Kenya Barcus
On March 13th, 2023, the Biden Administration gave their approval to commence the very controversial oil drilling operations known as the Willow Project. Claiming himself as the first “Climate President”, Biden is not living up to those claims by approving such an environmentally damaging operation. When running for president in 2020, he pledged to stop all drilling on federal lands, but this Willow Project will contradict those plans. The environmental repercussions of this drilling will set the United States further back from their goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030.
What is the Willow Project?
The Willow Project is an extensive oil drilling project proposed by the company ConocoPhillips, to capitalize on the immense amount of oil in the northern region of Alaska throughout the next 30 years. It would be located inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a 23-million-acre area on the state’s North Slope that is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States.
It is estimated that there is 600 million barrels of oil in this region. ConocoPhillips first proposed this idea back in 2017. ConocoPhillips is one of the world’s leading exploration and production companies based on both production and reserves, with a globally diversified asset portfolio. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, ConocoPhillips had operations and activities in 13 countries, $94 billion of total assets and approximately 9,500 employees at Dec. 31, 2022.
The benefits
The approval of this project will highly benefit ConocoPhillips and will be economically beneficial to Alaska as a whole. Construction will bring in an estimated 2,000 jobs, and once production commences, there should be about 300 permanent jobs available.
According to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Willow could generate between $8 and $17 billion in new revenue for the federal government, the State of Alaska, the North Slope Borough, and communities in and around NPR-A.
The environmental harm
By the administration’s own estimates, the project would generate enough oil to release 9.2 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon pollution a year. That is equivalent to adding 2 million gas-powered cars to the roads. Willow would emit more climate pollution annually than more than 99.7% of all single point sources in the country. Over the 30 years that this project will be in operation, it is estimated that 287 million tons of carbon emissions plus other greenhouse gases would be emitted. The impact this would have on Artic wildlife would be catastrophic. Habitats and water would be contaminated with toxic chemicals and oil that would make living conditions for Arctic wildlife inhospitable.
“The science is clear. We cannot afford any new oil or gas projects if we are going to avoid climate catastrophe. Approving what would be the largest oil extraction project on federal lands is incredibly hypocritical from President Biden who in his State of the Union called the climate crisis an existential threat,” said Natalie Mebane, climate director for Greenpeace USA.
The fight for change
Earthjustice, an environmental law group, is expected to file a complaint against the project soon and will likely seek an injunction to try to block the project from going forward. If environmental groups secure an injunction before then to stop or delay the project, it could delay construction for at least a year.
BREAKING: We’re going to court. The Biden Administration approved the Willow oil project without adequately assessing its climate impacts. It could’ve properly weighed its options to limit the impact. It could’ve said no. It didn’t. And now, we are filing a lawsuit to stop it. https://t.co/5Eh8h4aRe3
— Earthjustice (@Earthjustice) March 15, 2023
Since the project needs to be fully constructed before the oil can be produced, it could take years for the oil pumped out of Willow to reach the market. Construction should not commence until sometime in April, since the winter weather is ideal for the start of construction. It needs the ice roads to be able to build the oil projects infrastructure, pipelines, processing facility, and hundreds of miles of roads.
