Biden Limits Arctic Oil Drilling Project

Biden Limits Arctic Oil Drilling Project

BY DAVID KELLY

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/biden-limits-arctic-oil-drilling-project/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

President Biden approved a controversial oil project today in a compromise, a multistep decision affecting the Willow Master Development Plan in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). The decision reduced the ConocoPhillips Willow project’s drill pads by 40 percent, while also “protecting” up to 16 million acres of land and sea in the U.S. Arctic Ocean from any future oil and gas leasing. 

Since before Biden took office, he has been at war with the oil and coal industries, seeking to reduce if not end their operations in the United States in deference to clean “green energy” wind and solar resources. Today’s decision supposedly was balanced to provide job opportunities and infrastructure for the nearby communities while protecting wildlife and the region’s unspoiled natural environment. It also helped to avoid a potential lawsuit over federal leases that ConocoPhillips has controlled on the NPR-A since 1999. 

The Willow project covers an area roughly the size of the state of Indiana. AP reported:

The project could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, according to the company — about 1.5% of total U.S. oil production. The project is the largest proposed oil drilling on U.S. public land and the biggest oil field in Alaska in decades. Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said the development could be “one of the biggest, most important resource development projects in our state’s history.”

Today, following Biden’s announcement, the Interior Department (DOI) issued a Record of Decision substantially reducing the size of the Willow project by denying two of the five drill sites proposed by ConocoPhillips, including relinquishing “rights to approximately 68,000 acres of its existing leases in the NPR-A, including approximately 60,000 acres in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area.” The agreement also “reduces the project’s freshwater use and eliminates all infrastructure related to the two rejected drill sites, including approximately 11 miles of roads, 20 miles of pipelines, and 133 acres of gravel, all of which reduces potential impacts to caribou migration and subsistence users.” 

 

BLM.gov

Biden will still have to face the music over the new drilling agreement, as net-zero greenhouse-gas zealots will be greatly disappointed to learn the administration gave in to oil giant ConocoPhillips. “Extracting and using the oil from Willow would produce the equivalent of more than 278 million tons (306 million short tons) of greenhouse gases over the project’s 30-year life, roughly equal to the combined emissions from 2 million passenger cars over the same time period,” AP reported. 

The Willow agreement didn’t stop the administration from moving forward with their climate-change activism by taking important steps to limit future industrial development in the Beaufort Sea and NPR-A, securing indefinite “protection” to the area. The DOI has proposed a rule, which will be available for public comment in the coming months, to consider additional protections for the more than 13 million acres designated as “Special Areas” in the region. The land was recognized for its importance to wildlife and subsistence users.  

A DOI press release stated: “The rule would limit future oil and gas leasing and industrial development in the Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon, and Peard Bay Special Areas — places collectively known for their globally significant intact habitat for wildlife, including grizzly and polar bears, caribou, and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.”  

Adding to the Willow project agreement, the DOI in another announcement said that “the Biden-Harris administration is taking sweeping action to complete protections of the entire U.S. Arctic Ocean from any future oil and gas leasing.” This includes the DOI “preparing new rules to provide maximum protection to millions of acres of lands in the western Arctic….”

 

BLM.gov

In today’s action, according to the DOI, Biden, using his authority under Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, made approximately 2.8 million acres of the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean nearshore in NPR-A indefinitely off limits for future oil and gas leasing. “Today’s withdrawal ensures this important habitat for whales, seals, polar bears, as well as for subsistence purposes, will be protected in perpetuity from extractive development.” 

These announcements and impending actions on controlling oil and gas leasing in the Arctic comprise yet another step in Biden’s goal of adhering to the UN’s Agenda 2030.

To prove Biden’s success in his ongoing climate-change agenda, the DOI closed its press release by stating, “With these actions, President Biden continues to deliver on the most aggressive climate agenda in American history. He has made the United States a magnet for clean energy manufacturing and jobs. He secured record investments in climate resilience and environmental justice. And his economic agenda has put the United States back on track to reach its climate goals for 2030 and 2050, all while reducing America’s reliance on oil and protecting American families from the impact of Putin’s war on global energy markets.”