SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
oil drilling
Aliso Canyon Gives Newsom a Chance to Prove Himself a Climate Champion
Trump and his “drill baby, drill” agenda poses an existential threat to our climate. We need governors to step up, lead the opposition, and advance bold policies at the state level to protect our people and planet.
Dec 16, 2024
The upcoming Trump presidency poses an existential threat to our already fragile climate. Trump has appointed a cabinet filled with climate deniers, and promised to ramp up oil drilling and gut industry regulations. In response, Governor Gavin Newsom has promised to fight Trump and advance climate progress in California.
Gov. Newsom has a national profile and has aspirations for national office. He has a chance to provide much-needed national climate leadership, but to effectively battle Trump and advance a bold agenda; he’ll need to walk back some of his prior positions and fulfill promises that are at odds with the wishes of some of his biggest corporate backers. His first early test will be to fulfill his commitment to shut down Aliso Canyon, site of the largest gas blowout in U.S. history.
No issue more strongly illustrates Newsom’s allegiance to the utility industry than the ongoing saga of Aliso Canyon.
In many ways, Newsom has indeed led on climate. Under his watch the state instituted a 3,200-foot setback between new oil wells and homes, schools and hospitals. Overall new drilling permits have declined, the legislature passed a measure to take on price gouging, and California has finally instituted a fracking ban—something that communities had demanded for years. He has also been outspoken on the national stage, challenging Florida Governor DeSantis over climate policy and generally challenging the oil and gas industry in the press.
Yet Newsom has also taken a number of positions that undermine climate progress. His Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously, for example, to gut incentives for rooftop solar. These incentives are critical for encouraging the deployment of solar across the state. This move has undermined the state’s solar industry and stalled its buildout. Pushing this action were major utilities like PG&E that are undermined by distributed energy generation. Meanwhile, he extended the life of three gas-fired power plants.
Newsom has also embraced a number of projects and programs advanced by the fossil fuel industry that masquerade as climate solutions. These include carbon capture, hydrogen and biogas (gas produced from filthy factory farm waste). The latter was recently a topic of debate before the California Air Resources Board, the vast majority of which were appointed by Newsom. The board voted to continue the state policy of incentivizing biogas under the low-carbon fuel standard program despite strong opposition from environmental groups and frontline communities.
But no issue more strongly illustrates Newsom’s allegiance to the utility industry than the ongoing saga of Aliso Canyon. The 2015 blowout there spewed more than 100,000 tons of methane and toxic chemicals over nearby Los Angeles communities, forcing thousands to temporarily relocate and making many sick. Shortly after being elected, Governor Newsom promised community members that he would “fast track” the closure of Aliso, after former Governor Brown said it should be shuttered by 2027.
Yet Aliso Canyon is operated by SoGalGas, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, which has been a big backer of Governor Newsom. In all, utilities have donated $241,200 to Newsom’s political campaigns, including $31,200 from Sempra. Despite coming in on a promise to shut down Aliso, Newsom’s Public Utilities Commission has continually expanded its use. On December 19 the commission will be considering a proposal that could keep Aliso Canyon open indefinitely. The CPUC must either continue the proceeding for additional consideration or reject this proposal outright. The only just solution is to shut down Aliso Canyon by 2027.
Trump and his “drill baby, drill” agenda poses an existential threat to our climate. We need governors to step up, lead the opposition, and advance bold policies at the state level to protect our people and planet. Gov. Newsom has a chance to be that leader, but only if he’s able to advance a policy agenda that directly takes on fossil fuel interests and big utilities at all levels, and provides a clear counterweight to what Trump is pushing. This will mean reversing course on rooftop solar, rejecting industry plans like biogas and carbon capture, and—in his next big test—shutting down the dirty and dangerous Aliso Canyon gas storage facility.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Big Win in California as Big Oil Drops Effort to Drill Near Schools and Homes
"Big Oil spent tens of millions of dollars trying to fool voters," said one campaigner, "but it was no match for the groundswell of people power and community support."
Jun 27, 2024
Environmental, climate, and public health advocates on Thursday cheered what one green group called a "historic win" as a Big Oil industry group dropped a California ballot measure challenging a law banning oil drilling near homes, schools, and businesses.
