thesis statement about the willow project

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Settlement Colonialism: ANCSA, the Willow Project, and Colonial-Capitalism in Alaska’s North Slope

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The Willow oil project debate comes down to this key climate change question

The alaskan oil project is a symbol of a larger argument: what matters more, curbing demand or keeping fossil fuels in the ground.

When President Biden approved an $8 billion Alaskan oil drilling project on Monday, many reacted with outrage. “Wrong on every level,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, wrote on Twitter. “This decision betrays Biden’s own climate promises,” Jeff Ordower, the North America director of the environmental organization 350.org, said in a statement.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden had promised to prevent new oil and gas drilling on federal lands — a vow that runs contrary to his administration’s approval of ConocoPhillips’s operation, known as Willow, in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. In the weeks before the decision, environmentalists, activists, and young people united to try to block the project: For weeks, #StopWillow was even a trending topic on TikTok.

But the Willow project, which the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management estimates will produce 576 million barrels of oil over the course of 30 years, is a small stand-in for what is actually a much larger debate. In recent years, the Democratic Party — and, by extension, the climate movement — has been divided on a key question. What matters more — cutting fossil fuel demand, by encouraging consumers to shift to things like renewable energy and electric vehicles, or tamping down on supply by preventing oil and gas drilling in the United States?

The Biden administration, with its huge investments in a build-out of clean energy, has largely focused on the former. Activists who paddle their kayaks out to ocean oil rigs or participate in climate marches tend to lean toward the latter. But who is actually right?

The ‘leakage’ argument

On the one hand, there is a kind of intuitive obviousness to the climate benefits of cutting fossil fuel supply: Surely if we don’t dig up oil and gas, no one can burn it and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But the global oil market throws a wrench into that argument. “There’s plenty of oil and gas in the world,” said Samantha Gross, director of the energy security and climate initiative at the Brookings Institution. “If we don’t produce that oil, and there’s still demand for it, someone else will.”

In economics-speak, this is known as “leakage.” The idea is that if there is a decrease in fossil fuel supply — through a ban on drilling in one country, for example — fossil fuel prices will rise, and then another company will expand drilling elsewhere in the world. Simple supply and demand.

This also creates an accounting problem when assessing the project. Activists and opponents referred to the project as a “carbon bomb” — and indeed, according to a federal analysis released last month , the project would produce around 277 million metric tons of carbon dioxide during its lifetime, or around 9.2 million tons per year.

But that number assumes that, if the ConocoPhillips project didn’t go forward, no other oil companies would pick up the slack. Accounting for leakage, the Biden administration’s estimate for the additional CO2 from the project is closer to 70 million metric tons, or around 2.3 million tons per year — not nothing, but significantly smaller. (2.3 million tons would be around 0.03 percent of U.S. emissions in 2021.) The administration also estimates the project would release an additional 60 million tons of CO2 from increased oil consumption overseas.

Those who say supply doesn’t matter much point to these numbers as evidence that the real place to focus attention is on demand — shifting people over to electric vehicles, for example, or rapidly building up renewable energy. If people stop needing fossil fuels, they argue, there will be no need to extract them. “I ultimately think it’s more efficient and effective to go from the demand side,” Gross said.

The counterargument

But there’s another form of economic “leakage” as well. Brian Prest, an economist at the environmental group Resources for the Future, says that policies like electric vehicle tax credits or investments in clean energy can have unintended effects. If the government offers a $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles, for example, that will push people away from gas-powered cars and reduce demand for fossil fuels — thus lowering the cost of oil and gas. Paradoxically, that can cause more fossil fuel use.

“If we use less gas in U.S. vehicles, that makes it cheaper for folks in other countries to consume more oil,” said Prest. “It’s conceptually symmetric.”

In a report published last year by Resources for the Future, Prest argued that the best approach is “both/and." If the United States encouraged consumers to shift away from fossil fuels, while at the same time taking careful measures to reduce extraction of oil and gas, fossil fuel prices would stay roughly constant — thus preventing “leakage” and leading to lower emissions overall. (His analysis doesn’t include possible external price shocks that could affect the oil market.)

