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alaska lng project
As Biden Touts the IRA Anniversary, Here Are 5 Carbon Bombs He Leaves Out
A slew of White House actions are undermining efforts to address climate change, and under Biden, the country is producing more energy from fossil fuels than it did under former President Donald Trump.
Aug 16, 2023
The science is clear: Building any new fossil fuel infrastructure is incompatible with a livable climate. Yet, while President Joe Biden touts the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, as the country’s biggest climate law ever, he’s glossing over all the ways his administration has advanced fossil fuels, including in the IRA.
A slew of White House actions are undermining efforts to address climate change. And under Biden, the country is producing more energy from fossil fuels than it did under former President Donald Trump. In 2022, the U.S. broke its record for most fossil fuels produced in a year. Worse, it’s on track to break that record for 2023.
We know that to stem the tide of climate chaos, we need to move off fossil fuels, period. Instead, the Biden administration has approved and supported several projects that will unleash carbon bombs on our climate and lock in decades of drilling, burning, and emitting.
Despite his big talk on climate, when it comes to fossil fuels, President Biden’s policies just build on previous expansion.
Here are five of the Biden administration’s biggest carbon bomb approvals.
1. Expanding Drilling Leases in Federal Lands and Waters
On the campaign trail, Biden promised to ban oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters. But this promise didn’t last long.
In Biden’s first two years in office, his administration approved more than 6,400 permits for drilling on public lands, outpacing the Trump administration. Most recently, the White House auctioned off 100,000 acres in Wyoming to oil and gas companies.
The administration has also let Big Oil loose on our public waters. The Inflation Reduction Act prevented Biden from leasing any federal waters to offshore wind until he made 60 million acres available for oil and gas. So the administration resurrected two huge, previously canceled sales for offshore oil and gas drilling.
This past spring, it put more than 73 million acres of water in the Gulf of Mexico up for auction to fossil companies. If all the oil and gas there gets used, it would add the equivalent of 941 million metric tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. That’s the same emissions as an additional 209.4 million cars on the road for a year.
2. Approving the Willow Project in Alaska
The Biden administration’s approval of Willow flew in the face of intense nationwide opposition. The project could last 30 years and pump up to 600 million barrels of oil out of the Northern Slopes of Alaska.
That means an extra 258 million metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere—what 57.4 million cars would emit in a year.
For more perspective, the Center for American Progress compared Willow to the goals Biden set for building renewables on public lands and waters. If those clean energy goals were met, Willow would cancel out all of their climate gains—twice over. Literally one step forward, two steps back.
3. Advancing the Mountain Valley Pipeline
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) should have been dead ages ago. Federal courts have blocked it several times. But Biden didn’t just make way for Senator Joe Manchin to resurrect MVP—his administration has been greasing the wheels as it moves forward.
In May, Biden’s debt ceiling deal included orders for the MVP’s approval, ASAP. And most recently, Biden’s Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to intervene after a lower court blocked construction on part of the pipeline.
MVP would carry up to 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day. The production and use of this gas would create the equivalent of 84 million metric tons of CO2 emissions each year. That’s like adding about 19 million gas-powered cars to our roads.
These 84 million metric tons of climate pollution aren’t inevitable. They’re a choice the Biden administration has made.
White House officials have framed MVP as “inevitable”—completely ignoring the role the administration played in pushing it forward. These 84 million metric tons of climate pollution aren’t inevitable. They’re a choice the Biden administration has made.
4. Approving the Disastrous Alaska LNG Project
In 2019, Alaska LNG was all but over. The project proposed to extract and liquefy natural gas, then export it abroad. Though the Trump administration approved the project, its owner couldn’t make it make economic sense and stalled it.
But that changed as oil and gas companies capitalized on global crises to push liquefied natural gas (LNG). Moreover, subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act made the project more viable. Then, the Biden administration pushed it even closer to the finish line with a key approval in April.
Alaska LNG’s climate impact would be monumental, as it’s authorized to export 929 billion cubic feet of gas per year. In addition to emissions throughout the supply chain, just producing and burning this LNG would release the equivalent of 108 million metric tons of CO2 every year for 30 years. That’s about the same as putting 24 million more cars on the road.
The project claims its planned use of carbon capture and storage will make the gas “green.” But we know carbon capture is nothing but an expensive failure. Yet, IRA subsidies for carbon capture could allow the company to snatch up to $600 million in public funds each year.
