A federal appeals court panel on Friday upheld the approval of the controversial Willow oil project on Alaska’s North Slope, despite identifying some procedural errors in the approval process.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision comes amid ongoing litigation surrounding the project, which was approved in March 2023 by President Joe Biden’s administration and is being developed by ConocoPhillips Alaska within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
While the court acknowledged a procedural error made by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) during its analysis, it concluded the mistakes were not severe enough to warrant vacating the project’s approval.
Instead, the court has directed the BLM to address these flaws but deemed that shutting down the project could have significant adverse consequences. Judge Gabriel P. Sanchez dissented from this conclusion.
The approval process for Willow has been contentious, particularly after a prior version was overturned in 2021 during Biden’s administration. The environmental review process that followed attracted legal challenges from various environmental organizations and an Iñupiat grassroots group.
Support for the Willow project has strong backing from Alaska’s Republican governor, congressional delegation, and state legislature, as well as from many Alaska Native leaders in the North Slope region who view the project as economically crucial.
Conversely, opponents of the project argue that it contradicts Biden’s commitments to fight climate change, raising concerns about potential further industrialization in the area.
During his presidency, Trump endorsed additional drilling in Alaska, signing an executive order aimed at enhancing oil, gas, and mining ventures in the state.
As construction progresses, ConocoPhillips Alaska has initiated work on essential infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and pipelines, with plans to produce its first oil by 2029. The company expressed satisfaction with the court’s ruling and is eager to continue advancing the Willow project responsibly.
J. Elizabeth Peace, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior, stated that the agency refrains from commenting on ongoing litigation. The Bureau of Land Management operates under the jurisdiction of the Interior Department.
The panel’s recent ruling follows more than a year of deliberation after hearing arguments regarding the case. The grassroots movement Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic and various environmental groups had appealed against a lower court’s decision supporting the project.
Legal arguments raised concerns that the BLM did not adequately consider a reasonable range of alternatives in its environmental assessment and focused solely on options that included full-field development of the oil project.
Attorneys for ConocoPhillips maintained that the leases within the Bear Tooth Unit of the petroleum reserve, which is slated for Willow, are allocated for such development, emphasizing that the agency committed to this development over the years.
The ruling observed that during the environmental review, the BLM underscored the necessity to exclude alternatives that could prevent the extraction of economically viable oil. However, it highlighted that the agency failed to clarify whether the scaled-back plan met the standard for full-field development.
Despite proposing five drilling sites, the BLM authorized only three for the Willow project, allowing for a total of up to 199 wells.
Erik Grafe, an attorney with Earthjustice, who represented some of the challenging groups, viewed the ruling as a partial victory.
Grafe indicated that the court found a significant flaw in the BLM’s approval process, leading to a ruling that the agency acted arbitrarily. The ruling sends the matter back to the BLM, requiring a reconsideration in a manner that is not arbitrary, thus necessitating a new decision.
The future of the Willow project remains uncertain while the agency works to address the court’s concerns, as environmental groups continue to evaluate their next steps in the ongoing legal battle.
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