Environmental and indigenous groups have filed two separate lawsuits challenging the Willow Project on Alaska’s North Slope after the Biden administration approved the oil drilling venture on Monday.
ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project is slated to drill oil in the National Petroleum Reserve, which is owned by the federal government. The area where the project is planned holds up to 600 million barrels of oil, though it would take years for that oil to reach the market since the project has yet to be constructed.
The project has galvanized a recent, sudden uprising of online activism against it, including more than one million letters written to the White House in protest of the project and a Change.org petition with more than 3 million signatures.
Environmental law group Earthjustice and law firm Trustees for Alaska filed the complaints against the Biden administration’s Department of Interior and its top officials, the Bureau of Land Management, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies.
The Willow Project has faced similar lawsuits before; in 2021, a federal judge in Alaska ruled the Trump administration’s environmental analysis for the project was not up to par and vacated its permits. Environmental groups and their attorneys are hoping for a similar outcome this time.
The groups are asking a judge for an injunction, which could halt the project if granted.
In two complaints filed Tuesday and early Wednesday morning, the groups argue that the Biden administration’s environmental analysis still violates federal law, including the National Environmental Policy Act. The groups are arguing the analysis, which concludes that the project won’t have a major impact on the environment or the climate crisis, is seriously flawed.
The complaints tie the project’s potential climate effects to the…
Read the full article here