What to know about the Willow project: Why Joe Biden just approved a climate bomb in Alaska

The ConocoPhillips drilling project in one of the country’s last great wildernesses would equal adding two million cars to the road every year for three decades.

The Biden administration just approved a massive oil drilling project called Willow in Alaska’s North Slope that if fully developed will result in huge amounts of carbon emissions in a warming world that desperately needs emissions cuts.

The move is emblematic of the long-term fight over Alaska’s pristine wilderness and the effort to stop oil and gas extraction on public land more generally as climate change intensifies. Even as the White House approved the Willow project, it declared other parts of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean off limits for oil and gas drilling, but activists are vehemently opposed to this attempt at compromise.

Here’s what you need to know.

This is a fight with roots in the Clinton era

ConocoPhillips first purchased the Alaska oil leases that became the Willow project almost a quarter of a century ago, in 1999. Little happened there until the mid-2010s, when exploratory drilling revealed a massive oil play under the frozen ground. The company began the permitting process to develop Willow in 2018.

That process played out as it became increasingly clear that the world wouldn’t be able to meet its goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions — and avert catastrophic climate change — without swearing off new major fossil fuel projects. Indeed, the International Energy Agency has said that no new investment in such projects can move forward in a world that could achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

But ConocoPhillips sought approval for Willow from the Trump administration, which had pushed to dramatically open up Alaska and the Arctic Ocean to expanded oil drilling. The administration issued a final approval in 2020, only to see a federal judge throw out the permits, ruling that the environmental impact statement failed to take climate change impacts into account, among other issues.

That sent everyone back to the drawing board. In July of last year, the Biden administration released a new environmental analysis that included five different possible paths forward for Willow, from no development at all to a full-scale plan involving five well pads. Monday’s approval splits the difference somewhat, limiting the plan to three drilling sites and making ConocoPhillips cede 68,000 acres of its leases back to the government. Still, in a news release Monday, the company lists the same potential oil output — 180,000 barrels per day — in spite of the supposedly diminished scope.

Biden just broke one of his biggest campaign promises on climate change

During a presidential debate in 2020, Joe Biden promised: “No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period.” His campaign website confirmed the pledge, promising to ban “new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters.”

Even at the time, there were doubts that Biden would be able to follow through as president, given the near-certainty that extensive legal challenges would follow such a move. Still, his administration did make the effort: Just days after taking office, Biden signed an executive order that paused new leases for oil and gas drilling on public land. In 2021, a judge overturned that pause, forcing such leasing to start anew.

Climate and environmental groups think Biden is backtracking on a crucial promise — and from his strong start on climate policy. “We know President Biden understands the existential threat of climate, but he is approving a project that derails his own climate goals,” said Abigail Dillen, president of the nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice, in a statement.

If Willow moves ahead as planned, it would be the largest single oil and gas project on federal lands in the country. It would result in 280 million metric tons of carbon emissions over its 30-year life span, equivalent to adding 2 million cars to the road every one of those 30 years. And it would add substantial local risks, with hundreds of miles of roads and pipelines required to make it all work, in an area that, if a major spill were to occur, its remoteness and climate would make cleanup incredibly challenging.

And it may be just the start.

Alaskans are split over the drilling project amid an oil and gas boom

In a June 2021 market update presentation, ConocoPhillips Senior Vice President of Global Operations Nick Olds said: “We have identified up to 3 billion [barrels of oil equivalent] of nearby prospects and leads with similar characteristics that could leverage the Willow infrastructure. This offers significant long-term upside to this project.”

Willow itself promises around 600 million barrels in total, meaning the company — which joined a parade of Big Oil records in making more than $18 billion in profits in 2022, double what it made in 2021 — thinks just gaining a foothold in the region could allow a truly massive expansion. A slide deck from the company’s presentation calls Willow “the next great Alaska hub.”

This stands in sharp contrast to the Biden administration’s accompanying move to protect millions of acres of federal land and water. The Department of the Interior announced protections of upward of 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve — Alaska, as well as 2.8 million acres of Arctic Ocean nearby. To some observers and activists, it is not enough.

“It’s insulting that Biden thinks this will change our minds about the Willow project,” said Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. “Protecting one area of the Arctic so you can destroy another doesn’t make sense, and it won’t help the people and wildlife who will be upended by the Willow project.”

Dozens of organizations have previously opposed Willow’s approval, the nearby city and native Alaskan tribe of Nuiqsut. Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, released a scathing statement Monday, calling the approval an environmental injustice.

“This decision not only leaves an oil stain on the administration’s climate accomplishments and the President’s commitment not to permit new oil and gas drilling on federal land, but slows our progress in the fight for a more livable future and puts into harm’s way the neighboring Native Village of Nuiqsut and the Arctic landscape,” he said.

The project does have supporters, including Republican Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan. Proponents cite the thousands of jobs Willow would create, though ConocoPhillips’ own documents note that while construction would create 2,000 jobs, only 300 permanent positions will remain.

What happens now?

Even with a somewhat cleared road ahead, there are still likely six years before ConocoPhillips might achieve “first oil” at Willow. Moreover, legal challenges are sure to follow: In fact, Earthjustice has promised to pursue legal action to stop Willow’s development.

Meanwhile, the regional protections aren’t set in stone yet either. This morning, Biden sent a memo to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland that withdraws the Beaufort Sea — part of the Arctic Ocean — and a chunk of Alaska’s North Slope from consideration for future leases. But there will still be a public comment period for some of those protections.

If Willow does start producing oil toward the end of this decade, it will make Biden’s climate targets tough to achieve. He has pledged to cut U.S. emissions by 50 to 52 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, a target the country has inched toward with the landmark Inflation Reduction Act but which current projections still place just out of reach. Experts and activists think this move makes it even harder.

“This decision to approve the Willow project makes a stretch goal even more difficult to meet,” said Margie Alt, director of the advocacy coalition Climate Action Campaign. “Today’s decision to approve the Willow Project in Alaska will lock in decades of dirty and dangerous oil and gas production and drown out the tremendous environmental and economic opportunities available from transitioning to a clean economy.”

Thanks to Lillian Barkley for copy editing this article.

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What to know about the Willow project: Why Joe Biden just approved a climate bomb in Alaska