suspend previously approved drilling operations in certain circumstances. Under BLM regulations , operations may be suspended if, among other things, BLM determines that suspension “is in the interests of conservation of natural resources” or “mitigates reasonably foreseeable and significant adverse effects on surface resources.”

Implications for the Willow Project

What does all of this mean for the Willow Project? ConocoPhillips submitted an MPD for the Willow Project in May 2018. After conducting an environmental review, BLM approved the MPD in October 2020. However, in August 2021, the approval decision was vacated by the Federal District Court for the District of Alaska in Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic v. BLM .

The court held that the environmental review conducted by BLM did not meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”). Among other things, the court found that BLM had inappropriately constrained the range of alternatives it considered in the environmental review because it believed that “ConocoPhillips’ lease rights precluded the agency from considering alternatives concerning the configuration or location of the drill pads.” According to the court:

“BLM maintained that ConocoPhillips has the right to extract all the oil and gas possible within the leased area. But . . . [t]he leases do not grant the lessee the unfettered right to drill wherever it chooses or categorically preclude BLM from considering alternative development scenarios. Further, BLM’s asserted restriction on its authority is inconsistent with its own statutory responsibility to mitigate adverse effects on the surface resources . . . To the extent BLM relied on this reason to not examine other alternatives, its alternatives analysis was inadequate.”

Following the court’s decision, BLM prepared a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”), in which it considered one additional alternative. Based on the supplemental EIS, BLM approved ConocoPhillips’ MDP, with some modifications. Whereas BLM had initially approved the drilling of up to 251 wells across five drill pads, following completion of the supplemental EIS, BLM approved a scaled-down version of the Willow Project involving the drilling of up to 199 wells across three pads.

The supplemental EIS has been challenged in court , again, on the basis that BLM’s alternatives analysis was inadequate (among other grounds). Environmental groups challenging BLM’s decision allege that “it has again analyzed an inadequate range of alternatives in the [supplemental] EIS based on the mistaken conclusion that it must allow ConocoPhillips to fully develop its leases.” The groups note that, in the supplemental EIS, “BLM asserted that it must allow access to at least some of the subsurface resources under all of [ConocoPhillips’] leases with a demonstrated development potential, that it may not permit a development proposal that would strand an economically viable quantity of oil, and that it is obligated to approve development of leases in some form.”

These statements arguably misrepresent BLM’s statutory authority and obligations. As noted above, under the Reserves Act, BLM can impose “conditions, restrictions, and prohibitions” on oil and gas development in the NPR-A as “necessary or appropriate to mitigate reasonably foreseeable and significant adverse effects on . . . surface resources.”

Climate change is already having significant adverse effects on the surface resources of the NPR-A. According to the supplemental EIS prepared for the Willow Project, “[m]inimum temperatures in the Arctic have increased at about three times the global rate over the past 50 years,” resulting in the “loss of sea ice and snow cover.” The supplemental EIS notes that “[p]ermafrost loss in Alaska’s North Slope is already widespread.” Unless greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly reduced, “further warming will lead to further reductions of near-surface permafrost volume.” There will also be a decrease in snow cover, “with a later date of first snowfall and an earlier snowmelt,” which will “reduce water storage and increase the risk and extent of wildland fires and insect outbreaks in the region.”

It could be argued that, since the root cause of these adverse effects is greenhouse gas emissions, BLM must take steps to reduce those emissions to fulfill its Reserve Act obligations. BLM might seek to reduce emissions by restricting, or even prohibiting, the drilling of new oil wells as part of the Willow Project. This seems entirely appropriate given that emissions from the Willow Project could, by BLM’s own estimates, cause somewhere between $3 billion and $38 billion worth of climate-related damages (depending on the social cost of carbon used to value those damages). In these circumstances, restricting or even preventing drilling arguably would not violate ConocoPhillips’ lease rights.

The courts have previously held that lessees are not automatically entitled to permits to extract oil and gas from land they lease from the federal government. This was made clear by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Marathon Oil Co. v. United States . The plaintiff in that case—Marathon Oil—had been denied a permit to extract oil from offshore land it leased from the federal government under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA). Similar to the Reserves Act, the OCSLA authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to issue leases for oil and gas development on certain federal land, located offshore in an area known as the Outer Continental Shelf. The OCSLA provides that, before a lessee may develop oil and gas resources pursuant to a lease, he/she/it must have a plan of operations approved by the Secretary of the Interior.

In Marathon Oil Co v. United States , the Federal Circuit noted that leases issued under the OCSLA “grant lessees the exclusive right to drill for, develop, and produce oil and gas resources.” But, according to the court, “[o]btaining a lease is one thing; obtaining the necessary permits to explore and then produce is another.”

The Federal Circuit held that the Secretary of the Interior did not violate Marathon Oil’s lease rights when it refused to approve a plan of operations for the development of oil and gas resources in the leased area. The court noted that, under Marathon Oil’s lease, the right to drill for oil and gas resources “was expressly conditioned on compliance with [applicable] . . . statutory and regulatory provisions” that aimed to, among other things, protect coastal ecosystems. The court determined that the statutory requirements for approval of Marathon Oil’s plan of operations had not been met. Thus, according to the court, “[u]nder the circumstances of this case, to treat Marathon’s failure to obtain the necessary approvals and permits for exploratory activity as a breach of contract by the Government would be to eviscerate these salutary protections of the nation’s fragile coastal lands and waters.”

On appeal, the Federal Circuit’s decision was reversed by the Supreme Court, but on slightly different grounds. In short, the Supreme Court found that the Secretary of the Interior had not refused to approve Marathon Oil’s plan of operations because it did not meet the statutory requirements for approval, but due to other factors. Arguably, then, the Supreme Court’s ruling does not invalidate the above reasoning.

While Marathon Oil Co. v. United States involved offshore leasing, which is governed by a different statutory regime, the Federal Circuit’s reasoning could be applied to the Willow Project. Similar to the OCSLA, the Reserves Act authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to issue oil and gas leases on federal land, but provides that development pursuant to those leases “shall” be restricted or prohibited as necessary to minimize environmental disturbance. BLM arguably does not violate the terms of oil and gas leases by imposing such restrictions or prohibitions.

Supporters of the Willow Project might assert that the Reserves Act only authorizes BLM to restrict or prohibit development where necessary to “mitigate . . . adverse effects on the surface resources of the NPR-A.” They might further argue that surface resources are only indirectly affected by greenhouse gas emissions from the Willow Project—i.e., via climate change, which a wide range of other activities also contribute to—and that the Reserves Act does not expressly authorize BLM to prevent or restrict development based on indirect climate impacts. The case law suggests otherwise, however.

No court has, so far, ruled on the scope of BLM’s authority to restrict or prevent oil and gas development on climate grounds. Notably, however, multiple federal courts have held that BLM is required to consider greenhouse gas emissions and associated climate impacts when conducting environmental reviews of oil and gas projects pursuant to NEPA (see here for an example). This is significant because the courts have also held that an agency, like BLM, is only required to “gather or consider environmental information” in its NEPA review if the agency has “statutory authority to act on that information.” Thus, by holding that BLM is required to consider climate impacts in its NEPA reviews, the courts have suggested—at least implicitly–that BLM could act on that information.

These and other issues are sure to be hotly debated in the litigation over the Willow Project. The outcome of the litigation remains uncertain. It is, however, clear that there was no easy “win” for the Biden administration when it came to the Willow Project. The administration faced significant legal and political risks whatever decision it made. It is already feeling the political blowback from approval of the Willow Project and, as this blog explains, faces legal risks as well. On the other hand though, rejecting the project would also have exposed it to political blowback, and likely legal action as well.

Romany Webb

Romany Webb is a Research Scholar at Columbia Law School, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Climate at Columbia Climate School, and Deputy Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

• Romany Webb #molongui-disabled-link International Governance of Ocean-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal: Recent Developments and Future Directions
• Romany Webb #molongui-disabled-link Executive Actions to Ensure Safe and Responsible Ocean Carbon Dioxide Removal Research in the United States
• Romany Webb #molongui-disabled-link An Update on the Evolving Legal Landscape for Ocean-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal: Key Outcomes of the October 2023 Meeting of the Parties to the London Convention and Protocol
• Romany Webb #molongui-disabled-link The Evolving Legal Landscape for Ocean-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal

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Why Did the Biden Administration Approve the Willow Project?

By Elizabeth Kolbert

On February 9, 2020, at a town-hall meeting in Hudson, New Hampshire, Joe Biden , then a Presidential candidate, took a question from a woman standing near the bleachers. The woman asked about oil drilling 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.”

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. The National Petroleum Reserve is most definitely federal land, and it’s significantly north of the Arctic Circle. When the decision began to leak out, late last week, former Vice-President Al Gore called it “recklessly irresponsible” and “a recipe for climate chaos.” Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, decried it as a “complete betrayal of Biden’s promise.”

Both assessments are hard to argue with. 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. It’s also because of what the decision signals.

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. 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. As Politico noted, this “would be the equivalent of adding two new coal-fired power plants to the U.S. electricity system every year.” The Arctic is the fastest-warming region on earth, which means that the Willow project itself will be vulnerable to climate change. To deal with the problem, ConocoPhillips has plans to install chillers to keep the permafrost frozen under its heavy equipment.

