(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



People Are Mad About the Willow Project for the Wrong Reason [1]

['Liza Featherstone']

Date: 2023-05-05

But even though Willow isn’t quite as bad as many progressives—especially young people—believe, the philosophy behind the president’s approval of the project is deeply wrongheaded. The administration has pursued a policy of emphasizing alternatives, to reduce demand for fossil fuels, rather than cutting off supply, which is seen as more politically risky. To that end, while Biden has done more to help green energy, green jobs and green business, and for conservation than any U.S. leader in decades, he deserves criticism for letting the fossil fuel industry continue to drill with impunity.

Although Willow’s violation of the pristine Arctic has the greater emotional resonance, the real problem is not one fossil fuel project, but how many others there are.

Although Willow’s violation of the pristine Arctic has the greater emotional resonance, the real problem is not one fossil fuel project, but how many others there are. Well before Willow, the president’s permissive attitude toward drilling permits was a scandal. The Biden administration approved 6,430 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands during the first two years in office, outpacing the Trump administration. And Biden also approved a greater proportion of the applications submitted, suggesting that the Trump administration may have been more discriminating in deciding who gets to drill. The emissions from the fossil fuel projects approved during the first two years of the Biden administration alone will result in emissions of more than 800 million tons, the Center for Biological Diversity estimated in January, comparing the impact to that of about 217 coal-fired power plants. These dismal numbers also represent a repeatedly broken promise, given that Biden the candidate said he would end drilling on public lands.

Most of the projects the Biden administration has approved have been in the West, with almost 4,000 in New Mexico and more than 1,000 in Montana. New Mexico residents, the Center for Biological Diversity, and WildEarth Guardians are suing the Biden administration for inadequate environmental review of drilling permits in New Mexico and Wyoming and oil and gas lease sales in New Mexico’s Permian Basin. Stanford University researchers last year found that the Permian Basin, a huge oil production site, is leaking far more methane than previously thought, about 194 metric tons per hour. Because of its greater heat-trapping properties, methane contributes far more to global warming in the short run than carbon.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://newrepublic.com/article/172394/willow-project-emissions-drilling

Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/