Averting Crisis

vironmentalist to get on board the transition to a more climate-friendly world,” she concluded. “The question is whether it will be worth it.” And that depends on what’s done on a broader scale, as the Climate and Community Project describes.

Another example of Biden’s straddling was his approval of ConocoPhillips’ $8 billion Willow oil project on Alaska’s North Slope last month, directly contradicting his repeated campaign pledge. Ironically, the action was rooted in the Inflation Reduction Act — the most ambitious climate bill ever passed. But it only passed after West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin extracted massive concessions to support continued fossil fuel developments. Still, the Biden administration did not have to approve the project. They could have fought in court for years, while doing everything possible to accelerate the shift to renewables, so that oil drilling made less and less sense even in the narrowest of economic terms.

The Willow project echoes here locally as well, with the Phillips 66 terminal project. It’s not that Willow project oil will inevitably come here. Indeed, they say they don’t have South Coast Air Quality Management District permission to do so, Natural Resources Defense Coun-