March, 15 2023, 09:28am EDT
![Earthjustice](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012672/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jackson Chiappinelli, Earthjustice, jchiappinelli@earthjustice.org
Conservation groups sue to stop the Willow Oil Project in Alaska’s Western Arctic
Administration’s environmental review failed to account for project’s full climate impact
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Earthjustice filed a lawsuit today on behalf of conservation groups, together with NRDC (the Natural Resources Defense Council), to stop the massive Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska’s Western Arctic, which the Biden administration approved March 13. This approval of an enormous new carbon source undermines President Biden’s promises to slash greenhouse-gas emissions in half by 2030 and transition the United States to clean energy.
Trustees for Alaska has filed a separate legal challenge on behalf of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic and conservation groups.
The BLM’s record of decision approving Willow essentially greenlights ConocoPhillips’ desired blueprint while ignoring pleas from around 5.6 million people, including leadership from the nearby village of Nuiqsut, asking the federal government to halt Willow.
Even though the Biden administration describes its approval as a scaled-down version of the plan, the project will still add about 260 million metric tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere over the next 30 years, the equivalent of an extra two million cars on the road each year for thirty years. The project would cause irreparable harm to the environment, Arctic wildlife and nearby people who depend on the land for subsistence.
The legal challenge targets the Biden administration for failing to consider alternatives that could have meaningfully reduced greenhouse gas emissions and on-the-ground effects. Interior has relied on a mistaken conclusion that it could not deny nor meaningfully limit the project, and it considered project alternatives that ranged only from allowing ConocoPhillips to develop 100 percent of the available oil to allowing it to develop 92 percent of the oil. The Biden administration had the authority to stop Willow – yet chose not to.
The lawsuit also takes the administration to task for failing to assess Willow’s full climate impact, by neglecting to consider the additional climate pollution of future development that can only happen once Willow project infrastructure is in place. ConocoPhillips has described Willow to its investors as the “next great Alaska hub,” saying it had identified a staggering amount of oil, possibly as much as 3 billion barrels, of nearby prospects that could be accessed if the Willow infrastructure were in place.
Earthjustice and its clients, together with co-plaintiff NRDC, released the following statements as the lawsuit was filed:
“It’s shocking that Biden greenlit the Willow project despite knowing how much harm it’ll cause Arctic communities and wildlife,” said Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Now we have to step up and fight for these priceless wild places and the people and animals that depend on them. It’s clear that we can’t count on Biden to keep his word on confronting climate change and halting drilling on public lands.”
“We are enraged that the Administration has again approved Willow despite the clear threats posed to the Western Arctic’s vulnerable environment and communities,” said Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth. “Our prior victory forcing BLM to re-do its environmental analysis should have proven that more must be done to protect our last remaining wild places from Big Oil’s exploitation. We can only hope that the court sees this for what it is: another unlawful, faulty, and disastrous decision that must be stopped.”
“The Biden administration’s approval of ConocoPhillips’ Willow project in the western Arctic of Alaska is a disappointing leap backwards,” said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Defenders of Wildlife’s Alaska Program Director. “This would further imperil climate-sensitive wildlife including threatened polar bears, lock in oil and gas drilling and massive greenhouse gas emissions for decades, and offset the administration’s priority to rein in climate change.”
“The science is clear. We cannot afford any new oil or gas projects if we are going to avoid climate catastrophe. Approving what would be the largest oil extraction project on federal lands is incredibly hypocritical from President Biden who in his State of the Union called the climate crisis an existential threat,” said Natalie Mebane, climate director for Greenpeace USA. “Millions of people – from Indigenous groups to former vice-president Al Gore – have come out in opposition to the project. The Department of the Interior has substantial concerns about the Willow project and the harm it could cause to the climate, wildlife, and people. This is a make-or-break moment for the president’s climate legacy. He needs to listen to the people, his own departments, and himself when he says we have an obligation to confront the climate crisis. The first step is for him to follow the science and stop approving oil and gas projects.”
“We’re asking the court to halt this illegal project and ensure the public knows its true climate impacts,” said Christy Goldfuss, chief policy impact officer for NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “Permitting Willow to go forward is green-lighting a carbon bomb. It would set back the climate fight and embolden an industry hell-bent on destroying the planet.”
“There is no question that the administration possessed the legal authority to stop Willow – yet it chose not to,” said Erik Grafe, Deputy Managing Attorney in Earthjustice’s Alaska regional office. “It greenlit this carbon bomb without adequately assessing its climate impacts or weighing its options to limit the damage and say no. The climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges we face, and President Biden has promised to do all he can to meet the moment. We’re bringing today’s lawsuit to ensure that the administration follows the law and ultimately makes good on this promise for future generations.”