In the lead-up to Monday’s announcement, Biden’s record on drilling was perhaps best described as mixed. When the President took office, in January, 2021, one of his first moves was to issue a moratorium on new oil- and gas-drilling leases on federal lands and in federal waters. In June, 2021, a Trump-appointed federal district judge in Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction, effectively overturning the moratorium. This judgment was, in turn, vacated by a federal appeals court in New Orleans. By that point, though, the Administration had signed on to the Inflation Reduction Act , 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. (If this seems like a contradiction, that’s because it is; reportedly, the auctions were demanded by Senator Joe Manchin , Democrat of West Virginia, as a price for his support of the bill, which most environmental groups characterized as a net win.)All this back-and-forth only lent Monday’s decision added weight. As the Times pointed out, the Willow project “would be one of the few oil projects that Mr. Biden has approved freely, without a court or a congressional mandate.”

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. As Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, put it back in 2021, “If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal, from now—from this year.” So why did the Administration approve it?

Politics is an obvious answer. The approval, according to Politico, is part of a strategy to create a “ ‘Biden-moves-to-the-center’ narrative” heading into next year’s Presidential election.

“Joe Biden is a realist about what it will take to win re-election in 2024 for him, or any other Democrat,” Wendy Schiller, a professor of political science at Brown, told the Times .

Although the Willow project won’t actually produce any oil for years, it has been touted as a way to bring down gas prices. 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. “We need affordable energy today, and we will need it well into the future,” the three wrote.

Of course, for those who oppose the project, the politics play differently. In the past few weeks, anti-Willow posts have been viewed millions of times on TikTok, and a petition opposing the project garnered more than three million signatures. “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.

The Biden Administration, presumably, looked at both sides of the political equation and decided that the benefits of approving the project—to itself, at least—outweigh the harms. This same calculation has been made many times before, including by politicians who know how dangerous it is. (Recall 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. A massive oil project that requires chilling the permafrost is, unfortunately, the perfect metaphor for our time. ♦

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By John Cassidy

By Evan Osnos

Georgetown Environmental Law Review

Climate change, the willow project, and u.s. security: a maelstrom of unreadiness.

September 11, 2023 by Blake Hite

Oil rigs operate in the ocean surrounded by floating sea ice (Creative Commons | Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement)

Oil has long been a key factor in U.S. national security considerations. In this article, author Blake Hite argues the combination of climate change and oil extraction in the Arctic poses unique national security concerns that should be considered before U.S. officials approve additional Arctic drilling.

Much ink has been spilled over the anticipated climate effects that the Willow Project, a proposed Arctic oil facility in the northernmost reaches of Alaska, will have on climate change. [1] Environmental groups say Willow is a “carbon bomb” that would prove catastrophic to climate change efforts due to the amount of fossil fuels in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. [2] Others argue that the United States should develop Willow, and other similar projects, to counter adversarial nations that export large volumes of fossil fuels, such as Venezuela and Russia. [3] Proponents of that argument often claim U.S. national security is improved by Willow’s timely construction. [4] This article argues the opposite by showing climate-induced national security concerns that prove Willow is, at the very least, being approved too early.

Anthropogenic warming is experienced more acutely in the Arctic than elsewhere. Evidence shows the Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the world average, a phenomenon known as “Arctic Amplification.” [5] This is not a far-away problem. The sea ice of the Arctic works as a reflective shield that returns significant amounts of heat (in the form of solar radiation) back to space. [6] As the Arctic warms and the sea ice gives way to the dark waters underneath, the reflective effects are reversed and heat is retained. [7] The cooling effect of this change is estimated to be worth approximately one trillion tons of carbon, or “25 years of CO 2 emissions at [our] current rate.” [8]

Arctic heat retention induces insidious second-order effects. For example, there is growing evidence that the Arctic’s changing landscape and rising temperatures contribute to the monsoons of Southeast Asia, [9] the wildfires of the western United States, [10] and droughts across the world. [11] These risks affect national security. [12] Protecting Arctic sea ice is therefore crucial to mitigating the effects of climate change and promoting U.S. national security.

U.S. adversaries are capitalizing on the loss of sea ice. Several years ago, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) announced a “Polar Silk Road” policy. [13] The policy enhanced the PRC’s economic focus on the Arctic. [14] Two leading reasons for the change are decreased maritime travel time to Europe and the opportunity to exploit and transport the Arctic’s vast troves of natural resources. [15] Similarly, in 2020, the Russian Federation (RF) released its updated “Arctic Policy 2035.” [16] Their position, however, appears more complicated. [17] The RF requires significant external investments and highly trained personnel to realize two interlocking economic goals: improved natural resource extraction (i.e., natural gas) and increased port capacity. [18] Although there are many who speculate the RF is hesitant to become too dependent on any single investor (here, the PRC) [19] , their pariah status has left them with few options. [20] In sum, the RF’s goal is to become a leading supplier for two of the PRC’s many growing needs: 1) cheap resources, especially hydrocarbons, and 2) ports at which the PRC’s ships may dock during their transit to Europe.

These adversarial developments stand in stark contrast to the United States’ apparent inability to assert a military presence year-round in the Arctic. Congress noted in the 2023 NDAA that the Navy lacks “surface combatant vessels” capable of “operat[ing] in sea ice conditions at the levels present in the Arctic” despite “increasing commercial and military activity,” which itself is caused by “decreasing sea ice levels.” [21] If one compares that to the mission of the U.S. Navy – to maintain the freedom of the seas – [22] and adversarial opposition to the Navy exercising its mission, [23] the problem quickly crystallizes. The U.S. does not have surface ships like destroyers, aircraft carriers, or amphibious landing ships that can ensure freedom of the seas year-round. [24] Perhaps more importantly, the United States has limited capability of responding to adversarial events during the ice-covered months. This limitation is not Navy-specific. The U.S. Army appears to lack tactical vehicles capable of operating in Arctic winters. [25] The U.S. Air Force may also lack Arctic capabilities. [26] In sum, U.S. defensive strategy for the Arctic in winter in recent years has largely hinged on the hope that no contest would take place in the harsh environmental conditions. While this approach may have been prudent in past years, the question posed by this essay is whether it remains prudent considering the expanding national security infrastructure ( i.e. , Willow) [27] and growing adversarial presence in the region. [28]

The United States Department of Homeland Security is similarly unprepared for Willow. Director Jennifer Grover of the Government Accountability Office testified in 2017 that the U.S. Coast Guard (U.S.C.G.) failed to respond to 22% of other federal agencies’ requests for icebreaker support between 2010-2016. [29] Icebreakers independently respond to ships’ calls for assistance and can assist less-capable ships in navigating icy waters. [30] When a ship lacks the design features necessary to operate in a certain level of ice – often determined by the ice’s thickness – it risks being crushed. [31] But increased operational capacity in icy conditions comes with a trade-off in efficiency; ships tend to be more expensive, use more fuel, and pollute more. [32] Thus, U.S.C.G. icebreakers can: ensure ships safely traverse certain levels of ice-covered water; respond to maritime emergencies (perhaps including oil spills); and provide in situ intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities for the military that may otherwise be lacking. [33] However, the Coast Guard has one functional heavy icebreaker in its fleet. [34] Further, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the single additional heavy icebreaker on order by the Coast Guard was behind schedule and over cost. [35] Ultimately, this inability to respond to status quo federal requests demonstrates a key gap in need of remediation before increasing maritime traffic that may require support.

Oil infrastructure is undoubtedly a type of national security asset. [36] The United States must be able to defend those assets across all domains – land, air, sea, space, cyber, and electromagnetic – 365 days a year. The apparent shortfalls in the U.S.’s capacity to defend these sites indicate that significant advances in Arctic military capabilities are required before Willow, and other projects, should be allowed to advance. At the very least, the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security should be required to publicly report on the short-, medium-, and long-term risks of their combined capacity gaps so Congress, the public, and private industry can make informed decisions about natural resource exploitation of the Arctic.

Advancing Willow without an adequate national security posture will decrease the adaptation time available to our military leaders. As an example, a leading cause of Arctic Amplification is the deposition of black carbon (BC) on icy surfaces. [37] BC is solid particulate matter (i.e., not a greenhouse gas) caused by the incomplete combustion of carbonaceous materials. [38] It is the second strongest contributor of climate change, trailing only CO­ 2 in terms of warming potential. [39] It affects warming in many ways, but a leading reason in the Arctic is due to the darker colors literally absorbing – instead of the ice deflecting – solar radiation. [40] BC, among other ‘short-lived climate pollutants’, must decrease by 35% by 2050 if warming is to be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius. [41] At least 80% of BC in the Arctic is likely tied to human activities. [42] A significant source of anthropogenic Arctic BC is from flaring. [43] Flaring is the combustion of ‘associated natural gasses’ found, but not extracted (typically for economic reasons), during oil production. [44] The method is used so methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than CO2, is not “vented”, or released, into the atmosphere. [45]

The Willow Project will result in BC flaring emissions. [46] The increase in inefficient, heavy fuel oil-reliant maritime traffic moving Willow’s hydrocarbons will also emit BC. [47] In essence, Willow will directly (and indirectly through consumers using the hydrocarbons) accelerate the melting of the Arctic via BC deposition on sea ice. This will decrease the amount of time before maritime traffic can more easily traverse the typically ice-laden waters, decrease the amount of time before adversaries increase their reliance on Arctic maritime trade routes, and decrease the amount of time the United States has before truly requiring year-round capabilities in the High North.

Put simply: approving Arctic drilling is a self-inflicted wound to U.S. interests that many have anticipated but few seem willing to discuss. We must do better.

[1] E.g. , Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Bureau of Land Mgmt. , 937 F. Supp. 2d 1140 (N.D. Cal. 2013).