The Biden administration, however, has not taken drastic steps to cut fossil fuel supply, even as the government spends hundreds of billions of dollars boosting clean energy. Some of this is politics: Mary Peltola, the first Alaskan Democrat elected to the House of Representatives in 50 years, supports the project.

Legal considerations also come into play. Once the federal government issues oil and gas leases, it becomes much harder to claw them back, and top administration officials feared that if they denied the Willow project outright they would face a lawsuit from ConocoPhillips, putting taxpayers potentially on the hook for billions of dollars.

So far the Biden administration’s strategy has framed climate change as many carrots and few sticks — cash incentives for clean energy, without halting oil and gas extraction outright. (The president has banned drilling in some place s, such as the waters that the United States controls in the Arctic Ocean.)

The debate also shows that the way the world counts carbon emissions matters a great deal. In the days after the decision, many outlets reported that the project’s estimated 9.2 millions tons of carbon dioxide per year were equivalent to adding roughly 2 million gas-powered cars onto the road. That’s true — and also not true. Most emissions are counted at the point of consumption — that is, when drivers put the oil in their cars and burn it for fuel. If we count the emissions both at the point of extraction and at the point of consumption, that amounts to double-counting.

But for activists and environmentalists, any amount of economic discussion doesn’t change a few simple facts: The United States has promised to reach net-zero carbon emissions, but is still extracting oil. Eventually — if the world is really going to stop emitting carbon dioxide — all fossil fuel production will have to halt. If not now, they might wonder, then when?

This piece has been updated.

What To Know About the Just-Approved $8B Willow Project’s Potential Impact on the Planet

The project is an $8 billion development venture that will allow ConocoPhillips, a crude oil producer, to drill into the underground reservoir of oil in the region and extract 600 million barrels of oil.

On March 13th, the Biden Administration approved the Willow Project after decades of legal debates. This massive development project stands to transform a portion of the northern Alaskan landscape into a facility capable of pumping out over 180,000 barrels of oil per day over a 30-year timespan , according to ConocoPhillips.

The Willow project stands to negatively impact the surrounding wildlife habitats and Alaska Native communities, in addition to the prospect climate-focused progress.

Proponents point out that the project stands to create an estimated 2,800 jobs and generate between $8 and 17 billion in revenue for the federal government, the state of Alaska, and the North Slope Borough communities.

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The project is at odds with President Biden’s climate goals to create a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 . It also stands to negatively impact the surrounding wildlife habitats and Alaska Native communities, in addition to the prospect climate-focused progress.

Why was the Willow project approved?

Most of the land in the NPR-A is federally owned by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and is legally available to lease for oil and mining. ConocoPhillips acquired the leases to the land back in the 1990s , and in 2020, the Trump Administration gave the green light for drilling.

However, Sharon Gleason , chief judge on the U.S. District Court of Alaska, reversed this decision in 2021 , citing that the environmental analysis was flawed and failed to properly measure greenhouse gas emissions. The BLM then performed a supplemental analysis to address gaps in the initial plan.

The Biden Administration has approved this project to appease the oil company and stay “consistent with the terms of existing leases,” according to the BLM's Record of Decision . The project also received high praise from both Democratic and Republican Alaskan lawmakers for its potential to drive economic revenue and job creation.

It’s worth noting that the Biden Administration didn't grant the Willow project full approval. Originally, ConocoPhillips proposed to operate five drill sites, but the approved pared-down version of the plan includes three sites. The aim here is to mitigate negative impact on wildlife habitat by reducing the surface footprint by cutting out things like roads. While this may be an environmentally preferred alternative than more invasive proposals of the plan, it still comes with a whole host of problems.