Background
This is the second time the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has approved the Willow project. The Trump administration first approved the project in 2020. Conservation and Alaska Native groups challenged the approval, and the court threw it out as unlawful in 2021. It instructed BLM to reassess the project’s full climate impacts and consider alternatives that would lessen its overall impacts. In approving Willow for the second time, the Biden administration has failed to heed these instructions, producing an environmental analysis that falls short in these same respects.
As approved, the project includes three drill sites, gravel roads, a central processing facility, an operations center, an air strip, hundreds of miles of ice roads, and it allows drilling and roads in the Teshekpuk Lake special area, one of the most important and sensitive areas in the Arctic. ConocoPhillips’ operations would use chillers to re-freeze thawing permafrost, to make the ground stable enough for drilling to continue.
Further, approval of Willow sets into motion a westward expansion of oil development into additional ecologically sensitive areas critical for both subsistence and the protection of wildlife species that are already threatened by climate change.
The reserve is home to polar bears, which are listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, plus musk oxen, caribou, and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds. Two caribou herds – the Western Arctic and the Teshekpuk Lake herds – calve and migrate through the region and are a vital subsistence resource for Alaska Native communities in northern and western Alaska.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
800-584-6460LATEST NEWS
Israel Bombs Yemen Saturday in Escalation with Houthis
The attack came a day after the Houthis claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Tel Aviv
Jul 20, 2024
Houthi-run media say Israeli air strikes Saturday targeted oil storage facilities in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah and that there are an unspecified number of fatalities and injuries.
The attack came a day after the Houthis claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Tel Aviv that killed one person and struck just yards from a U.S. Embassy branch office.
Israel’s air strikes will not stop the Houthi's military operations in support of the Palestinian people, Houthi political bureau member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said in a post on X, warning they will instead increase until the war in Gaza ends. “The Zionist entity will pay the price for targeting civilian facilities, and we will meet escalation with escalation,” al-Bukhaiti wrote.
Military and political analyst Elijah Magnier told Al Jazeera, “Is this going to change the course of action of a non-state actor that is motivated to support the people of Gaza? Certainly not,” Magnier said. “They’ve been given a perfect reason to increase the attacks. We have not seen the end of it – far from it,” he said.
In another post on X, the Houthis’ spokesman, Mohammed Abdulsalam, called the Israeli air strikes “a brutal Israeli aggression against Yemen that aims to deepen people’s suffering and to pressure Yemen to stop supporting Gaza.” Abdulsalam called the attack an Israeli “dream that will not come true. We affirm that this brutal aggression will only increase the determination of the Yemeni people and their valiant armed forces to be steadfast and to continue their support for Gaza. The Yemeni people are able to face all challenges for the sake of victory for oppressed Palestine and the people of Gaza, whose cause is the most just on earth.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Rights Group Urges DOJ to Investigate US-Bound Netanyahu for Genocide
"We believe ample credible evidence exists to sufficiently establish that serious crimes falling within U.S. criminal jurisdiction are systematically being perpetrated in Gaza," said the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Jul 19, 2024
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to visit Washington, D.C. next week, an American legal group on Friday pressured the U.S. Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into him and other officials for committing or authorizing genocide, war crimes, and torture targeting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Since Israel launched its retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7, Israeli forces partly armed by the U.S. government have killed at least 38,848 people and wounded another 89,459—according to Gaza officials—while destroying civilian infrastructure and restricting the flow of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave.
"We believe ample credible evidence exists to sufficiently establish that serious crimes falling within U.S. criminal jurisdiction are systematically being perpetrated in Gaza," says the Center for Constitutional Rights' (CCR) 23-page letter to Hope Olds, who leads the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) of the DOJ's Criminal Division.
"Given the frequent travel of Israeli officials and citizens to the United States resulting in their presence within U.S. jurisdiction, and recalling that HRSP is part of a coordinated, interagency effort to deny safe haven in the United States to human rights violators," the letter states, "the Department of Justice must urgently investigate and hold accountable those responsible for war crimes and other serious crimes being committed on a wide-scale basis in the occupied Gaza Strip, including potentially U.S. and U.S.-dual citizens."
The Israeli prime minister is expected to be in the United States from at least next Monday to Wednesday for a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden—who is currently isolating in his Delaware home due to a Covid-19 infection—and to address a joint session of Congress, despite objections from critics of Israel's war including some lawmakers.