Speaking of …
5. Boosting the Carbon Capture Scam
Carbon capture and storage is one of Big Oil’s new favorite scams. Boosters call carbon capture climate-friendly, claiming it takes emissions and stores them permanently underground.
But in reality, this technology will lock us into a future with more fossil fuels. That includes the industry’s dirty pipelines, power plants, and refineries. Moreover, carbon capture has so far led to more U.S. emissions, not less.
Nevertheless, the Biden administration is promoting the technology through new policy, in addition to billions of dollars worth of subsidies.
Carbon capture won’t stop climate change, but it will boost Big Oil’s profits with public dollars via the IRA and other subsidies.
This April, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new rules for power plants that rely on carbon capture—even though there are no power plants currently using carbon capture technology. Attaching it to power plants will just allow the same old pollution, only with a smokescreen of “captured emissions.”
Carbon capture won’t stop climate change, but it will boost Big Oil’s profits with public dollars via the IRA and other subsidies. And since 95% of carbon captured in the U.S. is currently used to pull more oil out of the ground, the administration is literally flushing money down oil wells.
We Need Real Climate Action, Not Lip Service
Despite his big talk on climate, when it comes to fossil fuels, President Biden’s policies just build on previous expansion. His administration’s actions risk decades more climate pollution during this tipping point for the fate of our planet. The science has been unequivocal: we need to move off fossil fuels and rapidly transition to renewable energy.
This September, we have a huge opportunity to shout this loud and clear, as a major United Nations climate summit convenes in New York City. While the eyes of the world fall on New York, thousands will gather for the March to End Fossil Fuels before the summit.
This is our chance to communicate clearly to President Biden: The era of fossil fuels must end, and he must use every tool at his disposal to make that happen.
On September 17, we’re gathering with allies to demand that President Biden take the climate crisis seriously. Our planet depends on it.
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Converging on White House, Progressives Tell Biden to Cancel Mountain Valley Pipeline
The president "can stop MVP just like he stopped Keystone XL" and "can reclaim his climate legacy by stopping all new fossil fuel projects."
Jun 08, 2023
Progressives descended upon the White House on Thursday to demand that U.S. President Joe Biden use his executive authority to cancel the Mountain Valley Pipeline and declare a climate emergency to expedite the end of the fossil fuel era.
Approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) was fast-tracked last week via the debt ceiling agreement that Biden, eschewing his options for unilateral action, forged with House Republicans who took the global economy hostage. The fracked gas development in Appalachia—pushed hard by the GOP and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a coal profiteer and Congress' top recipient of Big Oil money—is one of several fossil fuel projects that Biden has the power to stop.
While Biden was inside the White House talking with right-wing United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, hundreds of people gathered outside to remind the president that "he can stop MVP just like he stopped Keystone XL." The rally was organized by People vs. Fossil Fuels, a coalition of more than 1,200 organizations. It marks the start of multiple days of action nationwide.
\u201cBREAKING: Frontline communities (@OurWVRivers, @POWHR_Coalition, and more) and allies are rallying for Biden to declare a climate emergency and stop dirty oil and gas projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline.\u201d— Elise Joshi (@Elise Joshi) 1686250842
Many people wore masks due to the hazardous air quality in Washington, D.C. The East Coast's smoke-filled skies are a direct result of climate change-intensified wildfires now spiraling out of control in Canada—a fact that observers were keen to point to as evidence for why Biden should revoke the permits needed to complete MVP and other planet-heating fossil fuel projects.
\u201cLawmakers in the Senate now can\u2019t see the Washington Monument because of wildfire smoke. Those same lawmakers just voted to expedite a fossil fuel pipeline.\u201d— David Sirota (@David Sirota) 1686228891
\u201cCan\u2019t stop thinking about how Congress just had to prevent a fake and manufactured \u201cdebt ceiling crisis\u201d by fast-tracking fossil fuel projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline which will only make the very real climate crisis even worse. This is the price of corruption. Look up.\u201d— Warren Gunnels (@Warren Gunnels) 1686191276
When asked by a reporter Wednesday if the coalition planned to cancel Thursday's protest as a public health precaution, Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn said, "No, this is exactly why we have to take these sorts of actions." On Thursday, he added that "we're not going to sit idle as the world burns."
A separate rally scheduled for Thursday in New York City had to be canceled, however, because the record-setting air pollution blanketing the country's most populous metropolitan area in an apocalyptic orange haze poses too great a risk.
"We're fighting for a future," West Virginia resident Maury Johnson said during the demonstration in the nation's capital. "Not one that's filled with smoke."
