WASHINGTON — In one of the most important climate decisions of his administration, President Biden is planning to green-light a massive $8 billion oil drilling project in Alaska’s North Slope, according to a person familiar with the decision.
Alaska lawmakers and oil executives have put intense pressure on the White House to approve the project, citing President Biden’s call for the industry to increase output amid fluctuating gas prices caused by the conflict. Russia’s war against Ukraine.
But the oil drilling proposal has also provoked young voters and climate activists, many of whom helped elect Biden and who would see the decision as a betrayal of the president’s promises. that he would pivot the nation away from fossil fuels.
The approval of the largest proposed oil project in the country would mark a turning point in the administration’s approach to fossil fuel development. Courts and Congress forced Mr. Biden to drop his campaign pledge to “drill no more on federal lands, stop” and sign a limited number of oil and gas leases. The Willow project will be one of the few oil developments that Biden has freely approved without a court or congressional authorization.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who supports the project, said Friday night that she was not informed of the decision. “We haven’t celebrated, not with this White House,” she said.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, dismissed the idea that a final decision had been made.
ConocoPhillips intends to build the Willow project inside the National Petroleum Reserve, a 23 million-acre site 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The reserve, with no roads, is the country’s largest piece of pristine land.
The Biden Administration’s Environmental Agenda
The administration has slightly reduced the number of drilling sites the company has requested, to three from five. However, Willow will be the largest newly developed oil field in the United States, expected to pump out 600 million barrels of crude over the next 30 years.
A federal assessment found that burning that oil could release nearly 280 million tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Environmental activists, who have called the project a “carbon bomb” have argued that the project will deepen America’s reliance on oil and gas at a time when the International Energy Agency says the Countries must stop licensing such projects to avert the most catastrophic effects of climate change.
News of the government’s intention to approve the Willow project was first reported by Bloomberg. The decision is one of the toughest energy issues facing the Biden administration.
Kevin Book, chief executive officer of Clearview Energy Partners, a Washington-based research firm, said approving Willow would be a pragmatic decision. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, many countries have stopped or reduced their purchases of Russian gas and oil to cut off Moscow’s revenue. Those cuts have reshaped energy markets, created shortages in Europe, and spurred the United States to fill the void by producing more oil and gas.
“The war is not over yet,” said Mr. Book. “There is still a huge potential risk to supply, and it won’t end even if war breaks out.”
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He also argued that the emissions associated with the burning of drilling oil from the Willow project would not be eliminated if Mr. Biden rejected the project, but simply generated elsewhere.
Administration officials are promoting the Willow project though “considerable concern“ on emissions, dangerous to freshwater resources and migratory animals. The government regulates conditions including wildlife protection and reducing the length of gravel and ice tracks, pipelines and the length of runways to support drilling.
Alaska’s congressional delegation, unanimously in favor of Willow, met with Mr. Biden last week. Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican, said he gave the president a bipartisan resolution supporting the project recently passed by the Alaska Legislature.
Speaking in Houston at a gathering of oil executives this week, Mr. Sullivan said Biden’s decision on Willow was a test of whether the administration was serious about energy security.
Other advocates, including the congressional delegation, labor unions, the construction industry and some residents of North Slope, have argued that the project will create about 2,500 jobs and generate up to $2,500 in revenue. $17 billion to the federal government.
At a recent meeting convened by Ms. Murkowski, Taqulik Hepa, director of North Slope Borough’s Wildlife Management Department, said that the city’s services in her community depend on taxes from the infrastructure. petroleum layer.
Hepa said the county and its residents are “deeply aware of the need to strike a balance between responsible oil development and the self-sufficient lifestyle that has sustained us.”
Opponents of the environmental project say it is puzzling that a president who wants to confront climate change could approve the Willow project. The administration estimates oil-related emissions will total about 9.2 million tonnes of carbon pollution each year – the equivalent of adding nearly two million cars to the road each year.
Activists this month staged a rally in the rain outside the White House and rallied on Tik Tok and other social media against the project with the hashtag ##StopWillow, used used hundreds of millions of times. ONE proposal “Say no to the Willow project” on Change.org has over three million signatures and continues to grow.
Karlin Itchoak, senior regional director for Alaska at The Wilderness Society, an environmental group, said approving Willow would be “a horrible, science-defying move” and hoped the administration would change course. Go.
“Let us be clear: Willow has not been approved yet and it is not an acceptable project,” Itchoak said. “The Biden administration must do the right thing and choose the alternative of inaction in its decision to remove this destructive proposal.”
Among the most staunch opponents of the project are members of the community closest to it. Rosemary Ahtuanguruak, mayor of Nuiqsut, an Inupiat community about 35 miles from the Willow site, said more oil and gas development in the area was an existential threat to her community of about 500 residents.
About half of the reserve is not licensed for oil and gas leases and is where residents fish, hunt reindeer, seals and other animals for food consumption.
In a letter this week to Deb Haaland, the Home Secretary, who championed the Willow project while she was serving in Parliament, Ahtuanguruak said the project’s recent environmental assessments had failed fully consider the impact on hunting for a living and other needs of the local community.
The federal agency, she wrote, “didn’t consider the harm this project would cause from the perspective of how we are who we are — how to ensure that we can maintain our culture, tradition and the ability to continue going out across its lands and water.”
Davenport coral Katie Rogers And Zolan Kanno-Youngs contribution report.
