US approves Willow oil drilling project in Alaska: What is the outrage around this

Previously, the Trump administration had sanctioned the plan to drill oil in Alaska in 2020, but “a federal judge vacated development permits, saying initial federal reviews failed to include measures to mitigate the impact on polar bears,” the NPR reported.

What is the Willow project?

Led by oil giant ConocoPhillips, the Willow Master Development Plan is an $8 billion proposal to drill oil and gas in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve — a 23 million-acre land owned by the federal government of the US.

According to the New York Times, the project would yield more than 600 million barrels of oil over 30 years, a volume nearly 1.5 times the current supply in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. ConocoPhillips claims that the plan could generate up to $17 billion for the federal, state and local governments and create as many as 2,500 jobs.

Speaking to the media, Alaska Republican US Senator Dan Sullivan said it could be “one of the biggest, most important resource development projects in our state’s history.”

How would the project impact the environment?

Instead of approving the full project, like the President Trump administration, the current dispensation has sanctioned only a part of it. This includes three drill sites and less surface infrastructure than originally proposed. Initially, ConocoPhillips wanted to construct up to five drill sites, many kilometres of long roads, seven bridges and pipelines, Reuters said.

Despite a scaled-down version getting the nod, environmentalists are concerned about the health and environmental impact of the drilling plan as it would be constructed on the country’s largest swath of undisturbed, undeveloped land. They believe it would destroy the region’s natural habitat and alter the migration patterns of animals.

A report published by the NPR noted that the Bureau of Land Management, a US government agency, in February 2023 released a document in which it described the “proposed site as “critical” to local wildlife, supporting “thousands of migratory birds” and serving as “a primary calving area” for local caribou.”

Moreover, the project termed a “carbon bomb”, would create about 260 million tons of greenhouse gases over its lifespan, the equivalent of developing around 70 new coal-fired power plants.

Talking to CNN, Jeremy Lieb, an Alaska-based senior attorney at environmental law group Earthjustice, said, “This is a huge climate threat and inconsistent with this administration’s promises to take on the climate crisis”.

Environmentalists and climate change activists claim that the approval is in conflict with President Biden’s campaign pledge of not allowing new oil, gas and coal projects and work towards fighting climate change.

So, why has the Biden Administration approved the project?

Analysts suggest that the formal approval came due to a variety of reasons, including the global energy crisis aggravated by the Russia-Ukraine war, pressure from Alaskan lawmakers (both from the Republican and Democratic parties) who saw the project as an opportunity to usher in prosperity in the state, upcoming Presidential elections, and legal complexities.

The NYT reported that while making the final decision, President Biden was “acutely aware” of his campaign promise regarding climate change and the possibility of facing a political backlash from activists and young voters in particular. However, his administration felt the need to reach out to working-class voters, who care about the gasoline price spikes that occurred after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Apart from this, President Biden wanted to avoid getting into a legal tussle with ConocoPhillips. The NYT said the company behind the project “has held leases to the prospective drilling site for more than two decades, and administration attorneys argued that refusing a permit would trigger a lawsuit that could cost the government as much as $5 billion”.