Progressives in the House and Senate are condemning the Biden Administration’s decision to approve the massive Willow Project to drill hundreds of new oil wells on Alaska’s North Slope.
Lawmakers, including high-profile figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.), are calling the move a betrayal of President Biden’s climate change goals and campaign promises.
Joining AOC in a statement denouncing the move are Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, a longtime leader on climate issues.
“The Biden administration is committed to fighting climate change and advancing environmental justice: today’s decision to approve the Willow project falls short of those promises,” AOC and lawmakers, including the Natural Resources Committee. The Democrats wrote.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) joined lawmakers in saying the Biden administration’s decision to approve the new-drilling Willow Project on Alaska’s North Slope “doesn’t deliver on those promises.”
“Their decision ignores the voices of the people of Nuiqsut, our frontline communities, and the irrefutable science that says we must stop building projects like this to curb the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change.”
The letter calls for a separate decision to conserve public lands in the Arctic from “not good enough” development.
“This administration clearly knows what the path to a cleaner and more just future looks like; we wish they hadn’t strayed so far from that path with today’s Willow decision,” the lawmakers said. ‘The only acceptable Willow project is no Willow project.’
Markey went further in his statement, calling the approval of the Willow Project “an environmental injustice.”
“The (passage) leaves an oil stain on the administration’s climate achievements and the president’s commitment not to allow new oil and gas drilling on federal lands,” the Massachusetts senator said. “It delays our progress in the fight for a more livable future and endangers the neighboring native village of Nuiqsut and the arctic landscape,” he added.
Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.) called the move a “step backwards” and called for switching to renewable energy.
AOC ‘squad’ member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) criticized the passage on Twitter. “This disastrous decision to approve the Willow Project in Alaska, one of the largest oil development projects in decades, will have devastating consequences for our planet, frontline communities and wildlife,” she said. wrote.
Their public pressure comes amid a #StopWillow campaign on social media. TO Change.org Petition It has garnered more than 3 million signatures.
This 2019 aerial photo provided by ConocoPhillips shows an exploratory drilling camp at the proposed Willow oil project site on Alaska’s North Slope. The administration announced it was approving a plan to drill 219 wells that could produce 180,000 barrels of crude per day.
Pressure had been building on the social media platform TikTok to urge President Joe Biden to reject an oil development project on Alaska’s North Slope from young voters concerned about climate change.
President Joe Biden boards Air Force One as it departs Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego en route to Los Angeles, California, USA, March 14, 2023.
A Change.org petition to ‘say no’ to Project Willow has over 3 million signatures
‘Squad’ member Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) called the decision ‘disastrous’
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.) called the move a “step backwards.”
The White House announced the plan on Monday after announcing limits on Arctic drilling, in a move likely designed to soften the blow, but in a ploy one environmental lawyer called “insulting.”
Biden pledged in 2020 to ban “new oil and gas permits on public lands and waters.”
ConocoPhillips owns the lease rights to the Willow Project, management faced a court battle if it rejected it. Now, he could take on environmentalists in court.
ConocoPhillips said the project would include about 219 total wells at three initial sites, while management denied a fourth.
With an estimated production of 600 million barrels of crude oil over three decades, the project could spew 280 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, as the New York Times first reported, even as the administration seeks to slash emissions. global carbon.
Houston-based ConocoPhillips will relinquish rights to approximately 68,000 acres of existing leases in the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve.
The project is located in the federally designated Alaska National Petroleum Reserve. It has been baked by Alaska Native lawmakers in the state, who lobbied Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to support it.
It also has the backing of labor groups that say it could create 2,500 jobs and Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, the state’s first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.