Potential negative impacts of the Willow project to know about

Nonprofit environmental groups, like Earthjustice and the Wilderness Society , have critiqued the Willow project for its short- and long-term environmental and social justice ramifications for local communities. With regard to the social justice component, officials from the City of Nuiqsut and Native Village of Nuiqsut, which sits on the border of the National Petroleum Reserve, oppose the development due to concerns for their health and way of life . According to a statement by the U.S. Department of the Interior , even the BLM has concerns about the project, including “direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence.”

This project has indirect emissions of 239 million metric tons of CO2, which is equivalent to the total annual electricity use of over 30 million homes. Environmental analysis also found that this project would also release black carbon (pM2.5), which research has found to have toxic effects on the health of community members near the pollution source. “If the BLM knows that our health is deteriorating, how can it in good conscience allow an activity to go forward, which will make our health worse?” ask Nuiqsut city mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, vice mayor Carl Brower, and president of the Native Village of Nuiqsut Eunice Brower in a joint letter to the Department of the Interior .

Not only would the drilling and extraction release harmful levels of greenhouse gases into the air when the U.S. should be reducing our emissions for climate-protection efforts , but the associated infrastructure to produce and transport the oil would be massive. The final proposal selected by the Biden Administration includes 199 oil wells, 89.6 miles of pipeline, hundreds of miles of roads, bridges, boat ramps, an airstrip, a central processing facility, and a gravel mine site—among other required developments. These roadways and landscape changes stand to stress out animals, potentially altering the migration and movement patterns of caribou, wolves, and thousands of bird species.

That could yield an ecological disaster, and it would also impact the Nuiqsut population’s harvest access and ability to support themselves. A 2018 analysis found that the effects on subsistence and sociocultural systems of oil drilling in the region may be highly adverse and disproportionately born by the Nuiqsut population. According to the document, rapid modernization associated with a huge development boom (think: noise and air pollution and increased human activity) could increase stress levels and exacerbate mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression.

But while President Biden’s approval gives the go-ahead for ConocoPhillips to start building, we won’t see any oil pumped from the ground until the infrastructure is in place. In the meantime, environmental organizations and law groups are saddling up for a series of legal battles to attempt to delay development. Now is the time for concerned citizens to make their voices heard, whether through social media campaigns like #StopWillow (on platforms including Instagram and TikTok ), via donation to nonprofit organizations like Earthjustice and Wilderness Society, or otherwise getting involved in the efforts such orgs support. Because what do jobs and money matter when the health of the planet hangs in the balance?

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Rethinking the Willow Project: Did BLM Have Other Options?

On March 13, 2023, the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) approved a major oil drilling operation on the North Slope of Alaska. The so-called “ Willow Project ” will be developed by ConocoPhillips and involve the drilling of up to 199 new oil wells, spread across three well pads, along with the construction of various related infrastructure, including pipelines, processing facilities, roads, and boat ramps. All of this activity is expected to have serious adverse impacts on the local environment and nearby communities. It will also worsen global climate change. The Willow Project is expected to produce as much as 180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak and result in around 130 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent over its lifetime.

Approval of the Willow Project runs directly counter to President Biden’s campaign promise to stop oil and gas drilling on federal lands. It is also counter to his administration’s goal of halving economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and reaching net zero emissions by 2050. The approval has angered many climate activists and others who see it as a “ stain ” on President Biden’s climate legacy. In the weeks since the approval was announced, the Biden administration has tried to paint a different picture, suggesting that it had no choice but to approve the Willow Project. But is that really the case? This post explores the scope of BLM’s authority to block oil and gas drilling on federally-owned land in situations where the land has already been leased to a private party for the specific purpose of developing oil and gas resources.

History of Oil and Gas Development on Alaska’s North Slope

ConocoPhillips has held leases on federal land on Alaska’s North Slope since 1999. The leased land forms part of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (the “NPR-A”)—an area covering approximately 23 million acres that was set aside in 1923 by President Harding who, believing the land contained significant fossil fuel resources, designated it as an emergency oil supply for the U.S. Navy.

