A federal judge in Alaska has declined to block progress on the controversial Willow oil drilling project while lawsuits against the project proceed.
The Biden administration approved ConocoPhillips' massive Willow oil drilling project on Alaska's North Slope last month. The project galvanized a groundswell of online opposition in the weeks leading up to the Biden administration approving it, including more than 1 million letters written to the White House protesting the project and a Change.org petition with more than 5 million signatures.
On Monday, federal Judge Sharon Gleason of the US District Court of Alaska ruled in favor of the federal government and oil company ConocoPhillips in allowing the construction of the project to continue as the court process plays out, noting that the activities planned for the coming months -- the construction of the site and infrastructure around it -- "do not include the extraction of any oil and gas.
The lawsuits tie the project's potential climate effects to threatened species, including polar bears, that reside in the region where the Willow Project would be constructed. Earthjustice lawyers wrote that the Endangered Species Act consultations underlying Willow's approval "are unlawful, because they fail to consider the impact of carbon emissions on threatened species."
"The Court has further determined that Plaintiffs have not established that irreparable injury to their members is likely if Winter 2023 Construction Activities proceed," Gleason wrote in Monday's decision. ConocoPhillips and the federal government have argued the environmental analysis federal officials conducted showed the decades-long oil project wouldn't do serious climate and environmental damage.
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