When running for president, Joe Biden promised “no more drilling on federal lands… including offshore.”
Three years later, Biden has become the president… and hanks to out of control inflation, Biden is flip-flopping on at least part of his anti-oil agenda. It won’t be enough to win conservatives… but it angered his activist base.
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The Biden administration said Monday it is approving the huge Willow oil-drilling project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope, a defining move for Biden’s energy policy.
The announcement came a day after the administration, in a move in the other direction toward conservation, said it would bar or limit drilling in some other areas of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.
The Willow approval by the Bureau of Land Management would allow three drill sites, which would include up to 199 total wells. Two other drill sites proposed for the project would be denied. Project developer ConocoPhillips has said it considers the three-site option workable, “the right decision for Alaska and our nation” in the words of company chairman and CEO Ryan Lance.
Biden isn’t the only one breaking character here.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland was notably silent on the project, which she had opposed as a New Mexico congresswoman before becoming Interior secretary two years ago.
The order, one of the most significant of Haaland’s tenure, was not signed by her but rather by her deputy, Tommy Beaudreau, who grew up in Alaska and has a close relationship with state lawmakers.
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Take a look at Biden’s 2020 promise —
Joe Biden in 2020: “No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill. Period. Ends.”
Today: “Joe Biden approves Alaska oil drilling project” pic.twitter.com/QoKWiuheq8
— BoldProgressives.org (@BoldProgressive) March 13, 2023
Green activists were outraged that Biden greenlighted the project, which they say will define his career in their eyes. Allowing the drilling plan to go forward also would break Biden’s campaign promise to stop new oil drilling on public lands, they say.
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Administration officials have defended their decision. They were concerned that ConocoPhillips’ decades-old leases limited the government’s legal ability to block the project and that courts might have ruled in the company’s favor.
Monday’s announcement is not likely to be the last word, with litigation expected from far-Left environmental groups.
The Willow project could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, create up to 2,500 jobs during construction and 300 long-term jobs, and generate billions of dollars in royalties and tax revenues for the federal, state and local governments, the company said.
The project, located in the federally designated National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, enjoys widespread political support in the state. Alaska Native state lawmakers recently met with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to urge support for Willow.
However, administration officials were concerned that ConocoPhillips’ decades-old leases limited the government’s legal ability to block the project and that courts might have ruled in the company’s favor.
Monday’s announcement is not likely to be the last word, with litigation expected from environmental groups.
The project, located in the federally designated National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, enjoys widespread political support in the state. Alaska Native state lawmakers recently met with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to urge support for Willow.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, released a statement of support for the project. Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation met with Biden and his advisers in early March to plead their case for the project, while environmental groups rallied opposition and urged project opponents to place pressure on the administration.
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On the other hand, Christy Goldfuss, a former Obama White House official who now is a policy chief at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said she was “deeply disappointed″ at Biden’s decision to approve Willow, which NRDC estimates would generate planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to more than 1 million homes.
“This decision is bad for the climate, bad for the environment and bad for the Native Alaska communities who oppose this and feel their voices were not heard,″ Goldfuss said.
Anticipating that reaction among environmental groups, the White House offered a concession. It announced on Sunday that Biden will prevent or limit oil drilling in 16 million acres in Alaska and the Arctic Ocean. The plan would bar drilling in nearly 3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea — closing it off from oil exploration — and limit drilling in more than 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve.
The withdrawal of the offshore area ensures that important habitat for whales, seals, polar bears and other wildlife “will be protected in perpetuity from extractive development,″ the White House said in a statement.
The conservation announcement did little to mollify activists.
“It’s a performative action to make the Willow project not look as bad,” said Elise Joshi, the acting executive director of Gen-Z for Change, an advocacy organization.
One activist called the project a “carbon bomb” in a viral video.
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Take a look —
The Willow oil project is a carbon bomb waiting to happen and if reports are true, the Biden Administration could approve it imminently. That would mean 280 million metric tons of climate pollution over the next 30 years. There’s still time to #stopwillow. pic.twitter.com/iH2XXzZrAm
— Earthjustice (@Earthjustice) March 11, 2023
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.