Biden team gives nod to huge Alaska oil project, setting up climate fight
Oil pipelines stretch across the landscape outside Nuiqsut, Alaska, where ConocoPhillips operates the Alpine Field, in 2019. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Environmental assessment says ConocoPhillips’s Willow can go forward on Alaska’s North Slope, but recommends smaller footprint for project
by Timothy Puko
President Biden came into office promising to end new oil drilling on federal land.
On Wednesday, his administration recommended permitting the largest upcoming oil development in the country — on federal land in Alaska.
The president is embroiled in a two-decade-long fight over an Arctic petroleum reserve, where the oil giant ConocoPhillips owns leases it bought from the government long before Biden was president. On Wednesday, a required environmental review said the project could best go forward with protections for birds, caribou and other wildlife by shrinking the project to three well pads from the originally proposed five.
It sets the stage for a final decision due next month and pushes one of Biden’s core pledges on conservation and climate change up against the limits of what the law allows. Although the administration has several times moved to slow or halt oil and gas development on federal lands, the ConocoPhillips project, known as Willow, shows the challenge that Biden confronts in fulfilling his promises.
“At the end of the day, every administration has to follow the law, even in some instances where they would prefer a different policy,” said David Bernhardt, an energy lawyer and former interior secretary in the Trump administration. “This is one example of the reality that there is an entire legal regime that provides for [oil and gas] leasing.”
At stake are resources in the federally owned National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the nation’s largest expanse of public land. There, ConocoPhillips plans to spend $8 billion to $10 billion, more than any other oil project on the table nationwide, according to consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. Willow is one of the most important projects to state leaders and several Native Alaskan groups, and it’s believed to be one of the surest oil reserves in the country.
The review released Wednesday, compiled by the Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska staff, estimated that the project could produce between 576 million and 614 million barrels of oil over 30 years. That would be enough for this one project alone to cover nationwide oil consumption for 30 days. And the company has previously said that its estimates are higher, as much as 3 billion.
The bureau, in a key development, identified a “preferred alternative,” a recommendation for the best proposal that can move forward. In this case, it is one with restrictions to shrink the project footprint to about 550 acres, nearly 12 percent smaller than ConocoPhillips’ original proposal. That would keep development out of a yellow-billed loon nesting site and caribou migration paths, the review said. It’s also in line with the minimum that company executives have publicly said that they need to make the project pencil out.
Caribou and geese at Teshekpuk Lake in the North Slope of Alaska on May 26, 2019. The lake is the largest in Arctic Alaska. It is a significant location for geese to molt and for caribou to migrate and calf. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
But reflecting the headaches this project poses to the administration, Interior Department officials emphasized Wednesday that no decision has yet been made and that they still have major concerns about the project’s environmental effects. In addition to hundreds of miles of roads and pipelines carving through often pristine wilderness, the review, known as a final supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS), estimated that Willow would generate roughly 9.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year.
“The preferred alternative is not a decision about whether to approve the Willow Project,” the Interior Department said in a separate news release. “The Department has substantial concerns about the Willow project and the preferred alternative as presented in the final SEIS.”
The Biden administration now has at least 30 days to mull a final decision. It will probably face intense pressure from environmentalists who want to kill it and oil advocates who say Willow would be a boost to domestic oil supplies and the state economy.
Under similar pressure as a candidate, Biden often sided with environmentalists. Campaigning in New Hampshire in 2020, he cited climate change as a reason to oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He added: “And by the way, no more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period.”
As president, he quickly moved to follow through on those promises from his first day in office. His administration briefly halted permitting for oil and gas drilling on federal land, canceled lease sales and delayed legally required new plans for oil and gas leasing plans in years to come.
But federal courts often overruled his decisions, forcing permitting and lease sales to go forward. Congress even intervened, with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) pushing for provisions in last year’s climate and spending bill that mandated the Interior Department to sell leases.