In 1976, in the National Petroleum Reserves Act (“Reserves Act”), Congress transferred authority over the NPR-A from the Secretary of the Navy to the Secretary of the Interior. As originally enacted, the Reserves Act prohibited the Secretary of the Interior from leasing land in the NPR-A for oil, gas, or other development (subject to limited exceptions). However, in 1980, Congress amended the Reserves Act to remove the prohibition and direct the Secretary of the Interior to “conduct an expeditious program of competitive leasing of oil and gas” in the NRP-A. The Secretary of the Interior delegated this leasing authority to BLM, which held its first oil and gas lease sale , covering 1.5 million acres of land in the NPR-A, in December 1981.

In the decades since, BLM has continued to lease land in the NPR-A for oil and gas development, offering a total of 59.7 million acres between 1999 and 2019. Interestingly, though, oil and gas developers only bid on about 7 million acres or 11% of the total land offered for lease. (As discussed in a previous post on this blog, this is consistent with BLM’s experience in the contiguous U.S., where only a small portion of the federal land it has offered for lease in recent years has received bids.)

The Legal Effect of Oil and Gas Leases

Oil and gas leases issued by BLM grant the lessee “the exclusive right to drill for, mine, extract, remove and dispose of all the oil and gas . . . in the land.” This, together with the fact that ConocoPhillips has held oil and gas leases in the NPR-A for over 20 years, has led some to conclude that BLM had to approve the Willow Project. For example, in defending BLM’s approval of the project, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters : “some of the company’s leases are decades old, granted by prior administrations. The company has a legal right to those leases. [BLM’s] options are limited when there are legal contracts in place.”

It is certainly true that ConocoPhillips has a legal right to the leases. As discussed in a previous blog post , BLM can only cancel NPR-A leases in two, limited circumstances:

• If a lease is not producing oil and gas, it may be cancelled if the lessee fails to comply with any legal requirement imposed on him/her/it.
• If a lease is producing or “known to contain valuable deposits of oil or gas,” it can only be cancelled “by court order.”

The land covered by ConocoPhillips’ NPR-A leases falls into the second category. It is known to contain valuable deposits of oil and gas because, in 2016, ConocoPhillips drilled two exploratory wells that “encountered significant pay.” The Biden administration could not, therefore, unilaterally cancel ConocoPhillips’ leases. But there might be other ways for the administration to limit, or perhaps even block, extraction of oil and gas pursuant to those leases.

As noted above, BLM leases grant the lessee exclusive rights to extract oil and gas, but those rights are “granted subject to applicable laws, the terms, conditions, and . . . stimulations of th[e] lease, [and] the Secretary of the Interior’s regulations and formal orders.” (It should be noted that this quote is from the current “ form lease ” used by BLM. The author was not able to review the leases BLM entered into with ConocoPhillips and thus cannot confirm that they contain similar language. Statements by BLM suggest they do, however. For example, BLM has previously said that ConocoPhillips’ leases entitle it to extract oil and gas resources, “subject to regulation.” The analysis that follows assumes the ConocoPhillips leases contain the language quoted above.)

The “applicable laws” include the Reserves Act, which directs the Secretary of the Interior to take steps to protect the “environmental, fish and wildlife, and historical or scenic values” within the NPR-A. The Reserves Act further provides that, when issuing oil and gas leases, the Secretary of the Interior “shall include or provide for such conditions, restrictions, and prohibitions as the Secretary deems necessary or appropriate to mitigate reasonably foreseeable and significant adverse effects on the surface resources of the NPR-A.”

One way in which BLM seeks to minimize the adverse impacts of oil and gas development on surface resources is by regulating drilling operations in the NPR-A. Under BLM regulations , before any oil or gas well can be drilled under an NPR-A lease, the lessee must submit an application for permit to drill (APD) to BLM. The APD must include a surface use plan of operations specifying, among other things, the location of any proposed drill pads, the method of pad construction, and other activities to be undertaken in connection with drilling. A lessee can choose to submit a single plan—known as a master development plan (MDP) – that covers multiple APDs.

