Photo by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management (CC BY 2.0)
President Biden is facing a choice: give the oil industry free rein, or take a stand for our climate and our future. ConocoPhillips is attempting to gain permission to start development on the largest new oil drilling operation on public land in the United States. It’s called the Willow Project on Alaska’s North Slope, and if Conoco gets their way, it could be one of the biggest climate disasters on the planet.
Willow is sited in a vast Arctic landscape that provides critical habitat for birds from all over the world as well as animals like the caribou that subsistence hunters rely on to feed their families and communities. Native communities, like Nuiquset, are already dealing with the consequences of oil development in the region, including deteriorating air quality and a spike in respiratory disorders. Last year, a well in Conoco’s Alpine Field blew out, spewing methane into the air and endangering residents of Nuiquset. These risks are already here, and Willow only makes them worse.
Over the lifespan of the project, Willow could emit 287 million metric tons of carbon pollution, the equivalent of operating 76 coal-fired power plants and enough to undercut the gains made through climate policies implemented since 2021. Moreover, it’s an investment in the economy of the past that would lock us into fossil fuels for another 30 years, right when the window is closing for us to switch to clean and renewable energy to avoid a true climate catastrophe. Granting permission to drill stands in direct conflict with the President’s ambitious climate goals.
Tell Biden: Stop the Willow Climate Disaster!
On February 6, the Bureau of Land Management released the updated Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on Willow. Sierra Club and partners worked to overturn the Trump administration’s original EIS in the courtroom. We won that round when the court ruled that the document was deeply flawed, but we have more work to do. Sierra Club volunteers and supporters wrote thousands of comments to the BLM regarding the Willow plan in the runup to the February 6 announcement, but this new EIS would still allow Willow to move forward, threatening the species who rely on this Arctic habitat and the public health of the Alaskan communities who call the region home.
And that brings us to now. The February EIS was not a final decision, and the Department of the Interior has suggested it has serious concerns about the project. We have until at least March 6 to stop the Willow project cold in its tracks. Willow will be a defining decision for President Biden’s climate legacy, and it can’t be taken lightly. Allowing Willow would do irreversible damage to the Arctic landscape, accelerate climate change, and threaten the ecosystems so many rely on. We need President Biden to be a climate hero by saying no to Willow.