Interior department report recommends scaled-back version of ConocoPhillips\u2019 Willow project despite Biden campaign pledge<\/p>\n
The Biden administration has advanced a $8bn drilling project on Alaska\u2019s north slope. The ConocoPhillips Willow project, which would be one of the largest oil and gas developments on federal territory, has drawn fierce opposition from environmentalists, who say its approval runs counter to the president\u2019s ambitious climate goals.
\nAn environmental assessment released by the interior department on Wednesday recommends a scaled-back version of the project ConocoPhillips originally proposed, and would produce about 600m barrels of oil over 30 years, with a peak of 180,000 barrels of crude oil a day.
\nEnvironmental groups and the Native village of Nuiqsut, which would be most affected by the project in the northernmost stretch of Alaska, have opposed the project, which they say would mark the end of a way of life for communities in the rapidly warming Arctic. It would also exacerbate air pollution problems in a region where oil and gas extraction projects are already contributing to elevated rates of asthma and other health conditions.
\n\u201cWillow is a carbon bomb that cannot be allowed to explode in the Arctic,\u201d said Karlin Nageak Itchoak, senior regional director at the non-profit Wilderness Society. Already, the Arctic has been warming almost four times faster than the rest of the world.
\n\u201cOur Native villages are eroding into the sea, thawing permafrost is making infrastructure insecure, and food sources are disappearing,\u201d Itchoak said. \u201cAnd this project would just exacerbate and speed up the climate crisis in the Arctic.\u201d
\nThe environmental review is a final step toward approval and comes after a years-long dispute between ConocoPhillips and the government over the corporation\u2019s right to drill on federal territory in the Arctic. Willow would be located inside the 23m-acre (93m-hectare) National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, which is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States.
\nAfter the project was first approved by the Trump administration, a federal judge reversed the decision, ruling that the environmental review was flawed.
\nThis latest review released by the Bureau of Land Management suggests that a scaled-down Willow project would minimize the impact on vulnerable species including polar bears, yellow-billed loons and caribou, while remaining in line with the minimum ConocoPhillips has said it needs to drill to make the project profitable.
\nBut the interior department did leave open the possibility of further scaling back or rejecting the project, with a final decision expected in a month.
\nOfficials have \u201csubstantial concerns\u201d about even the scaled-back plan\u2019s impact on wildlife and Alaska Native communities, the department noted in a separate statement.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s 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,\u201d said Kristen Monsell, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. \u201cWe\u2019ll keep fighting it until it\u2019s scrapped.\u201d
\nBiden had promised during his election campaign to end federal oil and gas drilling, and transition toward renewable energy. But as oil prices rise as a consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the president has faced further pressure to increase drilling.
\nAlaska\u2019s two Republican senators and the state\u2019s sole congressional representative, a Democrat, have urged the administration to approve the project, which the say would boost the state\u2019s economy. Some Alaska Native tribal governments organizations, including the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope and the Alaska Federation of Natives, have supported the project for similar reasons.
\nBut environmental groups and tribes including those in Nuiqsut have countered that any jobs and money the project brings in the short term will be negated by the environmental devastation it will cause in the long run.
\nAlready, Arctic communities are at the front line of global climate chaos. In December, the city of Utqiagvik, at Alaska\u2019s northern edge, reached its warmest temperature ever observed. Elsewhere in Alaska, a record-breaking 2022 wildfire season and coastal flooding and powerful storms displaced communities along the western coast.
\nIncreased oil and gas extraction in the region has already affected caribou populations, which several communities the area hunt for subsistence.
\n\u201cThis project could be a turning point for not just Alaska and the Arctic, but for the entire world,\u201d said Siqi\u00f1iq Maupin, director for the Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic, a group that opposes Willow. \u201cIt is going to possibly bring us to a place where we can come back from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Theguardian<\/p>\n
Tags\uff1aAlaska, oil drilling, USA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Interior department report recommends scaled-back version of ConocoPhillips\u2019 Willow project despite Biden campaign pledge The Biden administration has advanced a $8bn drilling project on Alaska\u2019s north slope. The ConocoPhillips Willow project, which would be one of the largest oil and gas developments on federal territory, has drawn fierce opposition from environmentalists, who say its approval […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1155],"tags":[1268,2173],"class_list":["post-5057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-government","tag-outrage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5059,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5057\/revisions\/5059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}