The Biden administration announced on Monday that it will approve the controversial Willow oil project.
Environmentalists say the project will have harmful effects on the environment and on Native Alaskan communities.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will initially permit project developer ConocoPhillips to create three drill sites containing up to 199 oil wells on Alaska’s North Slope.
- The Biden administration has denied two other drill sites, a decision that ConocoPhillips views as acceptable.
- In exchange for the new drilling permissions, ConocoPhillips has agreed to waive its rights to existing leases of about 68,000 acres of land in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
- ConocoPhillips says the Willow project may eventually be able to produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil per day and generate billions in revenue for federal, state, and local governments.
- The decision has received pushback from environmental groups who say it betrays President Biden's 2020 campaign promise to prevent new oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
- The White House noted in an announcement on Sunday that the plan would restrict or ban oil drilling across 16 million acres of U.S. territory in Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.
