Study backs Alaska oil project
North Slope development would harm habitat, activists say
JUNEAU, Alaska — The Biden administration released a long-awaited study Wednesday that recommends allowing an oil development on Alaska’s North Slope that supporters say could boost U.S. energy security but climate activists decry as a “carbon bomb.”
The move — while not final — drew anger from environmentalists who saw it as a betrayal of the president’s pledges to reduce carbon emissions and promote clean-energy sources.
Conocophillips Alaska had proposed five drilling sites as part of its Willow project, and the approach listed as the preferred alternative by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in the report calls for up to three drill sites. Even as the land agency released its report, the U.S. Interior Department said in a separate statement that it has “substantial concerns” about the project and the report’s preferred alternative, “including direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence.”
The project, in the National Petroleum Reserve-alaska, at its peak, could produce an estimated 180,000 barrels of oil a day, Conocophillips Alaska said.
The Bureau of Land Management, which falls under the Interior Department, also said in the report that identifying a preferred alternative “does not constitute a commitment or decision.” U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who fought the Willow project as a member of Congress, has the final decision.
The Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, an Alaska Native corporation, and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope joined the North Slope Borough in praising the proposed alternative and saying in a statement that advancing the project “is critical for domestic energy independence, job security for Alaskans and the right of Alaska Natives to choose their own path.”
Other Alaska Native groups have expressed concerns.
Leaders of the Native Village of Nuiqsut and city of Nuiqsut in a recent letter said they do not feel as if the Bureau of Land Management is listening. The Bureau of Land Management’s “engagement with us is consistently focused on how to allow projects to go forward; how to permit the continuous expansion and concentration of oil and gas activity on our traditional lands,” Native Village of Nuiqsut President Eunice Brower and City of Nuiqsut Mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak wrote in a letter dated last week.
Earthjustice, an environmental group, said the project would bring miles of roads and hundreds of miles of pipeline to the area, disrupt animal migration patterns and erode habitat if it goes forward.