Currently — March 14th, 2023

March 13, 2023

What you need to know, currently.

The Biden administration approved the Willow Project, a ConocoPhillips effort that results in massive oil drilling along Alaska’s North Slope, today despite the many environmental groups and Alaska Native communities vehemently opposed to it.

As a compromise of sorts, while ConocoPhillips is to begin drilling for the next few years, the Department of the Interior said that it will restrict drilling in other parts of Alaska and ban offshore oil drilling in Arctic Ocean waters.

The Bureau of Land Management estimates that Willow could produce about 600 million barrels of oil over 39 years, generating billions of dollars of revenue for Alaska and the federal government, while polluting the air, devastating the nearby wildife, including the caribou, which many Alaska Native communities rely on, and tainting the water supply.

Though Biden stated that if he were elected, there would be “no new drilling on federal lands,” this approval marks the first time he has broken this promise without pressure from Congress or federal courts.

—Aarohi Sheth

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