The Biden administration has decided to allow energy giant ConocoPhillips to build three pads in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) despite opposition from environmentalists who claim the project will undermine President Biden’s commitment to combating climate change. The project, called Willow, will involve the construction of hundreds of miles of roads and pipelines, airstrips, a gravel mine, and a large processing facility on near-pristine tundra and wetlands in the reserve. The company officials have described the site as large enough to move forward and start construction within days.
The decision to allow three pads will reduce the project from the five pads that ConocoPhillips originally proposed. The administration had faced weeks of agonizing meetings with advocates on both sides of the issue before making its decision. Environmentalists have prioritized fighting Willow and recently launched a #StopWillow TikTok campaign to increase pressure. During the 2020 campaign, Biden had pledged to ban “new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters.”
The decision to allow three pads protects the administration from a costly legal battle that ConocoPhillips would likely win due to its control of federal leases on the NPR-A since 1999. However, environmentalists have said the proposed conservation measures would not offset the damage Willow may cause the planet. They had pushed the White House to block the project, saying anything less would betray Biden’s promise to cut national emissions at least in half by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.
The project marks the culmination of years of debate over the future of drilling in the Arctic, and the last time the federal government approved such a large operation was nearly eight years ago. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that the world must zero out greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century to have a hope of meeting its climate goals.
While some in the administration wanted to block the development, allowing three pads relieves the administration of political fallout from allies in Alaska who say the project will boost the state’s faltering economy. White House officials have spent significant time working with Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has made Willow a top priority and has occasionally backed the administration in the closely divided Senate.
