Native Organizers Alliance and EarthJustice Responds to Biden's Approval of Willow Project

Washington, DC – The Biden administration approved the ConocoPhillip’s Willow Project earlier this week, a 30-year oil and gas development proposal on public lands in Alaska.

This is the second time the Bureau of Land Management has approved the Willow project. The Trump administration first approved the project in 2020. Conservation and Alaska Native groups challenged the approval, and the court threw it out as unlawful in 2021. It instructed BLM to reassess the project’s full climate impacts and consider alternatives that would lessen its overall impacts. In approving Willow for the second time, the Biden administration has failed to heed these instructions, producing an environmental analysis that falls short in these same respects.

As approved, the project includes three drill sites, gravel roads, a central processing facility, an operations center, an air strip, hundreds of miles of ice roads, and it allows drilling and roads in the Teshekpuk Lake special area, one of the most important and sensitive areas in the Arctic. ConocoPhillips’ operations would use chillers to re-freeze thawing permafrost, to make the ground stable enough for drilling to continue.

Further, approval of Willow sets into motion a westward expansion of oil development into additional ecologically sensitive areas critical for both subsistence and the protection of wildlife species that are already threatened by climate change.

The reserve is home to polar bears, which are listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, plus musk oxen, caribou, and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds. Two caribou herds — the Western Arctic and the Teshekpuk Lake herds — calve and migrate through the region and are a vital subsistence resource for Alaska Native communities in northern and western Alaska.

Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, March 15th, on behalf of conservation groups, together with NRDC (the Natural Resources Defense Council), to stop the massive Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska’s Western Arctic, which the Biden administration approved March 13. This approval of an enormous new carbon source undermines President Biden’s promises to slash greenhouse-gas emissions in half by 2030 and transition the United States to clean energy.

Trustees for Alaska has filed a separate legal challenge on behalf of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic and conservation groups.

The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) record of decision approving Willow essentially greenlights ConocoPhillips’ desired blueprint while ignoring pleas from around 5.6 million people, including leadership from the nearby village of Nuiqsut, asking the federal government to halt Willow.

“There is no question that the administration possessed the legal authority to stop Willow — yet it chose not to,” said Erik Grafe, deputy managing attorney in Earthjustice’s Alaska regional office. “It greenlit this carbon bomb without adequately assessing its climate impacts or weighing its options to limit the damage and say no. The climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges we face, and President Biden has promised to do all he can to meet the moment. We’re bringing today’s lawsuit to ensure that the administration follows the law and ultimately makes good on this promise for future generations.”

“The Biden administration’s approval of ConocoPhillips’ Willow project in the western Arctic of Alaska is a disappointing leap backwards,” said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Defenders of Wildlife’s Alaska Program Director. “This would further imperil climate-sensitive wildlife including threatened polar bears, lock in oil and gas drilling and massive greenhouse gas emissions for decades and offset the administration’s priority to rein in climate change.”

Judith LeBlanc (Caddo), executive director of Native Organizers Alliance stated, “The Biden administration has taken action to turn the U.S. away from the destruction caused by total reliance on fossil fuels and repeatedly stated its commitment to Native sovereignty. Yet, earlier this week, they went against the wishes of the many Alaska Natives who have opposed the Willow project. Too often the rights, sovereignty, and sacred places of Native peoples are overlooked for the benefit of fossil fuel companies.

We are in a climate crisis that impacts every part of Indian Country. This project threatens the health of our people and our lands. It threatens the well-being of all our descendants. The fossil fuel industry has devastated our sacred sites and ancestral lands. This is an environmental justice and a democracy issue; Tribal nations and Indigenous peoples continue to be disproportionately impacted by fossil fuel extraction and development. We understand all too well that ending our dependence on fossil fuel will not happen all at once. It will take steps on a longer path. The decision was a step backwards and delays the transition to green energy. The Willow Project stands in stark contrast to the Biden Administration’s commitment to address the climate crisis, reduce our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels and respect tribal sovereignty.”