President Biden has reportedly approved a new drilling project in rural Alaska poised to produce over 100,000 barrels of oil a day.
Reports indicate Biden's Department of Interior will approve the massive Willow oil project in Alaska in an official release later on Monday.
The approval from the Interior's Bureau of Land Management represents the culmination of years of lobbying around Willow, which, as proposed, sought to produce 180,000 barrels of oil per day on five drilling pads.
The company has forecasted the project will produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil per day, create more than 2,500 construction jobs and 300 long-term jobs, and deliver as much as $17 billion in revenue for the federal government, Alaska and local communities, many of which are Indigenous.
A source informed POLITICO the decision allows ConocoPhillips to develop three drilling sites at its proposed Willow project on federal land in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
As part of the decision, the administration is also flatly rejecting the two other drilling sites and a road leading to one of those sites proposed by ConocoPhillips, The New York Times reported. The Houston-based company agreed to forfeit more than 67,000 acres of drilling rights that it owns for a separate project.
The Hill reported that per the decision document, the project would produce 576 million barrels of oil, spurring 239 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions — equivalent to driving more than 51 million gasoline-powered cars for a year.
Ryan Lance, chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips, said the company's plans for developing Willow are in accordance with Biden's repeated calls for large integrated energy companies for more oil production to bring down prices.
“It's exactly what this administration has been asking our industry to do, lean in, produce more [oil],” Lance said Tuesday during remarks at CERAWeek by S&P Global, an annual industry conference in Houston.
Environmental groups and progressive Democrats have sought to block the deal, which would be the largest single fossil fuel development project on federal lands, to prevent additional oil production and greenhouse gas emissions.
“BLM cannot dismiss the significance of these emissions on the basis that they are a small fraction of global emissions, which is true for any single project, because it ignores the global nature of the problem posed by climate change,” Earthjustice, an environmental nongovernmental organization, said in comments to the Bureau of Land Management's draft environmental review of the project.
The deal marks the latest concession by President Joe Biden to the oil and gas industry and Republican critics who blamed his climate and energy policies for last year's spike in gasoline prices. The deal also directly contrasts Biden's campaign messaging in which he pledged to restrict drilling and leasing on federal lands. (RELATED: Oil Industry Slams Biden's “Misguided” Policy Agenda)
The Willow Project approval is a significant win for Alaska's congressional delegation, who have argued that it will bring economic benefits to the region.
“The permitting and environmental review process encompassed a period of well over two years and included multiple rounds of public comment and public meetings with Alaska Native stakeholders,” Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) President Julie Kitka wrote in a letter to Haaland last year.
“AFN understands that the need for a proactive whole of government approach to deal with climate change; however fossil fuels will be with us for quite some time to come, and projects like Willow can help bridge the gap,” Kitka continued. “The Willow Project could jumpstart our economy with thousands of jobs and be a model in community and environmental stewardship for future opportunities.”
This story is breaking. Click refresh for the latest updates.
READ NEXT: Religious Freedom Is Being Threatened In Both Allied And Adversarial Nations
Reopen ALL pipelines closed since 1-20-21
What’s in it for Joe? I can’t see him doing this for the good of our country. There’s gotta’ be more to this story than meets the eye.
I dunno, once the oil is pumping, maybe he figures on selling it to China, and then collect his 10%?
Let me guess what’s happening here. We are midway to the 2024 election and Biden & Co. realize that voters are pissed off about losing our oil independence, the high price of gasoline, the lack of federal emergency reserves, brutal outrageous growth in violent crime, bogus climate change policies, unbelievably broad and far reaching woke policies, the dismissal of parenting in the education of their children, the outrageous growth of violent crime, the mass migration of many millions of immigrants, the soft enforcement of existing laws by district attorneys, the bogus J6 committee with its selective editing of tapes, the constant divisiveness promoted by this administration, the weak and mentally compromised man (supposedly) in control of our government, mass media constantly spreading lies, ANTIFA and BLM rioting without penalties, EVs with all their problems and lack of infrastructure being forced down our throats, the government push to take away our weapons to leave us defenseless, rampant and foolish government spending, raising income taxes, weakening of our military, continued aid to Ukraine, treating China like a friend, drilling permits given only to leftist states, lack of transparency in government affairs, weaponization of the DOJ, etc, etc,etc. So now Biden is going to try to moderate some of these complaints and then take sole credit for fixing the problems he directly caused. And if that doesn’t work, he will simply continue to blame the prior administration for his idiotic policies. And if that doesn’t work, he will once again depend on manipulated elections to put him and his ilk back in power. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!