If you ’ve opened TikTok recently , you may have look a compendium of videosunder the hashtag # StopWillow , some of which have extort up C of yard of persuasion , imploring people to take action against a controversial new crude undertaking . ( “ There wo n’t [ be ] a healthy major planet for your kids if Biden goes through with the willow projection , ” translate thecaption on one , which has more than 678,000 likes . ) This viral hashtag is n’t confined to TikTok : Nearly 3 million the great unwashed have signal aChange.org orison to halt the Willow Project , which could become the unmarried largest oil undertaking break a fleeceable light by the Biden government activity .
Here ’s everything you need to know about the controversial Willow Project , which could be approved as early as this hebdomad .
What is the Willow Project?
The Willow Project is the name for a proposed new oilfield in Alaska ’s North Slope near the Arctic Sea . Accordingto proprietor ConocoPhillips , the $ 6 billion Willow Project would create 2,500 job in the country and generate up to $ 17 billion in revenue for the state and Union governments as well as local communities . The area is suspect to hold back a whopping600 million barrelful of crude oil ; ConocoPhillips enunciate that at peak public presentation , the Willow project is expected to churn out180,000 drum of oil per twenty-four hour period — that ’s around1.6 % of the U.S. ’s current oil productionfrom one site alone .
But all this oil colour could be a actual climate bomb . Over the course of the 30 - twelvemonth projected lifespan of the project , Willow could create278 million loads of glasshouse gas emission — the equivalent of drive 2 million railroad car around over the path of three tenner . Given how quickly the world needs to move off oil and gas — and the mandates that we halt all raw fogy fuel geographic expedition as soon as possible — willow tree could be a self-aggrandizing step in the wrong management .
That’s a big project—why am I just hearing about this now?
It ’s been a long journeying to get to this point . The project , which go through its initial cycle of permission set forth in 2018 , was ab initio greenlit by Trump ’s Bureau of Land Management inlate 2020 . However , a Union judgereversed that approval in 2021 , say that the Trump administration did not take possible greenhouse gas emissions , as well as protections for an ecologically sensitive region in the plan labor area , into chronicle .
At the beginning of last calendar month , the Bureau of Land Management , now under the Biden administration , issue a newenvironmental reviewon the project , which admit infliction to address the point the judge had taken issue with in the 2021 opinion . The review had some changes — it commend drill at just three sites instead of five and reducing the amount of roads and other substructure to be build — and expressed “ substantial concerns ” about the projection . But the brushup efficaciously opened the door for the Interior Department to give the final go - ahead to the Willow Project .
That decision , as well as a concluding approving from the Army Corps of Engineers , could come as early as this month . The New York Timesreportedthat , as of early February , the Biden administration seemed poise to give the Willow project a green ignitor .
A protest against Willow in December in front of the White House.Photo: Paul Morigi (Getty Images)
In late weeks , the administration has been the content of intense lobbying from all side . The entire Alaskan Congressional delegation met with Biden formore than an hourlast week to urge approval for the project , while protest against Willow have increase outside the White House . A group of lawgiver send a letter to the president Friday urging him to look into choice for the Willow Project .
“ approve a major novel oil and accelerator development project would be discrepant with your Administration ’s historic achievements on climate and environmental jurist , ” theletterreads .
Isn’t Alaskan drilling off the table?
Not really . In June 2021 , the Interior Departmentsuspended a whole legion of leasesin Alaska ’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ( ANWR ) that had been greenlit by the Trump administration . However , the Willow Projectsits outside the ANWRon a stretch of public land know as the National Petroleum Reserve , make it theoretically open for business .
There ’s a lot of tension in Alaska around the Willow Project and the state ’s future tense with wish to oil and gas in general . Fossil fuel have long been a crucial money-spinner in Alaska , withoil funding around 80 % of its governance . In late days , the oil colour and gaseous state industryhas not shown a lot of interestin rental gross revenue in Alaska , giving the Willow Project a new importance .
“ If you look at a forecast without Willow , Alaska ’s rock oil output is slated to continue to decline , ” Brett Watson , an economic expert at the University of Alaska , Anchorage , recite CQ Roll Call . “ With Willow , Alaska ’s fossil oil production could be higher than it is today . Our fate is really bond to this one industry , and the up and down cycles of that industry create uncivilised swings in our body politic ’s economy . ”
But the development of oil and gas in Alaska has also been devastating for local ecosystems , due to wasteweir like the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster and the environmental impact of boring , as well as the thawing associated with global dodo fuel use that has sent the Arctic region into a spin . Last week , the City of Nuiqsut , which is penny-pinching to the planned Willow Project , and aboriginal community leaderssent a letterto the Interior Department criticize the new BLM plan and the shock that Willow would have on their lives and the local environment .
“ The environmental racism and injustice of crude development on the North Slope must stop , ” the letter register . “ crude oil maturation paid for our public-service corporation , our schools , and so many other advancements we have benefit from . But render these service is the responsibility of our politics , not private bay window . And we have a right to these service whether we agree to hosting an industrial wasteland in our backyard or not . ”
Isn’t the Biden Administration committed to lowering emissions?
Yes , but there are a set of caution to that commitment . Biden pledge on the movement trail to halt all fogy fuel production on public lands , and he entered bureau with climate as a centerpiece of his administration . But Biden hascontinued to encouragefossil fuel growing in the U.S. , and theglobal zip crisishas only renew the administration ’s efforts . In a transposition of a old cancelation , the administration held a controversial lease cut-rate sale in Alaska ’s Cook Inlet in December , whereonly one company was a bidderfor a splinter of the 1 million acres up for sale .
The administration hassuggested in recent daysthat it may approve Willow and simultaneously ban Arctic boring off the coast of the North Slope as a via media , but some environmental mathematical group have enjoin that is n’t enough to offset the carbon dud that Willow represents .
“ scorn a projection like Willow should be a no - brainer for a climate drawing card like Biden , ” Evergreen Action boss of stave Lena Moffitttold the Washington Post . “ And if he does n’t , it ’ll be a stain on his legacy , ”
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