[2] Ann Alexander, White House Poised to Carbon-Bomb Its Own Climate Progress , Nat. Res. Defense Council (Feb.  8, 2023), https://www.nrdc.org/bio/ann-alexander/white-house-poised-carbon-bomb-its-own-climate-progress.

[3] See, e.g., Jessica Towhey, Biden’s Approval of Willow Project a Win for National Security , Waco Tribune-Herald, Mar. 14, 2023 (describing various arguments made by proponents of the project), https://wacotrib.com/opinion/columnists/jessica-towhey-biden-s-approval-of-willow-project-a-win-for-national-security/article_1ed55d24-c283-11ed-9584-d7d7b5db21fd.html.

[4] Defense Experts Affirm Importance of U.S. Energy to National Security, Including Alaska’s Willow Project , Off. of U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (Feb. 21, 2023),

https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/’defense-experts-affirm-importance-of-us-energy-to-national-security-including-alaskas-willow-project.

[5] Mika Rantanen et al ., The Arctic Has Warmed Nearly Four Times Faster Than The Global Since 1979 , 3 Comm. Earth & Env’t 168 (2022).

[6] Arctic Amplification , NASA (May 28, 2013), https://climate.nasa.gov/news/927/arctic-amplification/.

[8] Kristina Petone et al ., Radiative Heating of an Ice-Free Arctic Ocean , 46 Geophysical Rsch. Letters 7474 (2019).

[9] See, e.g., Tiruvalam N. Krishnamurti et al. , A Pathway Connecting the Monsoonal Heating to the Rapid Arctic Ice Melt , 72 J. of Atmospheric Sci. (2015); see also Suchithra Sundaram & David Holland, A Physical Mechanism for the Indian Summer Monsson—Artic Sea-Ice Teleconnection , 13 Atmosphere 566 (2022).

[10] E. g. , Paul A. Knapp & Peter T. Soulé, Spatio-Temporal Linkages Between Declining Arctic Sea-Ice Extent and Increasing Wildfire Activity in the Western United States , 8 Forests 313 (2017); Yufei Zou et al. , Increasing Large Wildfires Over the Western United States Linked to Diminishing Sea Ice in the Arctic , 12 Nat. Comm. 6048 (2021).

[11] See, e.g. , Dong Chen et al. , Effects of Spring Arctic Sea Ice on Summer Drought in the Middle and High Latitudes of Asia , 15 Atmospheric & Oceanic Sci. Letters 100138 (2022) (finding effects of sea ice on precipitation vary by latitude); Saeed Vazifehkhah & Ercan Kahya, Hydrological Drought Associations with Extreme Phases of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oscillations over Turkey and Northern Iran , 38 Int’l J. of Climatology 4459 (2018); cf. Sean W. Fleming & Helen E. Dahlke, Parabolic Northern-Hemisphere River Flow Teleconnections to El Ni ño-Southern Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation , 9 Env’t Rsch. Letters 104007 (2014) (finding non-linear connections between ocean-emptying river volumes and the Arctic Oscillation).   

[12] North Atlantic Treaty Org. Sec’y Gen. Jens Stoltenberg,  NATO Climate Change & Security Impact Assessment 6 (2023) (discussing direct and indirect risks associated with climate change); Off. of the Under Sec’y of Def. for Acquisition & Sustainment, Dep’t of Def., 9-D30BE5A, Report on Effects of a Changing Climate to the Department of Defense 2 (2019) (“The effects of a changing climate are a national security issue with potential impacts to Department of Defense … missions, operational plans, and installations.”)

[13] See Anu Sharma, China’s Polar Silk Road: Implications for the Arctic Region , 4 J. of Indo-Pacific Affairs 67 (2021) (discussing the PRC’s growing Arctic interests in a special issue of the U.S. Air Force’s Air University’s professional journal for the Pacific area of operations).

[14] Id . at 68.

[15] Id . at 71-74; see also Mia M. Bennett et al., Climate Change and the Opening of the Transpolar Sea Route: Logistics, Governance, and Wider Geo-economic, Societal and Environmental Impacts , in The Arctic & World Order 161, 174-75 (Kristina Spohr & Daniel S. Hamilton, eds., Jason C. Moyer, assoc. ed.).

[16] See Julian R. Meade, Russia’s New Arctic Policy 2035: Implications for Great Power Tension Over the Northern Sea Route , Nat’l Intel. Uni., July 21, 2020, at 1 (published as a “Research Short” that discusses growing tension in the High North).

[17] See id . at 8 (discussing national security threats to the RF’s Arctic interests, including “slow social, transport, information, and communication infrastructure development” in the Arctic and “insufficient state support system for economic development”).

[18] See id .; Ed Davey, Top US Firms Supplied Equipment to Keep Russian Oil Flowing After Ukraine Invasion , Associated Press (July 18, 2023, 10:54 AM), https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-oil-slb-baker-hughes-halliburton-6f596774f713dd44d5bd6b7e5011d48a; see also Malte Humpert, Russian Mining Company Partners With China to Develop Massive Titanium Deposit in Arctic , High North News, https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/russian-mining-company-partners-china-develop-massive-titanium-deposit-arctic.

[19] Camilla T. N. Sorensen & Ekaterina Klimenko, Emerging Chinese-Russian Cooperation in the Arctic , 46 Stockholm Int’l Peace Rsch. Inst. 1, 38 (2017) ( cited by Jeremy Greenwood & Shuxian Luo, Could the Arctic Be a Wedge Between Russia and China? , War on the Rocks (Apr. 4, 2022), https://warontherocks.com/2022/04/could-the-arctic-be-a-wedge-between-russia-and-china/).

[20] See Atle Staalesen, Chinese Investors Could Finance Murmansk LNG , The Barents Observer (June 7, 2023), https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-lng/2023/06/chinese-investors-could-finance-murmansk-lng; see also Samuel Good, Arc7 LNG carrier order canceled , Argus Media (May 18, 2022), https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2332724-arc7-lng-carrier-order-cancelled.

[21] H.R. Rep. No. 117-397, at 16-17 (2022), 2022 WL 2399109.

[22] Mission , U.S. Navy, https://www.navy.mil/About/Mission/ (last visited Aug. 7, 2023);  see also U.S. v. Maine , 475 U.S. 89, 96 (1986) (discussing historical aspects of the international law principle for “freedom of the high seas”); Sean Fahey, Access Control: Freedom of the Seas in the Arctic and the Russian Northern Sea Route Regimen , 9 Harvard Nat’l Sec’y J  154, 164-68 (discussing the historical application of freedom of the seas by the United States).

[23] See, e.g., Thomas Nilsen, Russian Parliament Passes Law Limiting Freedom of Navigation Along Northern Sea Route , The Barents Observer (Dec. 1, 2022), https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2022/12/russian-parliament-passes-law-banning-freedom-navigation-along-northern-sea-route; John Grady, China Taking Hard Line on Military Flybys, Freedom of Navigation Operations, Says Panel , U.S. Naval Inst. News (July 26, 2023, 6:47 PM), https://news.usni.org/2023/07/26/china-taking-hard-line-on-military-flybys-freedom-of-navigation-operations-says-panel.

[24] Cf. Sean Fahey, supra note 22 at 191-97 (discussing the normative implications under international law of adhering to restrictive Russian maritime laws along the Northern Sea Route, and discussing the possible legal implications of US-conducted freedom of the seas maneuvers in that area).

[25] H.R. Rep. 118-125, at *13 (2023), 2023 WL 4314344 (describing a “maneuver capability gap within the tactical vehicle portfolio [for] winter-rated vehicle[s]” that “is of critical importance for . . . operational success in the event of an engagement in a future contested Arctic region”).

[26] Id . at *31 (requiring a brief by the Secretary of the Air Force regarding Arctic air refueling capabilities).

[27]   See James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, PL 117-263, December 23, 2022, § 8312, 136 Stat 2395 (authorizing funding for a deep-water port in Nome, Alaska).

[28] See , e.g. , H.R. Rep. No. 117-397, supra note 21, at 260 (“recogniz[ing] the Arctic as an emerging arena for great power competition” that “was once viewed as a buffer zone” but “melting sea ice is transforming it to an area of opportunity and conflict”) (emphasis added).

[29] Jennifer Grover, U.S. Gov’t Accountability Off., GAO-17-698R, Coast Guard Polar Icebreaking 4 (2017).

[30] Abbie Tingstad et al., The U.S. Coast Guard is Building an Icebreaker Fleet , Rand Corp. 6, 8 (2020).

[31] MSC.385(94), at § 3.2 (Nov. 21, 2014) (International Maritime Organization resolution adopting the Polar Code and discussing at Sec. 3.2, the functional requirements for “ice strengthened ships”).

[32] Bryan Comer et al., Prevalence of Heavy Fuel Oil and Black Carbon in Arctic Shipping, 2015 to 2025 , The Int’l Council On Clean Transp. 3 (recalling past studies that found most maritime fuel in the Arctic was heavy fuel oil because the ships tended to be larger); Martin Bergström et al., A Goal-based Approach for Selecting a Ship’s Polar Class , 81 Marine Structures 103123, 2-3 (describing the three categories of Polar Class ships, A-C, before discussing loss of efficiency as ice-capabilities increase).

[33] Compare Ronald O’Rourke, Congressional Rsch. Serv., RL34391, Coast Guard Polar Security Cutty (Polar Icebreaker) Program: Background and Issues for Congress 2-3 (2020) (listing the missions of U.S.C.G. icebreakers, including defending U.S. sovereignty and interests while conducting “typical” missions like search and rescue), and Timothy Greenhaw et al., US Military Options to Enhance Arctic Defense , Brookings Inst. 8 (2021) (describing various military applications for Coast Guard icebreakers, including ISR), with Robert English & Andrew Thvedt, The Arctic , in Routledge Handbook of Russian Foreign Pol’y 338, 344 (Andrei P. Tysgankov, ed., 2018) (calling Senator Dan Sullivan’s characterization of icebreakers as essential for naval combat as “simply ignorant” before noting that neither the RF nor U.S. Navy would send surface combatants behind icebreaker ships).

