During Trump’s 2020 presidency the first iteration of the Willow Project was approved. It was then sued several times and halted until Biden’s presidential term. In March of 2023 Biden approved a scaled down iteration of the Willow Project. Earlier this month Federal Judge Sharon L. Gleason dismissed two of the last remaining suits against the project. Finally allowing it to go under production. According to NPR, “ConocoPhillips says it intends to resume construction work on Dec. 21.”
The November 2023 Rulings:
- Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic et al. v. Bureau of Land Management et al.
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Judge Gleason vacated–reversed previous ruling that did not allow the Willow Project to continue–due to the belief that the BLM’s findings that Willow’s drilling in the Arctic would not cause substantial environmental harm and that environmental harms due to Willow could not be concretely predicted. Thus the suit was dismissed.
- Center for Biological Diversity, et al. v. Bureau of Land Management et al.
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The ruling could be summed up by this quote from Judge Gleason’s decision and report, “BLM determined that “generalized calculations of GHG impacts . . . would not be able to determine precise effects to individual animals and such consequences would not be reasonably certain to occur” (428, p.101).
Decision Analysis & Climate Impacts:
This decision disregards years of climate change research and statistics based on years of the same environmental problems. Every year climate activists sue the government in hopes of swaying the opinions of those in power toward caring for the environment. What these individuals do not realize is that there will be no money or power to be enjoyed if there is no Earth left to enjoy it on. Weeks after this project’s approval, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report stating that international governments are not complying with their pledges to keep global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). The Willow Project aims to drill in the Arctic and extract oil in Alaska. Drilling in the Arctic has been proven to create more greenhouse gasses, a point that Judge Gleason concluded has not enough scientific backing to make concrete claims. According to Yale Environment 360–a publication from Yale’s School of the Environment–the layers of dirt and permafrost in the Arctic and Alaska hold more carbon in them than your average loam blend. Due to the cold environment, decomposition is slowed and somewhat non-existent; it is estimated that there is 10-20 pounds of carbon per square foot of surface area in the first 10 feet of the permafrost. According to World Wildlife, “Allowing drilling in the Arctic Ocean would add new environmental stressors – from pollution, to noise and other forms of disturbance – to marine wildlife that are already feeling the brunt of warming sea and air temperatures”. Although it is impossible to predict exact GHG emissions or concrete environmental impacts, it is the responsibility of judges to preserve the natural good order of things, and to use their right to create precedents when the facts support it. In the case of the Willow Project there is more evidence to suggest that there will be a negative environmental impact if drilling continues again.
What Are Our Next Steps:
Some of the plaintiffs from these suits have said that they intend to appeal this ruling in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Until then, ConocoPhillips has been cleared to begin construction Winter of 2023. In the meantime Earth Justice has filed an appeal, you learn more here.