The Sacramento Bee reported that the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA) will withdraw its ballot measure seeking to overturn the state's ban on drilling for oil within 3,200 feet of residential, educational, and commercial buildings.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill—introduced by then-state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-80)—in September 2022.
"We just won our David vs. Goliath battle," the Protect California Communities campaign said on social media. "Big Oil officially withdrew their deceitful initiative!"
"Our law is safe and will finally take effect," the group added. "We just protected California neighborhoods from toxic oil drilling!"
CIPA chairman Jonathan Gregory issued a salty statement following the ballot measure's withdrawal.
"Supporters of the energy shutdown can make unfounded claims in the press and in paid advertisements, but they can't make those claims in court without evidence," he said, according to the Bee. "That's why we are pivoting from the referendum to a legal strategy."
However, Newsom said CIPA's move "ends harmful drilling in our communities and enforces common-sense pollution controls."
"Big Oil saw what they were up against—and they folded, again," the governor said on Thursday. "No parent in their right mind would vote to allow drilling next to daycares and playgrounds. This is a huge win for all Californians, especially the two million living within a half-mile of these operations."
Food & Water Watch California director Chirag Bhakta said in a statement that "while this is a moment to celebrate the power of people coming together to take on Big Oil, we must continue to get toxic oil drilling out of neighborhoods, as well as all fossil fuel infrastructure, which also poses a huge risk to public health and causes pollution to our water and air."
Bhakta added that Newsom must now "immediately shut down the dangerous Aliso Canyon gas storage facility which was the site of the biggest methane blowout in U.S. history almost a decade ago and is an ongoing threat to nearby residents."
Communities for a Better Environment Darryl Molina Sarmiento said that "Big Oil spent tens of millions of dollars trying to fool voters, using the profits made at the expense of community health, but it was no match for the groundswell of people power and community support we were able to unite all across California."
Food & Water Watch's Bhakta said that public opposition to repealing the law "proves once again that Californians do not want dangerous and polluting oil rigs in their backyards, near where their children go to school and play or near hospitals."
"We will not sacrifice our communities anymore," he vowed. "This victory is due to the dedication of so many, and particularly frontline communities who are experiencing the brunt of the oil industry's pollution and have been advocating for years to get dirty oil drilling out of their backyards."
Nalleli Cobo is one of those people. The 22-year-old activist—who helped found the grassroots group People Not Pozos (Spanish for wells)—is recovering from illness related to growing up alonside an oil well and has been tirelessly fighting against Big Oil's plans to drill near residential communities.
"When I was about 11, I was diagnosed with asthma. By the time I turned 19, we had shut down the drilling in our South L.A. neighborhood, but not before I was diagnosed with stage 2 reproductive cancer," Cobo explained. "I lost my ability to bear children as a result. After three surgeries, eight minor procedures, three rounds of chemotherapy, and six weeks of radiation, I was cancer-free as of two years ago, at 20."
"My experience, like that of others who live in neighborhoods polluted by oil drilling, is a constant reminder that those in power do not value our health and wellbeing," she added. "It's a signal that some communities are expendable, that our lives don't matter as much as the fossil fuel industry's profits."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Landmark UK Supreme Court Ruling 'Slams Brakes' on New Fossil Fuel Projects
"This is a welcome step towards a safer, fairer future," said the climate campaigner who brought the legal challenge.
Jun 20, 2024
In a landmark decision that could spell doom for all new fossil fuel projects in the country, the United Kingdom's highest court ruled Thursday that local planning authorities unlawfully failed to consider the full planet-warming emissions impact when they approved a drilling initiative that was expected to yield more than 3 million tonnes of oil over two decades.
The most recent challenge to the closely watched drilling project was brought to the U.K. Supreme Court in 2023 by climate campaigner Sarah Finch, who argued that the Surrey County Council's granted permission for new oil wells at Horse Hill without taking into account future emissions from burning the fossil fuel produced at the sites—so-called "downstream" emissions.
In a 3-2 decision, the U.K.'s high court ruled that the Surrey council's approval of the Horse Hill drilling "was unlawful because the emissions that will occur when the oil produced is burnt as fuel are within the scope of the [environmental impact assessment] required by law."
