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.”
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