[34] Jennifer Grover, supra note 27 at 3-4 (discussing disabled icebreakers).

[35] See U.S. Gov’t Accountability Off., GAO-18-600, Polar Icebreaker Program Needs to Address Risks Before Committing Resources (discussing a likely icebreaker capability gap due in part to unrealistic assessments of shipbuilding activities).

[36] See 42 U.S.C. § 5195c (critical infrastructures protection); see also Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicar. V. U.S.), Judgement, 1986 I.C.J. 14, ¶ 237 (June 27) (discussing the theory of proportionality as applied to oil installations).

[37] Drew Shindell & Greg Faluvegi, Climate Response to Regional Radiative Forcing During the Twentieth Century , 2 Nature Geoscience 294, 298 (2009) (describing that both increased BC emissions and decreased sulphate precursor emissions led to most of the Arctic warming observed); see Maria Sand et al., Arctic Surface Temperature Change to Emissions of Black Carbon Within Arctic or Midlatitudes , 118 J. of Geophysical Rsch.: Atmospheres 7788 (“We find that BC emitted within the Arctic has an almost five times larger Arctic surface temperature response (per unit of emitted mass) compared to emissions at midlatitudes”); see Veerabhadran Ramanathan & Gregory Carmichael, Global and Regional Climate Changes Due to Black Carbon , 1 Nature Geoscience 221, 223 (“[past research demonstrates] the reduction of sea ice and snow albedo by BC is three times as effective as CO 2 forcing for global average surface warming”). See generally Mark G. Flanner, Arctic Climate Sensitivity to Local Black Carbon , 118 J. of Geophysical Rsch.: Atmospheres 1840 (2013) (finding the effect of BC in the Arctic depends on the altitude of the pollutant, with lower-altitude BC inducing a warming effect overall).

[38] Tami C. Bond et al., Bounding the role of black carbon in the climate system: A scientific assessment , 118 J. of Geophysical Rsch.: Atmospheres 5380, 85 (2013) (“We estimate that black carbon, with a total climate forcing of +1.1 W m-2, is the second most important human emission in terms of its climate forcing in the present-day atmosphere; only carbon dioxide is estimated to have greater forcing.”).

[39] See , e.g. , id .

[40] See Flanner, supra note 37.

[41] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5 º C, Summary for Policymakers 12; see also Gabrielle B. Dreyfus et al., Mitigating Climate Disruption in Time: A Self-Consistent Approach for Avoiding Both Near-term and Long-term Global Warming , 119 Procs. of the Nat’l Acad. of Scis.. e2123536119 (2022) (finding that reducing CO 2 while ignoring short lived climate pollutant emissions will likely result in near-term warming due to the cooling effect of CO 2 ’s co-emitted aerosols).

[42] E.g. , Mark G. Flanner et al., Present-day Climate Forcing and Response From Black Carbon in Snow , 112 J. of Geophysical Rsch.: Atmospheres D11, ¶ 1 (2007) (“Applying biomass burning BC emission inventories for a strong (1998) and weak (2001) boreal fire year, we estimate global annual mean BC/snow surface radiative forcing from all sources (fossil fuel, biofuel, and biomass burning) . . . to total forcing is at least 80%”); Negin Sobhani et al., Source Sector and Region Contributions to Black Carbon and PM2.5 in the Arctic , 18 Atmospheric chemistry & physics 18123 (2018) (“Anthropogenic emissions are the most dominant contributors (∼ 88 %) to the BC surface concentration over the Arctic annually; however, the contribution from biomass burning is significant over the summer (up to ∼ 50 %).

[43] See, e.g. , Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, Summary for Policymakers: Arctic Climate Issues 2015 Short-Lived Climate Pollutants 7 (2015) (flaring may account for up to 2/3 of warming observed). But cf., e.g., Patrick Winiger et al., Siberian Arctic black carbon sources constrained by model and observation , 114 Procs. of the Nat’l Acad. of Scis. E1054 (2017) (relying on Bayesian modeling software to find that flaring contributes 6% of Arctic BC).

[44] See id . at 4.

[45] Dana R. Caulton et al., Methane Destruction Efficiency of Natural Gas Flares Associated with Shale Formation Wells , 48 Env’t Scis. & Tech. 9548 (2014).

[46] Bureau of Land Mgmt., U.S. Dep’t of Interior, Willow Master Development Plan, Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, Volume 1 (2023) (deciding not to “explicitly quantif[y]” black carbon emissions).

[47] Bergström et al., supra note 32, at 3.

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Will the Willow Project be approved and what consequences might we see?

U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration have advanced on a decision that could allegedly damage our climate beyond repair, but what is the Willow Project and how will it change the world around us?

The Biden Administration has been weighing its options concerning the potential approval of what is known as The Willow Project, located on the Alaskan North Slope. It appears the chances of its approval are on the rise.

Karlin Nageak Itchoak, Senior Regional Director at the non-profit Wilderness Society, has been fighting against the project, citing that “Willow is a carbon bomb that cannot be allowed to explode in the Arctic.”

With the Arctic already warming four times faster  than the rest of the world, can we afford to prioritize economic growth over the planet?

What is the Willow Project?

The $8 Billion drilling project known as the Willow project is the proposal to create new oil fields on the Alaskan North Slope. Allegedly, by cultivating and undertaking the oil project, the U.S. Government can produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, 1.5% of the total U.S. oil production.

Project builders ConocoPhillips Alaska have proposed five drilling sites following previous concerns about potential locations.

If approved, the project would represent the biggest U.S. oil field in decades.

Ongoing environmental concerns

Although the Willow Project has the potential to be extremely lucrative for the United States, evidence has shown that the project would produce the equivalent of more than 278 million tonnes (306 million short tonnes) of greenhouse gases over its 30-year life.

“278 million tonnes of greenhouse gases over 30 years”

This number is roughly equal to the combined emissions from two million passenger cars over the same time period.

Action Network and many others have been campaigning against the proposal , stating, “The Willow Project will be devastating for all those that call the Arctic home. The noise, traffic, and pollution the project brings will disrupt ecosystems that Indigenous Alaskans have relied on for millennia. And the project threatens the already vulnerable caribou population — a vital resource many native communities rely on.”

Is there support for the Willow Project?

Widespread political support for the project can be found in Alaska, including politicians and state lawmakers.

Supporters have called the project “balanced” and say communities would benefit from taxes generated by it. They say these would be used to invest in infrastructure and provide public services in the area.

Is the president going back on his promises?

Activists have been calling out president Biden over the project, arguing that he is backtracking on his campaign statements and beliefs.

Since his election campaign, the 80-year-old president has publicly made fighting climate change a top priority. Having backed a landmark law to accelerate the expansion of clean energy such as wind and solar power and move the US away from the use of oil, coal and gas, many see this new potential oil project as a betrayal.

“Our Native villages are eroding into the sea, thawing permafrost is making infrastructure insecure, and food sources are disappearing,” Itchoak said. “And this project would just exacerbate and speed up the climate crisis in the Arctic .”

According to the Guardian, “it’s outrageous that Biden seems ready to greenlight the massively destructive Willow project, prioritizing oil industry profits over the future of polar bears and other Arctic wildlife,” said Kristen Monsell, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’ll keep fighting it until it’s scrapped.”

Having promised to end federal oil and gas drilling, Biden has pushed towards renewable energy; however, as oil prices continued to rise due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the president has faced further pressure to increase drilling.

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54 comments.

I hate the Willow project stop it please please

PAREM DE DESTRUIR O PLANETA POR DINHEIRO VOCÊS JÁ CONSEGUIRAM PEGAR METADE DA MORADIA DELES PARA FAZER SUAS CASAS É CIDADES NÃO PEGUEM O RESTO POR FAVOR!!

Translation:

Stop destroying the planet for money you have already managed to get half of their housing to make your houses and cities don’t get the rest please!!

This is just wrong. If the willow project is happening we all gonna die. The ice will melt and the water will rise. We are destroying our HOME. STOP THIS

Stop this I’m scared because I want to have a family and a good life, I am a child, it’s not normal a child be scared because a lot of dumb people want money and will destroy the earth

they have a point ya know

O dinheiro não deveria valer mais que nosso planeta,isso que eles estão fazendo vai destruir o nosso planeta,parem com isso,isso é burrice, bando de sem noção. TENHAM EMPATIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Money shouldn’t be worth more than our planet, what they are doing is going to destroy our planet, stop it, that’s stupid, bunch of clueless. HAVE EMPATHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PAREM DE DESTRUIR O PLANETA!!!!!!!

STOP DESTROYING THE PLANET!!!!!!!

Pela mor de Deus,parem de destruir o planeta terra só por causa de dinheiro

For the love of God, stop destroying planet earth just for money

o dinheiro não é melhor que a nossa vida e a vida dos animais, nós merecemos uma vida tranquila e feliz nesse mundo, parem de ter olho grande em dinheiro e fazer de tudo pra ter ele, vocês são cruéis e sem coração, deixem os animais em paz, eles e nós não merecemos isso !! #stopthewillow

Money is not better than our life and the lives of animals, we deserve a peaceful and happy life in this world, stop having a big eye on money and doing everything to have it, you are cruel and heartless, leave the animals in peace, they and we do not deserve this !! #stopthewillow

stop the willow project

We are seriously ruining the planet and countless lives because of something that is cut from trees that now controls our life, I’m a child and I used to only worry about things like quicksand, it has been 3 years and now I worry about if there will even be a planet left to live on by the time I can vote.