"The oil and gas companies may act like business-as-usual is still an option, but it will be very hard for planning authorities to permit new fossil fuel developments."
Finch said Thursday that she is "absolutely over the moon to have won this important case."
"This is a welcome step towards a safer, fairer future," Finch continued. "The oil and gas companies may act like business-as-usual is still an option, but it will be very hard for planning authorities to permit new fossil fuel developments—in the Weald, the North Sea, or anywhere else—when their true climate impact is clear for all to see."
Friends of the Earth U.K., which backed Finch's legal challenge, called the court's ruling "a heavy blow for the fossil fuel industry," noting that the decision "could have ramifications for other proposed fossil fuel projects, such as the Whitehaven coal mine, as well as projects to extract oil from the North Sea."
Scientists have made clear that no new oil and gas projects are consistent with efforts to limit planetary warming to 1.5°C by century's end.
"If developers are now obliged to present the full climate impacts of their projects (instead of just a fraction of those impacts, as has largely happened up until now), then decision-makers may well think twice before granting them planning permission," Friends of the Earth U.K. said in a statement Thursday.
Extinction Rebellion U.K., another supporter of Finch's challenge, said Thursday's ruling effectively "slams brakes" on new fossil fuel projects in the country.
"Not only does today's Supreme Court ruling destroy [U.K. Oil and Gas'] plans to drill for up to 3.3 million tonnes of crude oil for 20 years at its Horse Hill site, near Gatwick Airport, but also has huge implications for all future fossil fuel projects in the U.K.," the organization said. "Neither the Cumbrian coal mine in Whitehaven nor the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea sought consent for their projects. Nor did they provide any information on downstream emissions in their environmental statements. Both projects are the subjects of legal challenges."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Ecuadorians Vote on 'Monumental Referendum' to End Oil Drilling in Yasuní National Park
The vote comes after a decade of campaigning by organizers who want to protect the park's biodiversity and the tribes who live there.
Aug 20, 2023
Ecuadorian voters on Sunday headed to the polls to cast their votes in both a snap presidential election and to take what environmental justice campaigners said was a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity to help protect one of the world's most vital ecosystems.
Signs urging the public to vote "Sí al Yasuni" or "yes" for the Yasuní National Park in the Amazon rainforest have been plastered across the country in recent weeks, as organizers call on voters to support a referendum that would stop oil drilling in the Yasuní Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oilfield.
The 198,000-hectare park is Ecuador's largest protected area and is home to 1,130 species of trees—more than the United States and Canada combined—165 mammal species, 630 species of birds, and over 100,000 insect species per hectare.
The Indigenous Waorani, Kichwa, and Shuar people coexist in the region, as well as the uncontacted Tagaeri and Taromenan tribes.
As Indigenous rights group Survival International said in a video posted to social media on Saturday, oil drilling in the tribes' territory "poses a huge threat to their survival" as well as perpetuating an energy system that scientists have warned is heating the planet and causing dangerous sea level rise and extreme weather events.
Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa began an initiative after taking office in 2007 to keep the oil in the ground in Yasuní National Park, creating a fund equal to half of the oilfield's reserves and asking other countries to pay into the fund in exchange for not drilling.
But the initiative ended in 2013 and state oil firm Petroecuador has extracted as many as 57,000 barrels of oil per day from the park since then.
The grassroots movement Yasunidos has spent a decade gathering 750,000 signatures to support the placing of the referendum on ballots and Ecuador's top electoral court ruled last year that the vote could go forward.
If the referendum is successful, said human rights group Global Justice Now, Ecuador could "become the first country to limit fossil fuel extraction through direct democracy."
"Ecuadorian campaigners are defending their local environment while standing on the frontline of the global battle to keep fossil fuels in the ground," said Izzie McIntosh, climate campaign manager for the group. "Whichever way the vote goes, they have sent a clear message to polluting multinationals: communities will not stand by while corporations profit at the expense of the Amazon, and our planet's collective well-being."
After 10 years of oil extraction in the fragile rainforest, the referendum offers Indigenous tribes and the entire country the possibility of "a different future," Hueiya Cayuiya, founder of the Waorani Women's Association of the Ecuadorian Amazon, told The Guardian.
