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The Willow Project, Alaska’s Nature’s infamous murderer
25-04-2023 | 14:36
المصدر: النهار - Youssef Gemayel - 2AS “G” Champville.
ConocoPhillips, an American multinational corporation engaged in hydrocarbon exploration and production made in the United States was founded on the 30 August 2002 as ConocoPhillips Co.
At the end of the last decade, they came with a new plan to the to their business a new venture titled “The Willow Project”.
The Willow Project is a massive and decadelong oil drilling operation on Alaska’s North Slope in the National Petroleum Reserve, which is owned by the federal government.
The zone, where the project is planned holds up to 600 million barrels of oil, that kind of oil would take years to reach the market since the project has yet to be constructed.
This operation was announced to the American government in 2017, it was originally approved by former president The Donald Trump administration in 2020.
In 2021, a judged has declined this project for the protection of the polar bears and the animals living in the place’s nature.
In 2023, The Biden administration felt its hands were tied with the project because Conoco has existing and valid leases in the area.
Sources from the government has revealed that They determined that legally, courts wouldn’t have allowed them to fully reject or drastically reduce the project, they also added that, If they had pursued those options, they could have faced steep fines in addition to legal action from ConocoPhillips.
When the news came out that the president Biden has accepted the project, people were expressing their disagreement, by making a trending topic on Twitter and starting a petition the well-known Site “Change.org” that has now over 5 million signatures from teenagers, scientists, animal and nature lovers.
The government hasn’t revealed yet when this project will exactly but construction can begin for now. However, it is unclear exactly when that will happen, in large part due to impending legal challenges.
The only hope present for the people against this project and Earthjustice, is that an environmental law group, is expected to file a complaint against the project soon and will likely seek an injunction to try to block the project from going forward.
Environmental groups and ConocoPhillips are each racing against time. Construction on Willow can only be done during the winter season because it needs ice roads to build the rest of the oil project’s infrastructure.
including hundreds of miles of roads and pipelines and a processing facility, depending on the weather, the Alaska’s winter season could end sometime in April, that means the environment’s nature there is still in big danger and society still has to protest against it until its officially cancelled.
If environmental groups secure an injunction before then to stop or delay the project, it could delay construction for at least a year. And since the project needs to be fully constructed before the oil can be produced, it could take years for the oil pumped out of Willow to reach the market.
One of the main reasons why the Government accepted this proposal is because it has the ability to have a big influence on the American and worldwide, making the government win a price of money between 8 and 17 billion dollars.
If environmental groups secure an injunction before then to stop or delay the project, it could delay construction for at least a year. And since the project needs to be fully constructed before the oil can be produced, it could take years for the oil pumped out of Willow to reach the market.
Theirs a lot of legal arguments that are being proposed against this program one of them being that the Biden administration’s authority to protect surface resources on Alaska’s public lands includes taking steps to reduce planet-warming carbon pollution this campaign will definitely add to it.
an Alaska-based senior attorney for Earthjustice by the name of Jeremy Lieb has said : “We and our clients don’t see any acceptable version of this project, we think the [environmental impact] analysis is unlawful”.
The people that support this activity are saying will create jobs, boost domestic energy production and lessen the country’s reliance on foreign oil.
All three lawmakers in Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation met with President Joe Biden and his senior advisers on March 3, urging the president and his administration to approve the project despite its history.