BLM regulations provide that, upon receiving an APD, BLM “shall take one of the following actions . . . (1) Approve the application as submitted or with appropriate modifications or conditions; [or] (2) Return the application and advise the application of the reasons for disapproval.” The regulations are clear that, if BLM selects option (2) and disapproves the APD, “[n]o drilling operations, nor surface disturbance preliminary thereto, may be commenced.”

BLM also has authority to suspend previously approved drilling operations in certain circumstances. Under BLM regulations , operations may be suspended if, among other things, BLM determines that suspension “is in the interests of conservation of natural resources” or “mitigates reasonably foreseeable and significant adverse effects on surface resources.”

Implications for the Willow Project

What does all of this mean for the Willow Project? ConocoPhillips submitted an MPD for the Willow Project in May 2018. After conducting an environmental review, BLM approved the MPD in October 2020. However, in August 2021, the approval decision was vacated by the Federal District Court for the District of Alaska in Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic v. BLM .

The court held that the environmental review conducted by BLM did not meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”). Among other things, the court found that BLM had inappropriately constrained the range of alternatives it considered in the environmental review because it believed that “ConocoPhillips’ lease rights precluded the agency from considering alternatives concerning the configuration or location of the drill pads.” According to the court:

“BLM maintained that ConocoPhillips has the right to extract all the oil and gas possible within the leased area. But . . . [t]he leases do not grant the lessee the unfettered right to drill wherever it chooses or categorically preclude BLM from considering alternative development scenarios. Further, BLM’s asserted restriction on its authority is inconsistent with its own statutory responsibility to mitigate adverse effects on the surface resources . . . To the extent BLM relied on this reason to not examine other alternatives, its alternatives analysis was inadequate.”

Following the court’s decision, BLM prepared a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”), in which it considered one additional alternative. Based on the supplemental EIS, BLM approved ConocoPhillips’ MDP, with some modifications. Whereas BLM had initially approved the drilling of up to 251 wells across five drill pads, following completion of the supplemental EIS, BLM approved a scaled-down version of the Willow Project involving the drilling of up to 199 wells across three pads.

The supplemental EIS has been challenged in court , again, on the basis that BLM’s alternatives analysis was inadequate (among other grounds). Environmental groups challenging BLM’s decision allege that “it has again analyzed an inadequate range of alternatives in the [supplemental] EIS based on the mistaken conclusion that it must allow ConocoPhillips to fully develop its leases.” The groups note that, in the supplemental EIS, “BLM asserted that it must allow access to at least some of the subsurface resources under all of [ConocoPhillips’] leases with a demonstrated development potential, that it may not permit a development proposal that would strand an economically viable quantity of oil, and that it is obligated to approve development of leases in some form.”

These statements arguably misrepresent BLM’s statutory authority and obligations. As noted above, under the Reserves Act, BLM can impose “conditions, restrictions, and prohibitions” on oil and gas development in the NPR-A as “necessary or appropriate to mitigate reasonably foreseeable and significant adverse effects on . . . surface resources.”

Climate change is already having significant adverse effects on the surface resources of the NPR-A. According to the supplemental EIS prepared for the Willow Project, “[m]inimum temperatures in the Arctic have increased at about three times the global rate over the past 50 years,” resulting in the “loss of sea ice and snow cover.” The supplemental EIS notes that “[p]ermafrost loss in Alaska’s North Slope is already widespread.” Unless greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly reduced, “further warming will lead to further reductions of near-surface permafrost volume.” There will also be a decrease in snow cover, “with a later date of first snowfall and an earlier snowmelt,” which will “reduce water storage and increase the risk and extent of wildland fires and insect outbreaks in the region.”