"If we win, it will be a triumph for Ecuador," said Cahuiya. "We don't want any more contamination in our rivers, any more extraction on our land."
Keep ReadingShow Less
The Willow Project Threatens Alaska Bird Breeding Paradise
Of all places in the world to destroy, let’s not make the birds’ honeymoon haven one of them.
Jul 10, 2023
Under the beautiful iridescent Northern sky lies a haven for birds, a Paris of the avian world, its Eiffel Tower a beautiful lake, its accordion the sound of birdsong, its wine the emerald-green of the Northern lights. Birds flock from thousands of miles away to this nesting spot now commonly called ‘lover’s lane’—it is where they raise their baby chicks. To them this is the only place, and none other quite like it in the whole world.
This honeymoon haven is in Alaska. A striking 600,000 shorebirds breed in the Teshekpuk Lake wetlands. It is the greatest breeding density known anywhere in the Arctic. And this area is under threat from Biden’s Willow oil drilling project.
Oil and gas drilling causes chronic stress in birds. The noise pollution changes corticosterone (stress hormone) levels the same way PTSD does in humans. Scientists have observed a linear relationship between stress hormone levels in birds and their distance from noisy gas drilling compressors. Perhaps even worse, in addition to a poor quality of life, nestling growth is stunted for those facing the environmental stress. So not only are the parents under stress on a par with PTSD, but baby chicks can not grow normally. This is true even at distances when the sound is less severe.
Because the region is so important to a vast number of species and is essential breeding ground, drilling nearby is extraordinarily foolhardy and risky.
The effect on baby chicks is especially concerning when one considers drilling in an area in close proximity to a bird nesting haven. Numerous bird species on the Alaska Watch List nest or molt near Teshekpuk Lake. Of special note are the Steller’s eider and Spectacle Eider, which are listed as threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Teshekpuk Lake is nesting habitat for all four world eider species.
The sheer number of birds that depend on the region is astonishing, with up to 100,000 geese molting in the region each year, and 600,000 shorebirds breeding within the wetlands.
According to Audubon, about one-fifth of the world’s population of yellow-billed loons breed in western and northern Alaska. The yellow-billed loon has a near threatened status. A beautiful bird with a checkered back, white belly, and yellow bill, these deep-sea divers form long lasting pairs, like doves.
Other species besides our aviary friends stand to be harmed by the drilling as well, including polar bears and caribou. One would not be surprised if the noise also disturbed their lifestyle and reproduction.
Of course, chemical contamination is not uncommon near drilling sites, and this could have a devastating effect on all the inhabitants of the region, animals, birds, and humans. If a spill were to occur, it would be extremely difficult to recover from and could easily destroy populations. Because the region is so important to a vast number of species and is essential breeding ground, drilling nearby is extraordinarily foolhardy and risky.
Even without chemical contaminants, birds within earshot of the compressors will suffer reproductive setbacks due to the constant stress, as has been shown by scientists’ controlled experiments. Exposing hundreds of thousands of birds to permanent stress will cause stunted growth in the next generation.
Some people might believe this only affects Alaska, but the birds that you and I see and enjoy thousands of miles away—the geese, the ducks, the migratory birds—they will be affected, and we will see fewer and fewer of them if their reproductive success is disturbed by Willow’s drilling.
Of all places in the world to destroy, let’s not make the birds’ honeymoon haven one of them. We will notice the impacts for generations to come, when we look out the window and find the migratory birds who usually visit that time of year are simply no longer there.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'No Form of This Project Is OK': Climate Groups Reject White House Push for Willow Compromise
"Climate change is melting Alaska's glaciers," said the Alaska Wilderness League. "We can't afford to dig the hole any deeper with bad ideas like the Willow Project."
Mar 02, 2023
Climate advocates on Wednesday intensified their warnings to the Biden administration against approving oil giant ConocoPhillips' Willow project in Alaska, rejecting attempts by White House officials to reach a "compromise" on a drilling project that would generate an estimated 9.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year.