"Netanyahu has killed more than 14,000 precious Palestinian children with U.S. weapons and support and is starving all of Gaza—and now sycophants in the White House and Congress are rolling out the red carpet for him," Maria LaHood, CCR's deputy legal director, said in a statement. "DOJ's Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section must exercise its mandate to investigate Netanyahu and hold him to account for his heinous crimes, just as it would an international criminal from any other country."
The group's letter says that "in light of Netanyahu's imminent visit, HRSP should prioritize investigating him... There is overwhelming evidence that under Netanyahu, Israeli forces and authorities are committing genocide, war crimes, and torture against Palestinians in Gaza, acts that are proscribed under federal criminal statutes and prosecutable by HRSP."
"As the most powerful political figure in Israel, Netanyahu also leads the Security Cabinet, as well as the recently dissolved War Cabinet—the two bodies responsible for setting the strategy for and directing the military assault on Gaza since October 7, 2023," the letter stresses. "He therefore bears criminal responsibility for the serious international crimes committed against the Palestinian population over the past nine months."
Various developments this week have elevated concerns for the people of Gaza. The World Health Organization said Friday that poliovirus has been detected in sewage samples at six locations in the strip, and Amnesty International on Thursday published interviews with 27 former detainees who described being tortured by Israeli forces.
A Wednesday report from Oxfam detailed what the group called Israel's "water war crimes" in Gaza. That same day, Israeli lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing "the establishment of a Palestinian state" west of the Jordan River—widely seen as an effort to send a message to Netanyahu ahead of his trip to D.C.
International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, and Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice—which on Friday issued a nonbinding advisory opinion that Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful and must end "as rapidly as possible."
So far, legal efforts to hold the Biden administration accountable for enabling Israel's genocidal violence against Palestinians have been unsuccessful. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit against the president, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
CCR attorney Katherine Gallagher, who represented plaintiffs in the case, said that "this stunning abdication of the court's role to serve as a check on the executive even in the face of its support for genocide should set off alarm bells for all."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Death of 40 Haitians in Boat Fire Shows 'Crucial Need' for Safe, Legal Migration: UN
"Haiti's socio-economic situation is in agony," said one advocate. "The extreme violence over the past months has only brought Haitians to resort to desperate measures even more."
Jul 19, 2024
United Nations experts on Friday renewed calls to protect migrants following the death of at least 40 Haitians in a boat fire in the Atlantic Ocean.
The New York Timesreported that over 80 people were packed into the vessel when it caught fire off the coast of Cap-Haïtien en route to the Turks and Caicos Islands.
The United Nations' International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that 41 migrants were rescued by the Haitian Coast Guard, with 11 of the survivors including burn victims rushed to the nearest hospital.
"This devastating event highlights the risks faced by children, women, and men migrating through irregular routes, demonstrating the crucial need for safe and legal pathways for migration," said Grégoire Goodstein, IOM's chief of mission for Haiti. "Haiti's socio-economic situation is in agony. The extreme violence over the past months has only brought Haitians to resort to desperate measures even more."
Haiti is enduring a humanitarian and security crisis in which over 1,000 people have been killed, wounded, or abducted by members of gangs that control much of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of Kenyan police officers have been deployed to Haiti as part of a multinational force tasked with restoring order.
According to IOM:
The lack of economic opportunities, a collapsing health system, school closures, and the absence of prospects are pushing many to consider migration as the only way to survive... IOM research found that 84% of migrants returned had left to seek job opportunities abroad. For the vast majority of Haitians, regular migration is an extremely challenging journey to consider, let alone pursue, leaving many seeing irregular migration as their only option, a particularly life-threatening one in most instances.
IOM said the Haitian Coast Guard "has observed an increase in the number of attempts and departures by boat" in recent months.
"Coast guards from countries in the region, including the United States, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Jamaica have also reported a growing number of boats originating from Haiti being intercepted at sea," the group said. "More than 86,000 migrants have been forcibly returned to Haiti by neighboring countries this year. In March, despite a surge in violence and the closure of airports throughout the country, forced returns increased by 46%, reaching 13,000 forced returns in March alone."
Amid pressure from hundreds of advocacy groups—and alleged abuse of Haitian migrants by U.S. border authorities—the Biden administration in 2022 extended deportation protections, known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), for more than 100,000 Haitians already in the United States through this August 3. This marked a departure from the administration's earlier mass deportation of Haitian asylum-seekers.
Last month, the administration further extended TPS eligibility for over 300,000 Haitians in the U.S. for an additional 18 months, a move hailed by migrant rights advocates.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular