[ "Greenlighting the Willow Project would banish President
Biden’s climate legacy to one of irreparable and downright shameful
environmental destruction," said a campaigner with Friends of the
Earth.]
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‘MASSIVE CLIMATE DISASTER’: GROUPS DEMAND BIDEN REVERSE COURSE ON
WILLOW PROJECT  
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Jake Johnson
February 1, 2023
Common Dreams
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_ "Greenlighting the Willow Project would banish President Biden’s
climate legacy to one of irreparable and downright shameful
environmental destruction," said a campaigner with Friends of the
Earth. _

Caribou along the Trans-Alaska pipeline in the Arctic, North Slope,
Alaska., Newscom

 

The Biden administration's Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday
published an environmental assessment that recommends partial approval
of a major drilling project on Alaska's North Slope, prompting a
flurry of calls for the Interior Department to reject the plan
outright and prevent any additional fossil fuel extraction in the
region.

"Greenlighting the Willow project would banish President Biden's
climate legacy to one of irreparable and downright shameful
environmental destruction," said
[[link removed]] Raena
Garcia, fossil fuels and lands campaigner for Friends of the Earth.
"Big Oil's exploitation of the rapidly warming Arctic has already
thrust local communities onto the frontlines of the climate crisis,
jeopardizing public health and polluting critical ecosystems."

Kristen Miller, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League,
implored Biden to "reverse course on this massive climate disaster."

"Our window to act is rapidly closing to avert catastrophic climate
change," Miller added, "and this plan only takes us one giant step
closer to the edge."

The BLM's newly released supplemental environmental impact statement
(SEIS) suggests a "preferred alternative" to the originally planned
Willow Project, a ConocoPhillips initiative
[[link removed]] that has
been the subject of years of court battles
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environmentalists and the federal government under the Trump and Biden
administrations.

The SEIS recommends the approval of three drilling locations instead
of the original five and proposes limiting pipeline mileage.
ConocoPhillips executives have said
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any fewer than three drilling sites would make the project unviable as
it would prevent Willow from turning a profit for the company.

The Biden administration's assessment acknowledges
[[link removed]] that
"any North Slope oil and gas development, including the Willow [Master
Development Plan], would likely incur spills" even if significant
preventative measures are taken.

Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic warned in a statement
[[link removed]] that
"if approved, this project would be the largest on public lands and
would set back our national climate goals tremendously."

"Willow would lock us into extraction for another 30 years and could
potentially be the catalyst for future oil expansion in the Arctic,"
the grassroots group said. "In 2021, a federal judge rejected the
Interior Department's 2020 approvals of Willow for lack of adequate
consideration of the impact of the surrounding environment. Regardless
of the precautions put in place, there is no denying that fossil fuels
are single-handedly the most damaging contributor to the global
climate emergency, especially the Arctic."

"The Interior Department must reject the Willow proposal and live up
to this administration's promises to take meaningful climate action
and protect biodiversity by leveraging natural climate solutions," the
group added. "The only reasonable solution to the climate emergency is
to deny new fossil fuel projects like Willow and invest in a just
transition."

The Interior Department—headed by Deb Haaland, who criticized
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Willow Project as a member of Congress—now has a month to make a
final decision on the project.

In a statement
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the department made clear that it could further curtail the project or
block it entirely—a step climate groups said would be consistent
with the administration's climate pledges.

"The department has substantial concerns about the Willow project and
the preferred alternative as presented in the final SEIS, including
direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife
and Alaska Native subsistence," the agency said. "Consistent with the
law, a decision will be finalized by the department no sooner than 30
days after publication of the final SEIS. That decision may select a
different alternative, including no action, or the deferral of
additional drill pads beyond the single deferral described under the
preferred alternative."

While the scaled-back alternative plan for Willow would have a smaller
climate impact than the originally proposed project, it would still
emit around 9.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, the
BLM estimated.

Earthjustice, which has fought the Willow Project in court, noted
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the revised plan would "bring at least 219 wells, 267 miles of
pipelines, and 35 miles of roads to a vast public lands area in
Alaska's Western Arctic, permanently altering a globally significant
and ecologically rich landscape."

As _The New York Times_reported
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ConocoPhillips "has said it was hoping for a fast decision from the
Biden administration that would allow construction to begin this
winter," fearing that "if spring sets in and warmer temperatures begin
to melt the frozen roads, it could make it more difficult for crews to
pass and construction would have to be shelved for another year."

"Therein lies one of the Willow project's ironies,"
the _Times_ continued. "Over the past 60 years, Alaska has warmed
more than twice as fast as the rest of the United States
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the region is expected to continue to warm by an average of 4°F over
the 30-year life of the Willow project, thawing the frozen Arctic
tundra around the drilling rigs and shortening the winter season
during which ice roads and bridges remain frozen. The proposed
solution: ConocoPhillips plans to eventually install 'chillers' into
the thawing permafrost to keep it solid enough to support the
equipment to drill for oil—the burning of which will release carbon
dioxide emissions that will worsen the ice melt."

Dyani Chapman, state director of the Alaska Environment Research and
Policy Center, said
[[link removed]] Wednesday
that "it's absurd that as our tundra is melting because of climate
change, ConocoPhillips plans to use 'chillers' to re-freeze tundra so
it can drill for oil that will, in turn, make climate change even
worse."

"The Willow project is bad for Alaskans," said Chapman.
"ConocoPhillips' activities, which bring gas leaks and harmful
development into the region, have already done a lot of damage to
local communities. The community of Nuiqsut is already surrounded by
planned and active oil wells and people there have seen a rise in
respiratory illnesses. They do not need more oil wells and drilling."

_Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

* Fossil Fuel
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* Arctic drilling
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* Climate Change
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* Joe Biden
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