Even approval of a "scaled back version" of the Willow project, said former Sierra Club president Dave Scott, would lead to "a tragedy environmentalists know all too well."
As The Washington Post reported Wednesday, White House officials have been in talks with groups including the Alaska Wilderness League, Earthjustice, and the Sierra Club and have suggested a new ban on offshore drilling near the state's northern coast as well as other habitat protections to be paired with the approval of two drilling pads for the Willow project.
"Rejecting a project like Willow should be a no-brainer for a climate leader like Biden. And if he doesn't, it'll be a stain on his legacy."
ConocoPhillips has suggested it may cancel plans for the project unless three drilling pads are approved, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said last month in its environmental impact statement that the project could include three pads and protect crucial habitats for yellow-billed loons and caribou. Alaska lawmakers including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) and Rep. Mary Peltola (D) have pushed the White House to move forward with the three-pad proposal.
Climate groups, however, have pointed to the consensus among scientific and energy experts who say continued oil and gas extraction has no place in a pathway to avoiding global heating above 1.5°C, and to the objections of Iñupiat people in the community of Nuiqsut, close to the planned project site.
Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic has raised concerns about the project leading to food insecurity, poor air quality and its link to high rates of cancer and asthma, and accelerated heating of the Arctic region, which is already warming more rapidly than the rest of the planet.
Willow "would be a climate disaster," said Lena Moffitt, chief of staff for Evergreen Action, on Wednesday. "As the single largest oil and gas project proposed on U.S. public lands, it would be a gateway to significant new extraction—at a time when we need to be ramping down fossil fuels, not opening up vast new fields."
Speaking to the Post, Moffitt said that "rejecting a project like Willow should be a no-brainer for a climate leader like Biden," who last year signed into law the largest investment in climate action in U.S. history, the Inflation Reduction Act.
"And if he doesn't, it'll be a stain on his legacy," she added. “No form of this project is okay.”
The 30-year Willow project would involve drilling on top of permafrost and creating chilling tubes to keep the ice frozen as the Arctic continues to grow hotter. The emissions it would generate would be the equivalent of those caused by nearly two million fossil fuel-powered cars.
The Interior Department has said it has "substantial concerns" about the approval of the form of the project proposed by the BLM last month.
The Biden administration could announce its final decision regarding permits for the project as soon as Monday.
In recent days, as the White House has attempted to convince climate groups to accept a scaled-back version of the Willow project, opponents have intensified their calls for Biden to reject ConocoPhillips' plans, with Earthjustice calling the proposal "a bomb waiting to happen."
" Climate change is melting Alaska's glaciers," said the Alaska Wilderness League on social media Thursday, linking to an article about the harm global heating is already doing to the state's tourism industry. "We can't afford to dig the hole any deeper with bad ideas like the Willow Project."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Green Groups Defend Biden Decision to Delay Oil and Gas Drilling Leases
"The energy sector should be looking to the future of justly sourced renewable energy, not pushing outdated technology that exploits people and the planet."
Feb 08, 2023
More than a dozen groups intervened in a case in Wyoming on Wednesday to defend the Biden administration's decision to postpone the sale of oil and gas leases in the state, arguing that numerous court ruling and settled laws have affirmed the U.S. Interior Department is free to determine when such sales will go forward—or whether they will at all.
The legal groups Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center are representing 17 national and local groups in the case, in which the state of Wyoming and two industry trade groups sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in December over its postponement of sales that had been planned for 2021 and 2022.
The BLM currently has several sales scheduled for 2023, covering nearly half a million acres, but as Friends of the Earth (FOE) said in a press statement Wednesday, the groups "want the court to order the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the BLM to hold lease sales every three months across the West"—despite warnings from energy experts and scientists that fossil fuel extraction must be phased out in order to avoid the worst effects of the climate emergency.
"Today's filing demonstrates that we refuse to sit back and allow Big Oil to push for policies that perpetuate dirty energy," said Hallie Templeton, legal director for FOE. "The law is crystal clear: the federal government holds broad authority over whether, when, and how to lease public lands for oil and gas development. The energy sector should be looking to the future of justly sourced renewable energy, not pushing outdated technology that exploits people and the planet."
FOE is joined by groups including the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, Citizens for a Health Community, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils in defending the Biden administration's decision.
