Ninth Circuit Deals Setback to Willow Oil Project in Alaska
Interior must reconsider the project after court concludes approval violated the lawSAN FRANCISCO – The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided today that the Department of the Interior unlawfully approved ConocoPhillips’s massive Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska’s Western Arctic. This reverses in part an earlier ruling by the Alaska District Court that allowed the Willow project to proceed and marks the groups’ second legal victory reversing unlawful approvals of Willow.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) must now reconsider whether Willow should proceed as proposed.
The Ninth Circuit agreed with environmentalists that BLM’s approval of Willow in March 2023 violated the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law. The Court concluded that BLM acted irrationally when it approved the Willow project. And while the Ninth Circuit stopped short of vacating the existing approval—allowing the project to continue for now—BLM must take seriously its obligation to reconsider its approval of the Willow project.
If permitted to continue, Willow would release carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to that of driving two million extra cars for the next 30 years.
The Willow lawsuit was brought by Earthjustice on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace USA, with the Center for Biological Diversity and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The Court also ruled today on a second lawsuit, filed by Trustees for Alaska, challenging Willow on behalf of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic and others.
Groups issued the following statements:
“Today’s decision concludes that the Bureau of Land Management violated one of our bedrock environmental laws when it approved Willow. BLM now needs to take seriously its obligation to reconsider its approval of Willow and consider less harmful alternatives to the massive oil project,” said Erik Grafe, Deputy Managing Attorney in Earthjustice’s Alaska regional office. “There is no room in a rational climate future for the years of carbon pollution Willow is designed to unleash.”
“Today’s ruling is a significant step forward for Alaska’s North Slope,” said Hallie Templeton, Legal Director for Friends of the Earth. “We hope that this will push BLM to heed the significant risks that Willow poses and deny it for good. While this should be the final straw for the doomed Willow Project, we will continue fighting to prevent this carbon bomb project from destroying one of our last remaining wild places.”
“This is the second time the Court has ruled the Biden administration made the wrong and unlawful decision in approving the climate-jeopardizing Willow Project,” said Nicole Whittington-Evans, senior director of Alaska programs at Defenders of Wildlife. “We hope that today’s decision spurs the administration to reject the Willow Project for good so we can focus on creating a clean, just energy future that protects polar bears, people, and the planet.”
Tim Donaghy, Research Manager at Greenpeace USA, said: “The science is crystal clear: we cannot afford any new oil and gas projects– much less a monster project like Willow – if we want to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. Today’s decision opens a window of opportunity for the Bureau of Land Management to halt this project while it is reconsidered in light of the court’s ruling once and for all – and that’s exactly what they should do. Approving new oil and gas drilling will only drive us further into climate catastrophe.”
“The federal government should’ve fully disclosed Willow’s potential climate and wildlife harms, and I’m glad the court found the agency’s decision lacking,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The science clearly shows that we need to keep oil in the ground to prevent climate catastrophe. It’s time to take that warning seriously, and I’m confident a meaningful environmental review would show that Willow is far too damaging. This carbon bomb needs to be defused.”
“This opinion affirms what we’ve said all along: the government cut corners to greenlight a massive fossil fuel project in one of the world’s most sensitive climate frontiers. The court made clear that BLM’s decision was unlawful,” said Bobby McEnaney, Director of Lands Conservation at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “The public deserves more than rubber-stamped approvals for risky oil deals on public lands. We’ll keep fighting to protect this irreplaceable landscape from reckless development.”
Communications contact: Brittany Miller, [email protected]