Climate justice advocates were joined outside the White House by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). Noting that MVP has nothing to do with raising the nation's debt limit—an arbitrary and arguably unconstitutional cap on federal borrowing the GOP has weaponized to impose its agenda on multiple occasions—the progressive lawmaker denounced the inclusion of the project's approval in the debt ceiling deal.
\u201c\ud83d\udd25\ud83d\udd25\ud83d\udd25\u201cWe have the right to breathe clean air. Do you know what 1 asthma attack can do to a whole family? Mountain Valley Pipeline should never have been part of the debt ceiling deal. I call bullshit!\u201d @RepRashida \ud83d\udd25\ud83d\udd25\ud83d\udd25 @POTUS #StopMVP #EndtheEra #ClimateEmergency @FightFossils\u201d— Ben Goloff (@Ben Goloff) 1686249477
As The Guardian reported Thursday, "The Mountain Valley Pipeline project has been enmeshed in legal challenges for years due to opposition from grassroots groups and landowners but the deal passed by Congress to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, signed by Biden over the weekend, singles out the pipeline as being 'required in the national interest' and therefore should be allowed to proceed, shielded from any future judicial review."
The approval of MVP comes just months after Biden greenlighted ConocoPhillips' massive Willow oil drilling project in the Alaskan Arctic. Additionally, despite possessing the executive authority to cancel nearly two dozen proposed fracked gas export projects that threaten to generate heat-trapping emissions equivalent to roughly 400 new coal-fired power plants, the Biden administration has moved to increase fracked gas export capacity, especially in the U.S. Gulf Coast, since Russia invaded Ukraine last February. The president has also rubber-stamped more permits for fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters than his White House predecessor.
The Biden administration has done all of those things despite mounting evidence of the climate emergency's worsening toll and ample warnings from scientists about the incompatibility of expanding fossil fuels and preserving a livable planet. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently told Biden and other wealthy country officials in no uncertain terms that their current climate policies amount to a civilizational "death sentence."
People vs. Fossil Fuels has argued that the president "can reclaim his climate legacy by stopping all new fossil fuel projects."
Thursday's rally outside the White House marks the beginning of what the coalition called "a stampede of distributed actions across the country" from June 8-11.
Participants have four main demands for Biden:
- End new fossil fuel projects, including Willow and the Alaska LNG project;
- Phase out ongoing oil and gas drilling on public lands;
- Declare a climate emergency; and
- Make renewable energy technology more available for homes and transportation.
As another alliance of progressive advocacy groups has explained: "The president has a long list of actions that he could take or instruct his agencies to take, ranging from stopping fossil fuel infrastructure approvals to instructing the [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] to issue a stringent pollution prevention rule for the oil and gas sector. Declaring a climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act would unlock additional statutory powers, including the ability to halt crude oil exports and directing funds to build resilient, distributed renewable energy."
In a statement this week, Zero Hour organizing director Magnolia Mead said that "young people are angry and fed up with watching President Biden cave to the fossil fuel industry time and time again."
"We need an immediate transition to renewable energy to slow the climate crisis, and that's impossible while our president is still approving massive fossil fuel expansion," said Mead. "If President Biden cares at all for future generations and frontline communities, he must choose to end the era of fossil fuels."
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Climate Orgs Launch Week of Action to End the Era of Fossil Fuels
"Young people are angry and fed up with watching President Biden cave to the fossil fuel industry time and time again," one activist said.
Jun 07, 2023
In the wake of Biden administration decisions like approving ConocoPhillips' Willow project and agreeing to fast-track the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), climate organizations and frontline communities across the country are launching a week of action from June 8 to 11 to demand President Joe Biden honor his promise to be the climate president and end the era of fossil fuels for good.
The action week will include a Thursday rally and sit-in at the White House along with demonstrations at 65 other locations across the nation backed by 64 different Indigenous, climate, labor, and environmental justice groups.
"Young people are angry and fed up with watching President Biden cave to the fossil fuel industry time and time again," Zero Hour organizing director Magnolia Mead said in a statement. "We need an immediate transition to renewable energy to slow the climate crisis, and that's impossible while our president is still approving massive fossil fuel expansion. If President Biden cares at all for future generations and frontline communities, he must choose to end the era of fossil fuels."
Our public officials clearly lack the political will or backbone to protect our people and the planet. So we must take action."
The action week—whose organizers include Zero Hour, Sunrise, 350.org, the Indigenous Environmental Network, Fridays for Future, and the People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition—grew out of disappointment with Biden's Willow approval along with the desire to channel young people's online opposition to that project into direct action.