A U.S. District Court ruling in Wyoming in September 2022 affirmed that the administration can postpone the sales, and the U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that the agencies "have broad discretion to determine the timing and scope of lease sales, including not holding them at all," FOE said in the press statement.
Bob LeResche, a Powder River Basin Resource Council board member and chair of the Western Organization of Resource Councils, noted that the industry has already "stockpiled" more than 9,000 approved federal drilling permits.
"Forcing Interior to lease without fully weighing public impacts is industry’s attempt to continue looting public resources by accumulating excess leases at bargain basement prices," said LeResche. "The industry could continue drilling and producing as normal for decades even with no new leases."
The postponement represents a correction of BLM's longtime practice of "blindly" leasing public lands for oil and gas drilling "without actually understanding the impacts of development," said Peter Hart, an attorney with Wilderness Workshop.
"Now the agency is working to reevaluate its oil and gas management and to assess impacts, like those that new development will have on the climate," he added. "It just makes sense to pause new leasing until the program is brought into this century, and it is well within the agency’s authority."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Massive Climate Disaster': Groups Demand Biden Reverse Course on Willow Project
"Greenlighting the Willow Project would banish President Biden’s climate legacy to one of irreparable and downright shameful environmental destruction," said a campaigner with Friends of the Earth.
Feb 01, 2023
The Biden administration's Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday published an environmental assessment that recommends partial approval of a major drilling project on Alaska's North Slope, prompting a flurry of calls for the Interior Department to reject the plan outright and prevent any additional fossil fuel extraction in the region.
"Greenlighting the Willow project would banish President Biden's climate legacy to one of irreparable and downright shameful environmental destruction," said Raena Garcia, fossil fuels and lands campaigner for Friends of the Earth. "Big Oil's exploitation of the rapidly warming Arctic has already thrust local communities onto the frontlines of the climate crisis, jeopardizing public health and polluting critical ecosystems."
Kristen Miller, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League, implored Biden to "reverse course on this massive climate disaster."
"Our window to act is rapidly closing to avert catastrophic climate change," Miller added, "and this plan only takes us one giant step closer to the edge."
The BLM's newly released supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) suggests a "preferred alternative" to the originally planned Willow Project, a ConocoPhillips initiative that has been the subject of years of court battles between environmentalists and the federal government under the Trump and Biden administrations.
The SEIS recommends the approval of three drilling locations instead of the original five and proposes limiting pipeline mileage. ConocoPhillips executives have said that any fewer than three drilling sites would make the project unviable as it would prevent Willow from turning a profit for the company.
"The Interior Department must reject the Willow proposal and live up to this administration's promises to take meaningful climate action."
The Biden administration's assessment acknowledges that "any North Slope oil and gas development, including the Willow [Master Development Plan], would likely incur spills" even if significant preventative measures are taken.
Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic warned in a statement that "if approved, this project would be the largest on public lands and would set back our national climate goals tremendously."
"Willow would lock us into extraction for another 30 years and could potentially be the catalyst for future oil expansion in the Arctic," the grassroots group said. "In 2021, a federal judge rejected the Interior Department's 2020 approvals of Willow for lack of adequate consideration of the impact of the surrounding environment. Regardless of the precautions put in place, there is no denying that fossil fuels are single-handedly the most damaging contributor to the global climate emergency, especially the Arctic."
"The Interior Department must reject the Willow proposal and live up to this administration's promises to take meaningful climate action and protect biodiversity by leveraging natural climate solutions," the group added. "The only reasonable solution to the climate emergency is to deny new fossil fuel projects like Willow and invest in a just transition."
The Interior Department—headed by Deb Haaland, who criticized the Willow Project as a member of Congress—now has a month to make a final decision on the project.
In a statement, the department made clear that it could further curtail the project or block it entirely—a step climate groups said would be consistent with the administration's climate pledges.
"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," the agency said. "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."
While the scaled-back alternative plan for Willow would have a smaller climate impact than the originally proposed project, it would still emit around 9.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, the BLM estimated.
