Biden administration approves Willow Project

VIVIAN NGUYEN FOCUS EDITOR

On Mar. 13, the Biden administration approved the Willow project, the massive oil drilling project in Alaska. The Willow Master Development Plan is a $8 billion proposal from ConocoPhillips, Alaska’s largest crude oil producer, to drill oil inside the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The oil company announces that “the project could deliver up to $17 billion in revenue for federal, state and local governments, opening over 2,500 job opportunities.” If the project was approved, it would produce over 600 million metric barrels of recoverable oil in the course of 30 years, which would not even reach the market because the project has yet to be constructed, along with 239 metric tons of carbon dioxide, the main contributor of climate change.

“It’s good that we will have oil and will not have to rely on oil from other countries,” Hannah Duong said. “However, it destroys the climate and a lot of wildlife such as bears will have nowhere to live and they might go extinct.”

The proposal itself sparked controversy among people who feared that the project would accelerate the pace of greenhouse gas emissions, which goes against Biden’s climate goals of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%-52% by 2030 that was declared at the White House summit.

“We are still notably dependent on oil so the project supports the economy regarding the shortage of oil; however it’s not worth doing that given that according to the current climate goals that Biden has sponsored, in 2050 we are supposed to eliminate carbon emissions,” junior Richard Guan said. “It’s already 2023 and in 2030 we should not be needing it. It seems that Biden is getting a jump on it and that this is a fallback in case our clean energy plan doesn’t work, but the amount of US oil reserves such as Saudi Arabia should be able to sustain it. The Willow Project obviously destroys ecosystems and there are not many overall positives. The extra economy is not worth it.”

Environmental groups and Alaska Natives who opposed the project argued that it would damage the ecosystem and disrupt age-old migration and denning patterns for arctic animals such as polar bears and caribou.

The Biden Administration has recently considered cutting down the number of approved drilling pads from five to two and raising measures to conserve its surroundings. By decreasing the drilling pads to two, the oil company would be able to drill 70% of the oil that was initially sought. However, ConocoPhillips persistently urged the administration and Interior Department for months to agree to three drilling pads by arguing that it was not economically viable.

The administration decided on three drilling pads, feeling that they could not cancel or reduce the project due to it previously being approved by the Trump administration. According to CNN, the administration determined that courts would not have given them the right to entirely reject the project.