Biden Admin Approves ConocoPhillips 30-Year Willow Oil Drilling Project in Alaska
The Department of Interior discovered “the big new project would create annual emissions that equate to less than 1 percent of total U.S. annual emissions in 2019.”
President Joe Biden’s administration approved ConocoPhillips’ $8 billion drilling project in Alaska.
From the Anchorage Daily News:
ConocoPhillips’ $8 billion Willow prospect in the Indiana-size reserve is expected to be one of the largest oil fields developed in Alaska in decades. It would produce oil for three decades, including 180,000 barrels of oil daily at its peak.
The administration approved three drill sites, which ConocoPhillips has said is economically viable. The approval is a reduction of the five drill sites that ConocoPhillips had originally sought, though the company said Monday that it’s pleased with the approval.
The White House’s decision bucked intense pressure from environmental groups, which have called the project a “carbon bomb” and said it contradicts President Joe Biden’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.
The deal also forced ConocoPhillips to turn over 68,000 acres.
I guess to appease environmentalists, the administration promised to add “environmental protections to limit future oil development in several areas of the National Petroleum reserve-Alaska.”
The Department of Interior discovered “the big new project would create annual emissions that equate to less than 1 percent of total U.S. annual emissions in 2019.”
But environmentalists still want to fight the administration:
”We regret that (the protections) were immediately followed by the profoundly disappointing decision to approve the Willow project, which will accelerate climate change and harm local Indigenous communities,” said Karlin Itchoak of The Wilderness Society. ”We will continue to fight this project with all means at our disposal.”
Kristen Miller, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said her organization will continue to resist the project. ”We will keep fighting the Willow project and future projects like it. And we call on the administration to change the way we manage all our nation’s public lands for climate, starting with America’s Arctic.”
President Biden officially approved the Willow Project.
Instead of sticking to his own climate goals and listening to the millions of young people who carried the party for the last three election cycles, @POTUS is letting the fossil fuel industry have their way. pic.twitter.com/45mjJflMYK
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) March 13, 2023
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Comments
Give the administration one cheer for not being so completely stupid as to believe its own bullshit.
I wonder how much money Conoco-Phillips had to spread around DC in order to get this? And how long the current administration will take before they pull a Lucy and go “Whoops! Spoke too soon. Here’s a giant list of requirements you need to complete to our exacting and impossible specifications before you can bring one truck into this area.”
Yup. The actual drilling will be delayed, and delayed, and delayed until any day now. Meanwhile, their 68,000 acres are gone and will never come back.
Not until they actually start DRILLING, which won’t happen for years.
Nothing exists yet. Heck, the linked story says that they’re going to immediately….. start building gravel roads to START development. Any actual drilling is going to be months, if not years, away.
And I absolutely 100% guarantee some idiot far left judge is going to slap an injunction on them pronto and declare they’re not allowed to drill for years while the woke DoJ does nothing about it, until finally they either abandon the project or get a ruling years down the road to actually let them continue.
I’ve seen this BS song and dance too many times before.
Shock of al shocks!! So something else is up.
Oversight and regulations for drilling in the high Arctic are tight. You are correct that this will be challenged for the same recurring and proven incorrect accusations. Same as with ANWR… postage stamp sites in a vast sea of nothingness. Oh… “the caribou herds will be damaged ans the birds will die”… sorry they could care less and many congregate around the pipelines. The development template is well honed now. The season is short and it will take years to come on line. Yep…pulling a Lucy is likely. When they OK’ed the original TAP, the environmentals stopped it and crushed a lot of businesses in Alaska. It finally got built but that first stoppage was brutal.
Milhouse you don’t understand what just happened …..ALL other oil drilling in the huge and oil rich petroleum reserve area must cease. Along with other areas in and around Alaska..,it’s not a park or a land monument.., it’s a massive oil reserve and it all stops except in that small Willow area. This isn’t the Biden administration realizing they are idiots… that will never happen… it’s them tripling down and the first step in shutting down 100% of oil drilling in Alaska.
Too little, too late. At least Biden will have plausible deniability when the Green deals are past due (e.g . SVB, excess rail traffic, cold-cold homes, progressive prices).
If you have a moment, use Google maps and look at the satellite view of the Willow site.
About 25 miles east is Alpine Alaska. Today at 2pm local it is -23.
It’s always good to know the area people are discussing. IMHO
Only -23? Balmy. Gets a little nippier at -40 or more. Working outside on the slope burns about 6000 calories a day. At least the days are getting longer, although DST drops one right back into darkness in the morning…NO ONE likes that in Alaska and as for DST… good grief…. how does one save daylight when you have 24 hours of it?
As for living up there…. it was amazing with the Native Claims Settlement Act of 1972 just now many natives declared aboriginal claims to 17D2 lands up there that had oil or mineral potential. Their ancestors were so forward thinking.
Most likely they will only use this to spread misinformation that it proves they are pro-oil.
So dumb that US does not use its energy strength to reign in bad actors that use profits to prop themselves up.
Already talk of legal challenges….FJoe Biden is an Indian giver
Alaska used to derive so much income from drilling that they had a budget surplus every year. And, every citizen received a check from the State.
The Only chance that ConocoPhillips has to complete thsi project and bring it into production is that Trump or Desantis are sitting in the White House come January 20, 2025. Meanwhile, the Obiden JUnta has pocketed whatever gratuities were handed out along with the 69,000 acres.