The sense of urgency only mounted when the debt-ceiling agreement, signed into law by Biden Saturday, included approving the MVP and weakening the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which gives frontline communities a say in infrastructure projects.
The protest outside the White House, which begins at 2:00 pm ET, will specifically demand that Biden cancel the 300-mile fracked gas MVP through Virginia and West Virginia.
"We are still not deterred in our fight against the MVP and other such harmful projects," Maury Johnson, a landowner in the MVP's path and a member of Preserve Monroe and the POWHR (Protect Our Water, Heritage, & Rights) Coalition—who is helping to arrange transport for the rally—told Common Dreams. "Hope to see hundreds if not thousands join us in front of the White House on Thursday, June 8."
The new direct action group Climate Defiance has promised to risk arrest at the protest and called on everyone of conscience to join them.
\u201cThe President stabbed us in the back. He sold us out to fossil fuel CEOs. He forced upon us the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which is a death sentence for our generation.\u201d— Climate Defiance (@Climate Defiance) 1686004033
"Now is the time for climate action," Jay Waxse of Climate Defiance told Common Dreams. "Joe Biden and Joe Manchin think it's time for massive fossil fuel expansion, while our forests burn and skies fill with smoke. Our public officials clearly lack the political will or backbone to protect our people and the planet. So we must take action."
Waxse added that the group had chosen nonviolent direct action "to express to our branches of government that we won't be satisfied until we put an end to the expansion of new fossil fuels. And that means stopping the MVP now!"
As Washington D.C., along with most of the eastern U.S., chokes on unhealthy air from Canadian wildfires, Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media said the White House protest would go ahead, though the organizers were taking health precautions including distributing N95 masks.
"This is 'exactly' why we have to take these sorts of actions," Henn tweeted.
\u201cThat said: we are absolutely going to take precautions to keep people healthy and safe, with KN95 masks and other precautions available for folks. \n\nThe fires are a real reminder of how climate, health, and disabilities all intersect, especially for the most vulnerable.\u201d— Jamie Henn (@Jamie Henn) 1686161011
For those who can't travel to D.C., organizers have provided a nationwide action map for the week as well as a toolkit explaining how to register an action.
Overall, the week has four main demands for Biden:
- End new fossil fuel projects, including Willow and the Alaska LNG project.
- Phase out ongoing oil and gas drilling on public lands.
- Declare a climate emergency.
- Make renewable energy technology more available for homes and transportation.
Local actions will also target specific fossil fuel projects, such as the Canadian-owned aging Line 5 pipeline that Indigenous advocates worry will spill oil into the Great Lakes.
"As a Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe member, I am calling on the Biden administration to shut down Line 5 immediately," Bad River Ojibwe activist Aurora Conley of the Anishinaabe Environmental Protection Alliance said in a statement.
"Our territories and water are in imminent danger, and we do not want to see irreversible damage to our land, water, and wild rice. We do not want our lifeways destroyed," Conley added.
In Seattle, meanwhile, protesters with XR Seattle, 350 Seattle, and other groups are meeting outside the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building at 12:00 pm PT Thursday with both national and local demands. In addition to calling on Biden to halt the MVP and restore NEPA, they also want Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to publicly oppose the expansion of the GTN pipeline, a plan from TC Energy to pump an additional 150 million cubic feet of methane per day through the 1,354 mile long pipeline that runs through British Columbia, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The additional methane would add 3.47 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere each year.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could decide on the expansion as soon as July 27.
350 Seattle communications director Ben Jones told Common Dreams that the action was motivated by "the combination of looming expansion of natural gas" along the West Coast "and approval of a deeply unpopular and strongly resisted pipeline out East."
Jones was also concerned about the gutting of NEPA, which has helped communities in the Pacific Northwest to fight off more than 20 proposals for oil and gas expansion in the region in the last 15 years.
"With gutting NEPA, that's some of the main avenues that community groups have for public comment or for advocacy," Jones said.
Nationwide, organizers hope that the coming week of action will be the first in a summer-long escalation leading up to U.N. Secretary General António Guterres' hosting of a global Climate Ambition Summit in New York City in September.
"Starting this June and leading up to September, we will be taking action with national and international partners to make it clear that siding with Big Oil is a political liability for Biden—and we, the people who got him elected, demand better," the coalition said in their toolkit.
Correction: This piece has been updated to reflect a change in the expected FERC agenda with regards to the GTN pipeline expansion.
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