It could be argued that, since the root cause of these adverse effects is greenhouse gas emissions, BLM must take steps to reduce those emissions to fulfill its Reserve Act obligations. BLM might seek to reduce emissions by restricting, or even prohibiting, the drilling of new oil wells as part of the Willow Project. This seems entirely appropriate given that emissions from the Willow Project could, by BLM’s own estimates, cause somewhere between $3 billion and $38 billion worth of climate-related damages (depending on the social cost of carbon used to value those damages). In these circumstances, restricting or even preventing drilling arguably would not violate ConocoPhillips’ lease rights.

The courts have previously held that lessees are not automatically entitled to permits to extract oil and gas from land they lease from the federal government. This was made clear by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Marathon Oil Co. v. United States . The plaintiff in that case—Marathon Oil—had been denied a permit to extract oil from offshore land it leased from the federal government under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA). Similar to the Reserves Act, the OCSLA authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to issue leases for oil and gas development on certain federal land, located offshore in an area known as the Outer Continental Shelf. The OCSLA provides that, before a lessee may develop oil and gas resources pursuant to a lease, he/she/it must have a plan of operations approved by the Secretary of the Interior.

In Marathon Oil Co v. United States , the Federal Circuit noted that leases issued under the OCSLA “grant lessees the exclusive right to drill for, develop, and produce oil and gas resources.” But, according to the court, “[o]btaining a lease is one thing; obtaining the necessary permits to explore and then produce is another.”

The Federal Circuit held that the Secretary of the Interior did not violate Marathon Oil’s lease rights when it refused to approve a plan of operations for the development of oil and gas resources in the leased area. The court noted that, under Marathon Oil’s lease, the right to drill for oil and gas resources “was expressly conditioned on compliance with [applicable] . . . statutory and regulatory provisions” that aimed to, among other things, protect coastal ecosystems. The court determined that the statutory requirements for approval of Marathon Oil’s plan of operations had not been met. Thus, according to the court, “[u]nder the circumstances of this case, to treat Marathon’s failure to obtain the necessary approvals and permits for exploratory activity as a breach of contract by the Government would be to eviscerate these salutary protections of the nation’s fragile coastal lands and waters.”

On appeal, the Federal Circuit’s decision was reversed by the Supreme Court, but on slightly different grounds. In short, the Supreme Court found that the Secretary of the Interior had not refused to approve Marathon Oil’s plan of operations because it did not meet the statutory requirements for approval, but due to other factors. Arguably, then, the Supreme Court’s ruling does not invalidate the above reasoning.

While Marathon Oil Co. v. United States involved offshore leasing, which is governed by a different statutory regime, the Federal Circuit’s reasoning could be applied to the Willow Project. Similar to the OCSLA, the Reserves Act authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to issue oil and gas leases on federal land, but provides that development pursuant to those leases “shall” be restricted or prohibited as necessary to minimize environmental disturbance. BLM arguably does not violate the terms of oil and gas leases by imposing such restrictions or prohibitions.

Supporters of the Willow Project might assert that the Reserves Act only authorizes BLM to restrict or prohibit development where necessary to “mitigate . . . adverse effects on the surface resources of the NPR-A.” They might further argue that surface resources are only indirectly affected by greenhouse gas emissions from the Willow Project—i.e., via climate change, which a wide range of other activities also contribute to—and that the Reserves Act does not expressly authorize BLM to prevent or restrict development based on indirect climate impacts. The case law suggests otherwise, however.

No court has, so far, ruled on the scope of BLM’s authority to restrict or prevent oil and gas development on climate grounds. Notably, however, multiple federal courts have held that BLM is required to consider greenhouse gas emissions and associated climate impacts when conducting environmental reviews of oil and gas projects pursuant to NEPA (see here for an example). This is significant because the courts have also held that an agency, like BLM, is only required to “gather or consider environmental information” in its NEPA review if the agency has “statutory authority to act on that information.” Thus, by holding that BLM is required to consider climate impacts in its NEPA reviews, the courts have suggested—at least implicitly–that BLM could act on that information.

