United States | Drill, maybe, drill

Joe Biden is not quitting fossil fuels

This administration has granted more permits to drill than the Trump White House had at the same stage

FILE -- A ConocoPhillips test well in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska in 2005. A federal judge in Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, blocked construction permits for an expansive oil drilling project on the state's North Slope that was designed to produce more than 100,000 barrels of oil a day for the next 30 years. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)Credit: New York Times / Redux / eyevineFor further information please contact eyevinetel: +44 (0) 20 8709 8709e-mail: info@eyevine.comwww.eyevine.com — Oil countryImage: Eyevine

Feb 9th 2023|Los Angeles

ALASKA’S NORTH SLOPE, the arctic edge of America’s 49th state, is home to beavers, bears and caribou. Its coastal waters boast bearded seals and bowhead whales. Indigenous people have lived here for millennia. But the region also encompasses the National Petroleum Reserve, or NPR-A. On February 1st the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which helps govern America’s vast federal lands, advanced a colossal drilling project in the reserve. The ConocoPhillips project, known as Willow, could produce 180,000 barrels of crude each day. Environmentalists howl that the project is a “carbon bomb” anathema to President Joe Biden’s green goals. A final decision is expected within the month.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Drill, maybe, drill”