Why does biden do this. Ik for money but what?!

because he wants even a small chance of winning the next election. his approval ratings are low enough that he’s willing to do anything to get gas prices down, cause that’s what everyone has been blaming him for.

Dinheiro não é tudo na vida!!! Parem destruir o nosso planeta, vocês são gananciosos tem milhares de dores e ainda quer mais?? O que vocês vão fazer vai ter um impacto enorme nas nossas vidas e principalmente na vida dos animais, eles são preciosos para a natureza e os animais não merece sofrer por arrogância de vocês.

Money is not everything in life!!! Stop destroying our planet, you are greedy, you have thousands of pains and still want more?? What you are going to do will have a huge impact on our lives and especially on the lives of animals, they are precious to nature and animals do not deserve to suffer because of your arrogance.

Please stop this project! It’s impact to our world a lot

Please stop it

Why do this all for a piece of paper called money. It isnt right, the earth is our home guys and we are already destroying it by cutting down trees now they want to increase global warming and make earth die faster, it isnt fair that animals are always the ones to suffer for the benefits and wants of humans, the arctic is already deteriorating as we speak why would you want to kill it all for the love of money. Where will the penguins and polar bears live and what about the beautiful ocean that has over millions of creatures in it where will they go. How would they feel if someone chased them away from their home and had no where else to go. its sad what this world has come to all because of money .

Why would President Joe do this? Money isn’t even worth life nor time. President Joe said he would protect the world and will protect us. But look, Alaska will be drilled a hole and he will get 8bill.

I AGREE 100%!

I can’t believe this might actually go ahead! STOP THE WILLOW PROJECT!!!!!!!!!!

Parar o projeto willow

Stop the willow project

Parem com essa ideia maluca o Alaska importa! VIDAS de animais importa! Por favor pense nisso!

Stop this crazy idea Alaska matters! Animal LIVES matter! Please think about it!

PLEASE STOP THE WILLOW PROJECT !!! You’re not just hurting the planet but you’re also hurting you!!! We can die from this willow project! money isn’t worth us dying! PLEASE HELP PROTECT THE PLANET!!

STOP THE WILLOW PROJECT!!!

We thought joe Biden was a good person.. he promised he would protect the world and protect us.. I even thought he was a good guy!!!! But no.. he lied and decided that he would damage the world just for money.. money is just paper .. it’s not worth anything. I hope he realizes what he has done and what a beautiful home we have but he just wants to damage it.. I hope he realizes.

PLEASE HELP STOP THE WILLOW PROJECT!!!

Pofavor não, apenas não, não, não é não E sério que o dinheiro é mais importante que o mundo?????

Please no, just no, no, no it’s no And seriously, money is more important than the world?????

yea, like is alaska and its life worth only 8billion? aslo how can it be worth money. its a living thing, it effects everyone.

BIDEN IS A MONSTER STOP THE WILLOW PROJECT

Please, PLEASE STOP THE WILLOW PROJECT!!!

biden is choosing to take our lives, hurting his “supporters” that he no longer has, hurting animals hurting climate. he is a horrible person if he confirms this he’s basically going to kill a bunch of animals and people due to his behaviour and choices. i’m only 11 years old and i might not even be able to get to the age of 20. i hate biden, if i die due to the project that MAY happen i’m blaming him.

I’m only a 14 year old teenager. I am scared to death of this situation. I’ve always been dreaming of meeting my long distant partner. I don’t want to die before being able to do that. Why is our society like this? All just for the money. Destroying our earth… ruining everything. What is wrong with this world.

I’ve been crying over this for hours. I can’t… I really hope that this doesn’t continue. This could kill all of us. That’s what i’m most afraid of. Death.

Stop destroying the planet please money isn’t worth destroying the planet and killing us, if you destroy the planet you won’t even have money because he would be dead so why do it? For greed? Or do you just want us all to die? I’m 11 and my friends and I are scared thinking all of the animals are going to die and in the future our children well not live the same life we did. We all might die when we’re 20 I know he said yes today but I hope he changes his mind and Votes Against the willow project. If he kills me and everything I love I blame him.

Before today we thought nothing was was worth more than our beautiful planet, but Biden clearly has different opinions, clearly he thinks money is worth more than the lovely environment where we live learn and love. We are only children of 11 but we even understand the consequences of our actions and doings. The environment is one of our unstressed vowel spelling words ,but really we should stress about it! This time yesterday we were laughing and playing in our lush world of nature, but now as we look outside our windows ,we can tell our world is angry, so we are to, we WILL do what we can to save the world If you agree don’t just sit on your bed mourning like we did, do something you may think your only one person who can’t do anything but your one of many and many can do a lot. So politicians, president and any one who can help our world, save us… and the earth with us. So please listen and do what you can to help because a little can do so much. Thank you in advance with all hope Velvet, Ella and Lucy

Why is this happening is money better than living ? Is money more valuable ? Why are we doing this ? Why are we drilling if we will die ? What’s the point ? What do we do ? Why should we do this ? There are so many questions but I bet the kids parents fell very stupid after they realise after this there kid will not have a good life and have to suffer to live through all of this pain and torture. Why are we risking every thing for money ? But I know one thing for sure money got the better of us

STOP THE WILLOW PROJECT ITS KILLING OUR EARTH AND HE WILL MAKE THE CLIMATE CHANGE EVEN WORSE. IM 11 YEARS OLD SCARED FOR MY LIFE AND MY FRIEND AND ME ARE NOT SUPPORTING THIS. THIS NEEDS TO STOP

all we have to do is try send emails to biden trying to stop this grobal problem

I’m going to make a few controversial statements here but have an open mind.

1. Yes – we need to de-carbonise our economies to slow , halt and hopefully reverse global warming.

2. That costs money. The US Government under Biden has done more than any other government in this regard – the subsidies being offered to the US citizens to make EV’a more affordable are a huge (and costly) initiative.

3. (The controversial part) the Willow Project in itself will not add more carbon to the atmosphere than would otherwise be used – it is simply a new source that means the US government doesn’t have to pay foreign countries for the oil that would be used anyway. If the Willow Project does not go ahead the same amount of oil will be consumed – just from foreign sources which means the cost of living in the US goes up. Biden is allowing this project to go ahead because he can use the $$ to fund the subsidies needed to make renewable energy more accessible.

4. If he didn’t allow this, then the inflation gets worse, most of the US voters get angry about paying higher $ to fill their cars and pay for groceries- so what do they do ? Vote for Trump.

5. Trump gets in and there goes the whole green agenda, renewables get shelved, Eva subsidies gone – and the world gets a whole lot hotter faster

Summary- it’s the lesser of 2 evils. The oil pumped out of the Willow project will pretty much equal the amount that won’t get pumped out of Saudi Arabia etc- it by itself will not cause global oil consumption to go up, it will just mean a local source of oil instead of a foreign source which means more $$ for the US to spend on the projects to transition to renewables and less likelihood that Trump or whatever conservative ends up contesting the next election wins.

Trust me – what would be much worse than the Willow project going ahead is the Republicans winning the next US Presidential election.

Hi my name is Lily and I am terrified of the weather project because just think about it if you wanna have a family I might not even be able to have a great grandchildren I have a grand children you’re putting all these lives at risk and it’s bad when regular people that aren’t scientist can see it when you guys can’t I would put a stop to this at least we know how much a republic is involved and wants to stop but people be able to live the life’s like I’m just thinking about it and you might not even be able to grandchildren so I might be 40 or 50 or 60 by the time all the metric tons something at least then then what are you gonna be dead am I just now to stop living not gonna be able to reflect the rest of my life normally like how I wanted it to know life isn’t fair but this is not life making the decision it’s a person so if we cannot see that it’s bad and we’re regular people and we’re pointing out things that are bad that’s gonna do but you can’t point out one good thing oh we’re gonna get some money off of it you can’t eat money you can’t breathe money you can’t have funMoney will never make you happy and that’s what they think it does because they’re all up in the penthouse when they know things are hard gas is up to Hy’s I’ll ridiculous oh we’re not getting the money you are but we are the ones who after supper so I want somebody to stop this because they’re thousands and thousands of people millions and millions of people that agree that this is bad please stop

Just stop it people shouldn’t have been worried about this

I’m 11 years old about to be 12 and I shouldn’t be on this trying to tell people how bad it is it’s bad that I can tell dad I am scared for the rest of my life Am I friends with just everybody this is stupid and ridiculous I don’t see anybody else panicking you should be because who knows what will survive they’re just guessing how much there is there could be more he doesn’t know what he’s doing and I live in Canada and I am it’s all over the news it’s everywhere people were scared at school crying cause I don’t know if they’ll ever be able to ever see these people again

I am turning 12 this next wens-day And I was on my TikTok and saw Joe Biden accepted the willow project.

I don’t approve of the willow project because I don’t think Joe Biden knows that it will kill everything on the earth and that’s including him and if kids watch the news with there parents how do you think they feel how do you think the parents feel when there kids ask “mom, dad what is the willow project”?

The parents have to tell them because they don’t want to lie to there kids they are probably so scared and traumatized right now.

if this message doesn’t change anything then than it proves that you don’t care about other people,kids,and animals lives. And it will be scary for kids in the future because they won’t know what to expect in there life they will never be able to live a normal life like we used to.