These and other issues are sure to be hotly debated in the litigation over the Willow Project. The outcome of the litigation remains uncertain. It is, however, clear that there was no easy “win” for the Biden administration when it came to the Willow Project. The administration faced significant legal and political risks whatever decision it made. It is already feeling the political blowback from approval of the Willow Project and, as this blog explains, faces legal risks as well. On the other hand though, rejecting the project would also have exposed it to political blowback, and likely legal action as well.

Romany Webb

Romany Webb is a Research Scholar at Columbia Law School, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Climate at Columbia Climate School, and Deputy Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

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Human Rights in Higher Education pp 201–218 Cite as

Community-Based Social Justice Work: The WILLOW Project

• Anne Geraghty-Rathert 3  
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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Global Citizenship Education and Democracy ((GCED))

Anne Geraghty-Rathert highlights the possibilities for melding the theoretical study of law with its practical application for engaging in social justice work. By combining classroom study with community pro bono outreach, undergraduate students gain useful skills for their future careers while learning important lessons about human rights and equality before the law. At Webster University, student interns work on a clemency project called the WILLOW Project (Women Initiate Legal Lifelines to Other Women). The Project represents three women, all incarcerated due to violence perpetrated by their batterers and not by themselves. The issues of domestic violence and wrongful conviction inherent in the WILLOW Project’s work resonate with students and offer them opportunities to hone vital skills for engaging in social justice and human rights protection.

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Geraghty-Rathert, A. (2018). Community-Based Social Justice Work: The WILLOW Project. In: Kingston, L. (eds) Human Rights in Higher Education. Palgrave Studies in Global Citizenship Education and Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91421-3_12

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Published : 05 August 2018

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Print ISBN : 978-3-319-91420-6

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-91421-3

eBook Packages : Education Education (R0)

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Interior Department Issues Statement on Proposed Willow Project

Date: Wednesday, February 1, 2023 Contact: [email protected]

The Bureau of Land Management-Alaska today completed the final supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS), as directed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, for the proposed Willow Master Development Plan in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) for which there are existing leases.

The final SEIS includes a preferred alternative, as required under the National Environmental Policy Act. The preferred alternative is not a decision about whether to approve the Willow Project.

The Department has substantial concerns about the Willow project and the preferred alternative as presented in the final SEIS, including direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence.

Consistent with the law, a decision will be finalized by the Department no sooner than 30 days after publication of the final SEIS. That decision may select a different alternative, including no action, or the deferral of additional drill pads beyond the single deferral described under the preferred alternative.

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Home > Conferences and Events > Student Leadership Exchange > 2023 > EnACT > 15

The Effects of the Willow Project on the World

Presenter Information

Max Schwartz '25 , Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy Follow Sarah Kumar '25 , Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy Follow Megan Vanhoof '25 , Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy Follow

Room #2 (A115)

Document Type

Presentation

UN Sustainable Development Goal

UNSDG #13: Climate Action

26-4-2023 11:10 AM

26-4-2023 11:25 AM

On March 13, 2023, the Biden Administration approved the Willow project, despite the many protests against it. The Willow project is a large oil drilling project by ConocoPhillip is located in Northern Alaska, aiming to produce about 180k barrels of oil per day in order for the U.S. to decrease its dependence on foreign energy. It has been found that the negative effects of the Willow project will affect the world long term, affecting our environment detrimentally. As the project continues, about 278 million tonnes of CO2 will be produced in just the next 30 years, adding on to U.S. emissions. Pollution is already a very prevalent problem that we face today, and the Willow project will seemingly make it worse. With this amount of carbon dioxide being released into the air, holes in the Ozone layer will become larger, respiratory diseases will be caught at a faster rate, and plants and animals will struggle to survive. Not only will the environment be impacted by pollution, but so will the economy. Because of pollution, our economy will struggle immensely due to reduced workforce productivity, work absences, early deaths due to diseases, and decreasing crop yields. In our artifact, we display a drawing of the world, on the left side being the world as it is now, and the right side displaying the effects of the Willow project. This art piece represents how much the world will change due to the Willow project, and how difficult it would be to live in a world that has irreversible pollution. Our goal is to spread awareness about how harmful the Willow project will be for us in the future, so we must do something to prevent it from being executed.