Earthjustice, which has fought the Willow Project in court, noted that the revised plan would "bring at least 219 wells, 267 miles of pipelines, and 35 miles of roads to a vast public lands area in Alaska's Western Arctic, permanently altering a globally significant and ecologically rich landscape."
As The New York Times reported, ConocoPhillips "has said it was hoping for a fast decision from the Biden administration that would allow construction to begin this winter," fearing that "if spring sets in and warmer temperatures begin to melt the frozen roads, it could make it more difficult for crews to pass and construction would have to be shelved for another year."
"Therein lies one of the Willow project's ironies," the Times continued. "Over the past 60 years, Alaska has warmed more than twice as fast as the rest of the United States and the region is expected to continue to warm by an average of 4°F over the 30-year life of the Willow project, thawing the frozen Arctic tundra around the drilling rigs and shortening the winter season during which ice roads and bridges remain frozen. The proposed solution: ConocoPhillips plans to eventually install 'chillers' into the thawing permafrost to keep it solid enough to support the equipment to drill for oil—the burning of which will release carbon dioxide emissions that will worsen the ice melt."
Dyani Chapman, state director of the Alaska Environment Research and Policy Center, said Wednesday that "it's absurd that as our tundra is melting because of climate change, ConocoPhillips plans to use 'chillers' to re-freeze tundra so it can drill for oil that will, in turn, make climate change even worse."
"The Willow project is bad for Alaskans," said Chapman. "ConocoPhillips' activities, which bring gas leaks and harmful development into the region, have already done a lot of damage to local communities. The community of Nuiqsut is already surrounded by planned and active oil wells and people there have seen a rise in respiratory illnesses. They do not need more oil wells and drilling."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Rejecting the Willow Drilling Project Should Be the No-Brainer of All Time
President Joe Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland must know that physics does not grade climate action on a curve.
Feb 01, 2023
If you wanted an example of the reason we’re still losing the fight to slow the earth’s heating, the proposed Willow oil project in Alaska should suffice.
This should be the no-brainer of all time. The ConocoPhillips plan for a massive new oil field development flies in the face of all climate science and reason. It would be producing huge quantities of oil for at least the next three decades—long past the point when scientists say we must stop using it (and long past the point when, with a serious effort to electrify transportation, we’d need it).
And it would do so in a place—Alaska—already warming faster than almost any place on the planet. Warming so fast that taxpayers are already having to pony up huge sums of money to relocate coastal villages inland. Emissions from the Willow project’s oil would cause $19.8 billion in climate damages; it would generate $3.4 billion in federal tax revenue, which is…a lot less.
The ConocoPhillips plan for a massive new oil field development flies in the face of all climate science and reason.
How insane is this project? ConocoPhillips has said it may need to freeze the rapidly thawing ground with massive chillers in order to drill for the oil that will drive that melt even higher. “Where necessary we use cooling devices (thermosyphons) that can chill the ground enough in the winter to help it remain frozen through the summer,” ConocoPhillips Alaska spokeswoman Natalie Lowman explained, a sentence that historians (assuming there are some) will someday parse in an effort to understand exactly how off-track a civilization can go.
It would be an enormous step backward for the U.S. All the way back in 2015, when the Obama-Biden administration rejected the Keystone XL pipeline, the president said “America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change. Frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.” That’s far truer now—back then we hadn’t yet signed the Paris climate accords. Back then we hadn’t had the massive heatwaves in the Pacific Northwest, nor the massive fires in California, nor the massive floods in Pakistan. Back then Sudan hadn’t suffered through five straight dry rainy seasons. Back then large swaths of Alaska’s waterways had not yet turned orange from a warming-driven plankton bloom that threatens local drinking water supplies.
If you want numbers, an analysis from the Center for American Progress finds
the carbon emissions expected from Willow would negate the estimated 129 MMT of carbon emissions avoided by reaching the president’s goals of deploying 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy by 2030 and permitting 25 GW of solar, onshore wind, and geothermal energy on public lands by 2025. Put another way, allowing the Willow project to proceed would result in double the carbon pollution that all renewable progress on public lands and waters would save by 2030.
