Congressional Democrats are urging an appeals court to side with conservation groups in their lawsuit to overturn the Biden administration’s approval of the massive Willow oil project in Alaska.
A federal judge in Alaska ruled last year that the $8 billion ConocoPhillips project on federal lands in northern Arctic Alaska could proceed, siding with the administration.
But 17 House and Senate Democrats argued in an amicus brief, in favor of an appeal by environmental groups, that the Biden administration violated federal laws regarding public lands and congressional intent.
If the project is allowed to move forward, they argued, it would harm their “interests in protecting national security and solving environmental crises, and the faithful application of statutes Congress designed to promote informed agency decision-making.”
Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, a plaintiff in the case, said the backing of federal lawmakers was welcome.
“As their brief notes, Willow is inconsistent with the urgent need to address the climate crisis, and the administration’s approval of the project violated bedrock environmental laws,” Ms. Monsell told The Washington Times.
Greenlighting the Willow Project last March broke a core climate pledge from President Biden to not approve any new oil and natural gas drilling on federal lands, prompting a seething rebuke from climate activists. But the decision came amid political fallout from rising energy prices and a 2024 reelection campaign.
The venture is slated to produce more than 600 million barrels of oil and some 250 million metric tons of carbon emissions over the next three decades, or the equivalent of annual emissions from 60 coal-fired power plants, according to previous estimates from the administration.
In their filing, the Democrats made three primary legal arguments: that the Interior Department’s approval of Willow is not in the public’s best interest, that the department failed to properly analyze emissions and environmental impacts, and that the project is “inconsistent with U.S. policy and modern-day congressional intent to reduce national reliance on non-renewable energy sources.”
“When weighing the public interest surrounding this project, [we] implore the court to view the relevant interests on a national scale given the federal nature of the lands and the global effects implicated,” the Democrats wrote.
A judge last year ruled against claims from conservation groups that the administration violated environmental laws about the effects of global warming emissions from the project, saying that federal reviews “appropriately analyzed the indirect and cumulative” impacts.
The list of Democrats who signed onto the amicus brief included several prominent lawmakers, such as House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Raúl Grijalva of Arizona; California Rep. Katie Porter, who’s running for the Senate seat of the late Dianne Feinstein; Green New Deal co-authors Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts; and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
Other Democratic signatories included Reps. Ro Khanna, Mike Levin and Nanette Barragán of California; Steve Cohen of Tennessee; Becca Balint of Vermont; Earl Blumenauer of Oregon; Diana DeGette of Colorado and Don Beyer of Virginia, in addition to Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Peter Welch of Vermont.
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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