I am almost 12 and scared I might to die.

I hate this project it’s killing earth u want money why Biden and the other ppl have already enough money why do they need more it’s also killing the animal’s

Stop The willow project! Please!! What is the cost of your actions!

Breathe everyone! Reread the reasonable comments from Mike Dundee on March 16th. This crisis is everyone’s problem.

Unless you live in a tent, don’t waste electricity on heat, or air conditioning, or your cellphones and computers, or driving/riding in a car and having fun going wherever you want to go when you want something you don’t make for yourself from natural materials at home you are part of the problem!!

Write to President Biden and express your logical concerns and ideas. But don’t just ignorantly blame him – he does care, he will listen. And he is and will try to strike a best balance.

If we were not so selfish to have had more babies than the earth can support we would not be in this position. That has been a clear fact for 50 years at least!!!

Personal Responsibility is a myth. In the grand scheme of things, you and your community don’t contribute much to climate change. The Military Industrial Complex, Oil and gas tycoons, Unsustainable agricultural industries, and uncapped mining are the true causes of climate change. They invented personal responsibility to wash their hands of the matter while we all argue about something that doesn’t matter.

whats the point in get a load of money if the worlds going to end so we will be all dead before he gets to spend it

Stop willow project its so bad.

In conclusion, the approval of the Willow Project could be a game-changer for clean energy advancement, but it must be accompanied by careful planning and consideration of potential consequences. Striking the right balance between environmental conservation and sustainable development is crucial to ensure a brighter, greener future for generations to come.

We may not be able to stop Joe Biden in time before they start the willow project oil drilling in 2027 but what we can do to help them (in a different manner), the earth and humanity is to do the following:

1 – Don’t lose hope! We can still help to save the world! Sure, some of us might see ourselves as non-heroes but I’m telling you, we can! Every little helps us and our beautiful planet we call Earth!

2 – Keep continuing to recycle and reuse stuff whether it’s stuff like plastic bottles, cardboard etc or not! I’m into crafting and I love to reuse old pieces of used rubbish. By reusing stuff, we are reducing the risk of hurting the Earth and crafting old recycled stuff into new items and/ or decorations for your home is one way to reduce the risk of hurting the natural environment! Plus, making stuff can be so much fun!

3 – Stop littering! Littering is causing many species of animals to die and we should have some respect to our litter pickers and our bin men who help the Earth by picking up and throwing away tons of rubbish and helping stop global warming from getting worse! They don’t seem to get much help so why don’t we help them? You can take a carrier bag and go around beaches, parks etc picking up rubbish and throwing it in the bins we have in our towns.

4 – To reduce the risk of air pollution, we can:

– start walking, riding our bikes and scooters to get around places instead of using public transportation and driving. – We can also turn off our electronic devices (phones, tablets, computers etc) when we’re done using them, – Start putting house plants in your house to improve the air quality, avoid smoking, forest fires, crackers and other sources of combustion, – use fans, blankets and clothing to keep warm/ cool instead of using air conditioners, – use filters for chimneys, air scrubbing tech and residential air cleaners – and lastly, start using VOC-free building materials and furnishing!

5 – Stop deforestation. If you need wood, at least replant the tree again so the trees can continue to produce oxygen for us, plants and animals. If you’ve watched The Lorax, you might understand this next part. If we continue to chop down trees, we might not be able to have any trees to help us produce oxygen, resulting in the deaths of many people, animals and plant life. Start replanting!

6 – Start helping to clean the ocean! Not only do trees and plants help us breathe, the ocean does as well. Let me explain the water cycle, the water from the ocean gets evaporated which become clouds that are then condensed which gives us rain and snow. The water from the rain then go lakes, then streams and then back to the ocean to start the cycle again which will start again and so on.

7 – if you know any other ways to somehow help the gas prices go up again and without them having to drill a hole in Alaska, please do!

Once all of these problems are solved, we’ll be back to normal, we’ll live long amazing lives and we’ll never have to worry about money or the earth ever again cuz these problems will be solved!

Thank you for reading, I hope in the future we’ll be able to live normally and happily again. And have a great day/ night!

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What is the Willow project in Alaska, and why do green activists oppose it?

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WHAT IS THE WILLOW PROJECT?

What was approved, what is its environmental impact.

WHY IS WILLOW IMPORTANT FOR ALASKA?

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The dubious economic calculus behind the Willow project

The conocophillips venture is supposed to secure energy independence and alaskan prosperity. it probably won’t achieve either..

President Joe Biden’s decision to approve the massive Willow oil project earlier this week infuriated climate advocates and environmentalists while drawing praise from Alaska politicians and oil industry figures. As the Biden administration weighed the benefits and drawbacks of the project over the past year, the latter camp argued that the project would help replace Russian oil supplies as well as deliver an economic boon for Alaskans.

The Willow project’s champions have stressed the need for the U.S. to achieve energy independence in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said last month that Willow could help “reduce our energy imports from some of the worst regimes in the world.” Mary Peltola, a Democratic representative and Alaska Native who was elected to Congress last year, said just last week that the project could “make us all safer in a world that has grown more unpredictable after Russia invaded Ukraine.”

There’s no doubt that the Willow project, led by ConocoPhillips, represents the largest new Alaskan oil project in decades. At full capacity, it could increase total oil production in the state by more than a third . But experts told Grist that the energy and economic benefits of the project are smaller and less certain than its boosters have suggested. Not only will the Willow project provide an insufficient substitute for Russian oil, but it will also deliver an ambiguous mix of costs and benefits to Alaska state coffers, which have long relied on fossil fuel revenue that is increasingly hard to come by — even with new drilling in the Arctic.

It’s not clear how much the Willow project would help replace Russian oil supplies. First there’s the matter of timing: The project will not deliver its first barrels until 2028 or 2029, and it will take even longer for all three well pads that the Biden administration approved to start producing at full capacity. It’s possible the global oil supply picture will look very different by then: Western countries may have access to new sources of oil, like recent offshore projects in places like Guyana, and where crude prices will be is anyone’s guess.

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“Alaska remains an important energy state, but it will not make or break the nation’s energy independence in the coming decades,” Phil Wight, an assistant professor of history and northern studies at the University Alaska Fairbanks, told Grist. 

Indeed, the federal Bureau of Land Management’s own analysis found that Willow’s effect on the global energy market and American energy independence will be muted. According to the Bureau’s final environmental impact statement, only around half of the oil produced from the project will replace foreign imports from tankers and pipelines, with around 30 percent replacing other oil extracted in the United States. 

Furthermore, the project’s position on the North Slope of Alaska will constrain potential demand for the new crude from refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, since it would need to travel through the Panama Canal to get there. The top domestic markets for the oil will be California, Oregon, and Washington, three states that are all making aggressive attempts to promote electric vehicles and transition away from fossil fuels. Given that some estimates suggest electric vehicles could make up the majority of U.S. passenger car sales by 2030, it’s difficult to gauge how much West Coast demand there will be for Willow’s oil over the coming decades.

Even if ConocoPhillips does find buyers on the West Coast and overseas, Willow’s overall impact on oil prices will likely be small. According to the Bureau’s model, Willow will lower global oil prices by about 20 cents a barrel for as long as it operated at peak capacity. As of late Wednesday, the Brent oil benchmark was trading at around $75 a barrel.

“It’s hard to say that this will make a dent in either prices or supply,” said Chanda Meek, a professor of political science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The project’s economic impact within Alaska isn’t clear-cut, either, despite what the state’s politicians say.

Alaska is the third most oil-reliant state in the nation , behind Wyoming and North Dakota. According to the state’s own estimate, nearly 85 percent of the state budget comes from oil revenues. Taxes on oil have funded the construction of new buildings and hospitals, and oil prices affect how much funding public schools get . Alaskans, who don’t pay an income or sales tax, also get a check every year from a pot of money called the Permanent Fund Dividend, which is funded by oil royalties. (Each check topped more than $3,000 last year, the highest amount residents have ever received.)

But this picture is changing . In 1988, Alaska’s trans-Alaska pipeline, or TAPS, was pumping a tremendous amount of petroleum from Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope to Valdez on the state’s southern coast — approximately 2 million barrels a day . Now, however, depleted reserves within Alaska and the competing fracking boom in the Southwest’s Permian Basin have made the state’s oil less relevant — Alaska is currently pumping less than a quarter of the oil it was moving in the 1980s. Alaskan oil production hit a 40-year low in 2020 . 

That’s why the Alaska congressional delegation lobbied the Biden administration long and hard to approve the Willow project. 

“Willow is finally reapproved, and we can almost literally feel Alaska’s future brightening because of it,” Murkowski said after the Biden administration announced its decision. “We are now on the cusp of creating thousands of new jobs, generating billions of dollars in new revenues, improving quality of life on the North Slope and across our state, and adding vital energy to TAPS to fuel the nation and the world.”

Experts in Alaskan economic policy say those assertions don’t hold up under scrutiny, and the Willow project is unlikely to bring back the kind of economic security oil provided the state a few decades ago.

Some estimates say Alaska could see $6 billion in revenue from the Willow project, but that payout is years away. In the short term, the state may actually see a decrease in revenue . Because the project is on federal land, the state can only collect production taxes on the project and can’t collect royalties on the oil produced there . More importantly, ConocoPhillips can use a carve-out in the state’s tax law to write off its expenses for this project against the taxes the company pays on its other oil developments in the state. One analysis , conducted by the governor’s office in 2018, forecast that the state wouldn’t see a positive economic impact from the Willow project until 2026 and that the development would result in up to $1.6 billion in negative revenue through 2025 — a 6 percent decrease to the state’s overall revenue. An analysis from this year , conducted by Alaska’s Department of Revenue, says the project wouldn’t become “cash flow positive” for the state until 2035.   

While the state would see negative revenue from the project’s first years of operation, municipalities will admittedly see more immediate positive benefits. Production taxes from the project are earmarked as grant programs for local communities, especially in the North Slope borough. The Department of Revenue’s recent analysis shows the North Slope will get $1.3 billion through 2053, and the cash will start flowing in the coming months. Communities impacted by the project will get an additional $3.7 billion over the next three decades.

Of course, the communities closest to drilling face a complex and sobering set of tradeoffs. The Alaska Native Village of Nuiqsut is going to be virtually surrounded by oil fields as a result of the approval of Willow, which threatens the subsistence hunting and fishing that has long sustained the town’s households. Nuiqsut’s mayor has been vocally opposed to the Willow project, and local tribal leaders passed a resolution opposing it in 2019.

Zooming out, Wight said, the project signals to Alaskans, oil companies, and the rest of the world that the United States believes there will still be a market for Conoco’s oil three decades from now. At that time, however, the world’s governments should be completing a transition to clean energy. Indeed, President Biden recently signed a law that puts the nation on track to slash emissions 50 percent by 2030. How can that be the same world that needs 600 million new barrels of oil from Willow?

“We have the policy to build a renewable energy future,” Wight told Grist. “It’s much less clear how a managed decline of fossil fuels is going to happen.”

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Biden approves Willow oil project in Alaska despite campaign pledge

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The Willow Project: Details, Impacts, and What You Can Do To Help

Photo by ConocoPhillips on CNN

An Explanation, Details, and Impacts

The Willow Project. The name might be familiar, as news about the Willow Project and its recent approval have been a prominent topic of discussion in the news lately; but what is actually happening and what are some effects that the project’s installation might have on the environment? It all dates back to 2016, when oil was discovered in the Willow prospect area of Alpine, Alaska. This location is home to the National Petroleum Reserve in the Plain of North Slope Alaska and is also home to a variety of Arctic wildlife and Native American communities. The Willow Project was initiated by the multinational corporation ConocoPhillips which proposed a massive oil and gas drilling project that will be the largest oil extraction put forward on federal lands to date. It is estimated that in the next 30 or so years, approximately 250 metric tons of CO 2 will be emitted into the atmosphere due to this plan.

Furthermore, if the Willow Project produces the expected amount of oil over a 30 year time period, it is estimated that the consumption of that oil would release the equivalent of 277 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The project could also produce up to 600 million barrels of oil, which would severely impact the Arctic wildlife and Native American communities in this region. For example, the Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd is an imperative source of food for the Nuiqsut community which resides nearby. Many in the community have expressed concern on how the oil and gas extraction have led to sick fish, malnourished animals used for food (such as caribou), and an unhealthy, borderline toxic air quality.  

These adverse effects produce a strong risk of damage to the complex local tundra ecosystem and shockingly, the release of these greenhouse gasses could amount to the estimated total amount of annual emissions from half a million homes. These drawbacks have not gone unnoticed; on March 14, 2023, the EarthJustice organization filed a lawsuit on behalf of conservation groups to stop the Willow Project. Despite these efforts, the Willow Project has been approved and ConocoPhillips has begun to work their plan into action. 

 So, what is the ConocoPhillips corporation and what is its background? This corporation has a complicated history, including many controversial legal settlements. In May of 2019, ConocoPhillips settled a lawsuit with homeowners in northwestern Oklahoma City who accused the company of polluting their soil and water to such a degree that no vegetation would grow; and, in May of 2017, ConocoPhillips agreed to a $39 million settlement to resolve complaints brought forward by the State of New Jersey over groundwater contamination. Most famously, they were one of the 50 companies named in a 2007 lawsuit filed against manufactures, distributors, and other industrial users of the gasoline additive and proven carcinogen MTBE, found in groundwater at locations throughout New Jersey. 

Photo by CBS News on CBS

What Can We Do?

The Willow Project is undoubtedly controversial, and has drawn both environmental and political debate since news of the project’s potential approval broke earlier this year. Discussions regarding the harmful effects that the Willow Project could potentially have on the environment have proved to be a key argument against its approval. Although the Willow Project has since been approved, there are still several actions that we can take both in our own communities and nationwide in order to stop work on the project from taking place. 

Take legislative action. Writing a letter to your local government representative, state legislation officials, and even the White House is an important step that you can take to demonstrate climate activism and work toward stopping the Willow Project in its entirety. While one letter may not seem to amount to much, if many individuals contribute to this common cause, it would make an immense difference.

Spread awareness. Whether it be through a social media post or sharing knowledge with your peers, spreading awareness is vital in order for every individual to understand what the Willow Project is and the effects that it could have on the environment. The more people know about the Willow Project and the ecological consequences that will follow, the greater the chance that important legislation will be enacted to prevent the project from taking place in Alaska. Together, we can make a difference. 

Volunteer with environmental protection groups. Today, there are several environmental protection organizations working to inform and act on the Willow Project. EarthJustice ( https://earthjustice.org/ ), Protect Our Winters ( https://protectourwinters.org/ ), and Defenders of Wildlife ( https://defenders.org/ ) are just a few of the organizations that are working to collect information about the Willow Project and work to combat its installation. Contacting and volunteering with an environmental advocacy group, such as the three listed above, can help you to get involved with an important cause firsthand. 

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_project#:~:text=The%20Willow%20project%20is%20an,total%20of%20250%20oil%20wells .
• https://protectourwinters.org/campaign/willow/?gad=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlumhBhClARIsABO6p-xbpv92zlGBsaXuYgtM2CSt6HHkCa8VfB8En92ki4cmTZ2qS9c2yfAaAkx8EALw_wcB
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConocoPhillips
• https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/03/16/willow-project-and-race-to-pump-last-barrel-of-oil-pub-89298#:~:text=If%20Willow%20produces%20as%20much,carbon%20dioxide%20into%20the%20atmosphere .
• https://www.theindigenousfoundation.org/articles/the-willow-project-and-its-impacts-on-indigenous-communities
• https://en.as.com/latest_news/what-can-you-do-to-stop-the-controversial-willow-project-n/
• https://www.nrdc.org/stories/why-willow-project-bad-idea  
• https://www.wilderness.org/articles/blog/7-ways-oil-and-gas-drilling-bad-environment

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• April 2023 Issue

The Great Willow Project Saga: Cover Story

March 13th, 2023 marked the Biden Administration’s final approval of the Willow Project. Mired in controversy, millions sent letters of protest and signed online petitions to fight the approval. And still, it came. Some may criticize this sudden about-face from an administration that has been more in line with a “green” philosophy, and others may praise the easing of negative pressure on oil and gas projects. 

In any case, with the approval, we just may be ushering in a new era of energy transition that even President Biden has the foresight to deem necessary. 

What is the Willow Project?

The Willow Project is an oil exploration and drilling venture located in the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska’s (NPR-A) North Slope, which is on property owned by the federal government. The project itself is owned and operated by Houston-based ConocoPhillips, which holds long-term oil and gas leases in the region and has been in the planning/approval stages for decades. 

This particular shale play is projected to produce upwards of 180,000 barrels of oil per day, reports ConocoPhillips, who also estimates delivering between $8 billion to $17 billion in new revenue for the federal government and the state of Alaska.

Since construction shovels have been held back for so long, the new venture will likely take years to materialize as the necessary infrastructure is put in place. Still, ConocoPhillips has prepared for this moment by having key contractors virtually on stand-by and now “expects to immediately initiate gravel road construction activities”, per a company statement. 

However, all of this may be completely moot as environmental groups have swiftly sought legal recourse, likely in the form of injunctions, which would delay the project even further. Even so, an exciting race between ConocoPhillips contractors, environmental groups, and the Alaska winter is underway.  

Why is the Willow Project So Controversial?

The Willow Project was initially approved by President Trump back in 2020, but a federal judge later pulled the plug due to environmental concerns. ConocoPhillips was set to construct five drill pads (eventually lowered to three), as well as necessary infrastructure like roads, pipelines, and processing facilities. 

ConocoPhillips contractors need the winter to work on the ice roads crucial for logistics in the demanding climate. In Alaska, the winter season generally runs until April, says the National Park Service . That doesn’t leave much time to put shovels in the ground.

If environmental groups are successful in obtaining an injunction, they will have a court order prohibiting ConocoPhillips from beginning or continuing their construction activities. Such a delay could add another year to the long wait for Willow to begin.

The Willow Project has indeed been the subject of much controversy for years now, with environmental groups and some indigenous communities vociferously opposed to the project. Environmental groups argue that the project would harm the environment and that it would contribute to climate change. Indigenous communities are concerned about the impact of the project on their health, well-being, and the local environment. 

A Change.org petition challenging the administration’s approval of the Willow Project has to date garnered upwards of 5,000,000 signatures .

The Willow Project has also been the subject of legal challenges. In 2021, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska ruled that the Trump Administration’s environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was lacking and pulled the project’s permits. 

Two years later, on March 12th, 2023, the Biden administration announced limiting future industrial development in the NPR-A. The next day, on March 13, 2023, the Biden administration’s Interior Department issued a press release announcing their approval of the Willow Project in the NPR-A through a Record of Decision. The statement includes several caveats demonstrating how the project will be performed in a more environmentally responsible manner. 

Even so, days after the approval, a coalition of environmental groups filed different lawsuits against the Biden administration challenging the action. 