President Biden has done good work for the climate—from the Inflation Reduction Act to the recent decision to protect Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. But physics doesn’t grade on a curve. When Interior Secretary Deb Haaland makes the call on this project, she’ll be deciding whether to put a truly massive slug of carbon dioxide into the air—co2 that will long outlive her, and all the rest of us.
We can’t keep doing this; this is clearly the place to stop.
She’ll come under huge pressure: as always, Alaska’s politicians, Democratic and Republican, want more drilling. The power structure is so pervasive that Alaska Public Media, when it ran a story on the fight, put it right next to a big notice thanking ConocoPhillips for its support.
The Willow complex is located on the National Petroleum Reserve, created many decades ago by people with foresight, who knew that the smart decision in the moment was to save the oil so we would be able to see if we needed it later. In 2023, the best and highest use of that oil is clearly to keep it in the ground.
If we don’t reserve that oil, if instead we spill it into the air, we will pay a huge price. Alaska will pay more price than most (though those same politicians will do their bipartisan best to make all Americans share the cost of the damages.) We can’t keep doing this; this is clearly the place to stop. Deb Haaland, and Joe Biden, need to stand up to the pressure.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'No Time to Lose': 300+ Groups Push Biden to End Drilling on Public Lands, Waters
"More drilling and more fracking is just a recipe for more climate disaster. For our future, President Biden needs to get real."
Jan 11, 2023
More than 300 environmental and Indigenous rights groups said Wednesday that the Biden administration must take a number of concrete actions to protect the nation's public lands and waters from fossil fuel industry exploitation and bring U.S. policy into line with climate science—and the president's own campaign pledges.
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the climate coalition noted that President Joe Biden "made a bold promise to ban new oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters, and within days of taking office issued his Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad."
"However, since then, the Biden administration and Interior's leadership has fallen short Interior issued new permits to drill at a rate faster than the Trump administration during Biden's first year in office," the letter continues. "The Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management pushed forward with new oil and gas lease sales, including a sale in the Gulf of Mexico that was vacated by a federal court for a faulty environmental review. And Interior's final report on the leasing program failed to take into account climate impacts from extraction on public lands and waters."
The groups also pointed to the Biden administration's recent decision to go ahead with a major oil and gas lease sale off Alaska's coast, ignoring warnings that the auction would imperil marine life, pollute coastal communities, and contribute to the nation's rising carbon emissions.
"The climate science is clear: Several analyses show that climate pollution from the world's already-producing fossil fuel fields, if fully developed, will overshoot the targets in the Paris Climate Agreement and push warming past 1.5 degrees Celsius," the letter states. "Avoiding such warming requires ending new investment in fossil fuel projects and phasing out production to keep as much as 40% of already-developed fields in the ground."
In a press release, the coalition outlines nine steps the Biden administration can and must take to manage "public lands and waters in a manner consistent with climate science":
- Phase out oil and gas production on public lands and waters to near zero by 2035.
- Defend and strengthen the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
- Establish guardrails on the leasing program to protect the climate, public lands, oceans, and communities.
- Issue a five-year plan with no new leases.
- Stop authorizing new exploration, development, and drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska until there is a proper analysis of climate damage.
- Stop issuing new permits to drill on public lands until there is a proper analysis of climate damage and a climate screen
- Manage public lands for climate solutions.
- Halt climate-destroying projects in the Arctic (ex: Willow, Peregrine).
- Protect climate and communities from near-term offshore lease sales (ex: Cook Inlet, Gulf of Mexico).
"As the dire impacts of climate disruption escalate, President Biden must keep his campaign promise to end oil and gas leasing on public lands," said Osprey Orielle Lake, executive director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, a signatory of the new letter.
"Indigenous and frontline communities continue to bear the brunt of the climate crisis, and we are calling for the administration to end fossil fuel expansion and implement a just transition," Lake continued. "There is simply no time to lose and our public lands need to be a part of the solution."
Recent research estimates that fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters has accounted for nearly a quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas pollution since 2005, making the end of such development critical to efforts to bring the country's emissions into line with its domestic and international commitments.
"More drilling and more fracking is just a recipe for more climate disaster," Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians, said in a statement Wednesday. "For our future, President Biden needs to get real, start keeping oil and gas in the ground, and truly drive meaningful action to save our climate."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy