(C) Common Dreams
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Biden Administration Expected to Move Ahead on a Major Oil Project in Alaska [1]
['Lisa Friedman']
Date: 2023-03-10
Among the staunchest opponents of the project are people who live closest to it. Rosemary Ahtuangaruak is the mayor of Nuiqsut, an Alaska Native community that is about 35 miles from the Willow site. If the project is built, she said her community of about 500 people would be surrounded by oil and gas facilities, threatening their way of life and reliance on subsistence hunting and fishing.
“We have enough oil and gas development around us and enough areas that are already leased in this area that they could do work for a long time,” Ms. Ahtuangaruak said. “There’s no reason they have to go into this area. It’s about wanting to.”
In a letter this week to Ms. Haaland, Ms. Ahtuangaruak said recent environmental reviews of the project had not adequately considered the impact on subsistence hunting and other needs of the local community.
The federal agency, she wrote, “does not look at the harm this project would cause from the perspective of how to let us be us — how to ensure that we can maintain our culture, traditions and our ability to keep going out on the lands and waters.”
Willow was initially approved by the Trump administration and the Biden administration later defended the approval in court. The project was then temporarily blocked by a judge who said that the prior administration’s environmental analysis was not sufficient and did not fully consider the potential harm to wildlife or the further impact on climate change.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/climate/biden-willow-oil-alaska.html
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