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BLM seeks public input on revised draft environmental analysis for proposed Willow Project in Alaska

Organization, media contact:.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) - Alaska today released its revised draft environmental review of ConocoPhillips’ proposed Willow Master Development Plan in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve (NPR-A). The BLM prepared the draft supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) to address deficiencies identified by the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska in its 2021 vacatur of the previous administration’s approval of the Willow Project. ConocoPhillips purchased the Willow Project leases in the 1990s. This draft SEIS presents a range of alternatives, including a “no action” alternative, and does not represent any final decision on the Willow Project. The BLM will make a final decision only after considering public comments on the draft SEIS and completing its analysis. 

The draft SEIS includes a corrected and expanded analysis of potential climate impacts associated with the Willow Project. This expanded climate analysis, among other things, addresses the court’s finding that the original analysis failed to consider downstream foreign emissions resulting from the consumption of oil produced by the project. 

In order to consider an alternative with modified infrastructure in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area (TLSA), the draft SEIS also includes a new alternative that would reduce the potential footprint of the proposed Willow Project by removing two of the five proposed drill sites from consideration, including eliminating the northernmost proposed drill site and associated infrastructure in the TLSA. Under this alternative, BLM expects that the company would relinquish significant lease rights in the TLSA, an ecologically important wetland that hosts thousands of birds and the Teshekpuk caribou herd, that are part of the Bear Tooth Unit and the proposed Willow Project. For purposes of providing a complete picture of potential impacts of the Willow Project, this alternative includes analysis of a fourth potential drill site that would be deferred, meaning that it would require an additional review process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and is not being considered for inclusion in the new alternative.  

As reflected in the draft SEIS, BLM will reinitiate consultation under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) concerning listed species, including polar bear. This consultation will include consideration of mitigation measures and updates to the range of alternatives.  

The draft SEIS was developed following a public scoping comment period as well as close coordination with eight cooperating agencies (the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency, Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, North Slope Borough, State of Alaska, Native Village of Nuiqsut, and City of Nuiqsut) and external stakeholders.  

The BLM plans to hold (public health measures permitting) in-person public meetings in Utqiagvik, Anchorage and Nuiqsut, as well as three virtual public meetings. A subsistence-related hearing to receive comments on the proposed Project’s potential to impact subsistence resources and activities will also be held in Nuiqsut concurrent with the in-person public meeting. The BLM will continue to consult with potentially affected federally recognized Tribes on a government-to-government basis, and to work with Alaska Native communities to ensure their voices are heard in our decision-making process. 

The Willow Master Development Plan Draft Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement is available at the BLM’s NEPA Register https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/109410/570 or a copy may be requested from the BLM’s State Office in Anchorage. 

Following publication in the Federal Register, the BLM will announce public meetings, subsistence-related hearings, and any other public participation activities at least 15 days in advance on the NEPA Register program page, as well as through public notices, news releases, social media posts, and/or mailings. 

The BLM encourages the public to provide comments during the 45-day comment period, particularly concerning the adequacy and accuracy of the proposed alternatives, the analysis of its respective management decisions, and any new information that would help develop the final plan. Comments can be submitted: 

Online:    https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/109410/570  

By Mail: BLM Alaska State Office ATTN: Willow MDP SDEIS 222 W. 7th Ave, Stop #13 Anchorage, AK 99513 

Before including personal identifying information (address, email, phone number), commenters should be aware that their entire comment – including their personal identifying information – may be made publicly available at any time. While those commenting can ask in their comments to have this information withheld from public review, the BLM cannot guarantee that it will be able to do so.  

For more information on this project, please contact the BLM’s project manager, Stephanie Rice, at (907) 271-3202, or [email protected] .  

The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 western states, including Alaska, on behalf of the American people. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Our mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America’s public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.

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