Friends of the Earth, Center for Biological Diversity, and Greenpeace are all listed as plaintiffs in Alaska federal case number 20-308, Center for Biological Diversity et al v. Bureau of Land Management et al. 

These groups are alleging the U.S. Interior Department failed to adequately address all of the environmental concerns regarding emissions, nor did the Department of Fish and Wildlife provide adequate mitigation for the potential impact on wildlife.

How the Interior Department Frames the Decision

The interior department’s march 13 press release attempts to provide as little positivity to the project’s approval as possible, even while highlighting environmental and societal benefits. even the title seems to begrudgingly accept the department’s own decision—.

Interior Department Substantially Reduces Scope of Willow Project

Drill Pads Reduced by 40%; ConocoPhillips to Relinquish Rights to 68,000 Acres of Existing Leases

Bear in mind, this release is announcing the project’s approval. “The Department is substantially reducing the size of the project by denying two of the five drill sites proposed,” the DOI release starts. “[ConocoPhillips] will also relinquish rights to approximately 68,000 acres of its existing leases in the NPR-A.” 

The DOI concludes their scaled-back version of the Willow Creek approval “reduces potential impacts to caribou migration and subsistence users”. This is accomplished by creating a buffer between the oil and gas project and the calving grounds and migratory routes for the Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd, which the DOI reports as “an important subsistence resource for nearby Alaska Native communities.” 

In a study cited by the Audubon Society of Alaska, the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd and the Central Arctic Herd were compared for their seasonal proximity to oil and gas infrastructure. The environmental study found some herds moved and some stayed in close proximity to the new infrastructure; therefore, they state “ it’s impossible to say for certain whether the Central Arctic Herd shifted because of oil and gas infrastructure .” 

Not knowing the consequences of a particular action make it hard to mitigate against, and yet, the DOI reports with certainty that their reductions will ensure less impact on the caribou herds. In sum and substance, the DOI is making conclusions despite the absence of conclusive studies with which to justify such a route is even beneficial.

Still, justify their position they did. The DOI stated that the Biden administration’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was the government entity put in charge of addressing the environmental shortcomings cited by the Alaska federal judge who initially pulled the project. 

In February 2023, the BLM published its final environmental impact statement which identified the preferred alternative for the project and called for the removal of only one of the five proposed drill pads, per the DOI March 13 press release. The DOI’s Record of Decision, therefore, ignored the BLM’s recommendation and proceeded with removing two of the proposed drill pads from the Willow Project Master Plan.

The BLM consulted with the Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, the North Slope Borough, the Environmental Protection Agency, and a slew of other internal and external stakeholders as mandated by NEPA. Interestingly, several of these parties are named as defendants in the federal suit brought by the various environmental groups. 

After justifying their course of action, i.e. approving Willow Creek, the author of the Department of the Interior press release ties in this decision with the Biden administration’s clear stance on “clean energy manufacturing” (in case there was confusion over them approving an oil and gas exploration and drilling project in Alaska). “The Biden-Harris administration continues to deliver on the most aggressive climate agenda in American history” as they seek “climate resilience and environmental justice.”  

Wanting to define what environmental justice looks like, we can reach back to Biden’s colossal list of priorities presented at this year’s COP27. Part of the President’s Inflation Reduction Act was also launching a “ Climate Gender Equity Fund ”. The initiative, according to the U.S. Department of State, exists to address “the disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis on women and girls.” To that end, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is pledging more than $6 million to fund “gender-equitable climate action.” 

While oil exploration and drilling in Alaska and climate/gender equity may seem to be a bit of a hodgepodge, they and thousands of other initiatives are all included in Biden’s long list of “priorities” over his remaining time in office.

ConocoPhillips Claps Back 

ConocoPhillips also had a chance to clap back at detractors, although the tone of their press release certainly turned down the negativity. “Willow fits within the Biden Administration’s priorities on environmental and social justice, facilitating the energy transition and enhancing our energy security, all while creating good union jobs and providing benefits to Alaska Native communities,” CEO Ryan Lance said in a statement posted to the corporate site.

The release goes on to say, “After nearly five years of rigorous regulatory and environmental review, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process is complete. Willow is designed to support and coexist with subsistence activities with many mitigation measures built into the project design.” 

Willow also “has the potential to create over 2,500 construction jobs and approximately 300 long-term jobs”, while also providing other ancillary economic benefits to 10,000 permanent residents who call the North Slope Borough Communities home. 

Pros and Cons of the Willow Project

Seeing both sides of the argument is key to breaking the endless tit for tat political gridlock, which has been the modus operandi in Washington for some time. During CERAWeek 2023, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said of the Willow Project, “I support it. It’s a viable project” and that it’s important to produce “security for our nation and a return on investment.” 

In a fiery Senate speech, Republican Dan Sullivan of Alaska criticized the environmental groups opposing Willow Project for acting as “ eco-colonialists ” and subverting the voice and interests of the Alaska native people. Senator Sullivan cited the “bipartisan support of the Alaska Legislature and the overwhelming support of Alaska Native communities and labor unions” and argued that “the Willow Project is exactly the kind of project President Biden and his team should support because it aligns so strongly with many of the stated priorities of the Biden administration.”

And yet, any further delay or interference may leave the project economically unviable for ConocoPhillips. This is why a simple cost-benefit analysis may be all it takes to reach your conclusions. 

Breezing through pros and cons, we’re left with the following:

• Jobs and economic benefits . The project will necessitate thousands of jobs, many of which will depend on drawing from the local labor force. This can create hundreds of direct and ancillary positions, as well as create a boost for the local economy. The project is also expected to bring in billions in tax revenue for the state and federal governments.
• Energy security . The project would help to increase Alaska and the United States’ energy security by utilizing an untapped source of oil and gas and help replenish our dangerously depleted Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
• Environmental benefits . Both sides of the argument are saying the Willow Project is set to be conducted in an environmentally responsible manner, using state-of-the-art technology to minimize its impact on the environment. 
• Improved infrastructure . The project would involve the construction of new roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure, which would improve access to the area, which could benefit the local and national economies.
• Support for indigenous communities . Willow Project would provide economic support and cultural-sensitivity for indigenous communities in the area. ConocoPhillips and the federal government have actively sought these communities’ ongoing participation in the initial phases of the project. The project also promised to “coexist with subsistence activities” to reduce cultural impact.

However, it is important to note that the Willow Project also has the potential to deliver a few negative impacts, including:

• Environmental damage . The project involves the construction of roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure, through an absolutely pristine wildlife habitat. Any form of construction is going to damage/disrupt local flora and fauna. 
• Air and water pollution . While it may be minimal, the project would also generate air and water pollution. A remote drilling facility needs a lot of resources to be built and operate in a state as harsh as Alaska. Diesel fuel, chemicals, wastewater, trash, and other contaminants pose environmental risks if not properly disposed of.

The Willow Project is undoubtedly a complex issue with both positive and negative implications. At least with decades of scrutiny, the project has mountains of research from which positive and negative impacts can be studied en masse. 

Is Biden’s Green Energy Focus in Jeopardy?

Some environmental groups believe that President Biden’s green energy focus has been tainted by his approval of the Willow Project. They argue that the project is a contradiction to Biden’s commitment to combating climate change and that it will harm the environment.

However, the Biden administration argues that the Willow Project is a necessary compromise. At a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Biden remarked off-cuff that he’d been counseled that he would lose in court should he challenge the Willow Project. 

In the President’s eyes, such an action would result in losing out on conserving “ significant amounts of Alaska sea and land forever .” So while it may not be perfect, at least there’s a consensus in the Biden administration that this is the best course—echoing the recommendation of the Bureau of Land Management. 

The canceling of the Keystone XL Pipeline project on day one in office, high profile snubs of oil and gas execs, vilification by Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, jabs from White House Press Secretary Jean-Pierre—the Administration has heretofore been unabashedly heavy handed in voicing its disdain for oil and gas efforts, virtually in any form. Which is why the Willow Project approval seems at odds with the stance they’ve held for years.

In fact, the approval of the Willow Project seems far more in line with Biden’s off-script gaffe. This was evident during a recent State of the Union address when he candidly admitted “ We’re going to need oil for at least another decade….and beyond that. ” In perhaps the rarest displays of solidarity seen in recent years, the remark drew a rousing applause from both sides of the aisle.

Perhaps Biden afterall sees the criticality that oil and gas still play as our society begins a transition towards renewables. Energy security requires recognizing critical needs and putting strategies in place that mitigate the risk to the greatest extent possible. The Willow Project may yet prove to be the mitigation strategy which presents the best compromise to both sides of the political aisle.

The Future of the Willow Project

Even with DOI approval and wading through years of regulatory quagmire, the future of the Willow Project remains uncertain. The project is facing significant challenges, both legal and with regards to public sentiment. Environment, social, and governance (ESG) has never been a hotter topic in corporate boardrooms as greener-minded investors demand more from companies in this arena. 

It is possible that, despite years of drawbacks, the Willow project will be able to overcome these challenges and move forward. However, it is equally possible that the project will be stopped or delayed by the courts once more and ConocoPhillips is forced to seek “greener” pastures wherever economically viable projects present themselves.

Get the Facts and Reach Your Own Conclusions 

At Shale Magazine, we dig deep into the facts behind the latest news and events affecting energy. We never shy away from hot-topic issues like the Willow Project because we believe our readers deserve all the facts and none of the fluff. To go further into the wide world of energy reform, check out our past issues . You can also get fresh insights from the movers and shakers in this fast-paced industry with our award-winning podcast, In the Oil Patch . 

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