Alaskans of all party affiliations frequently wonder why people from the lower 48 states think they know better what their best interests are. This is especially true when it comes to fossil fuel extraction .
Last week, President Joe Biden announced the release of 15 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserve as part of a response to recent production cuts announced by OPEC+ nations. He noted that more drawdowns are possible this winter. But Alaskans of all political stripes wondered if he’d ever heard of the Willow Project.
Biden’s move sent the strategic reserve to its lowest level since 1984; it was a move that baffles many in the American energy sector but perhaps none more than those who have watched the Willow oilfield project, located within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in the Northern Slopes, languish.
The project began five presidents ago. It has been repeatedly stalled, not because the local indigenous peoples or the unions oppose it — they don’t — but because the environmental justice movement in the lower 48 states stridently opposes it. People who have never set foot in the state nonetheless believe they know what is best for the Alaskan community, better even than those who actually live there.
Last month, newly elected at-large congresswoman Mary Peltola, a Democrat, joined Alaska’s congressional delegation and sent a letter touting the economic benefits of the project to the state to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in time for the short construction season in early winter. Haaland, who had given an emotional and stirring speech at Peltola’s swearing-in, is not expected to be sympathetic.
The project is conservatively expected to create 2,000 jobs during the development phase. Once the project is online, it will sustain 300 permanent jobs directly. The project has a resource potential of around 600 million barrels of recoverable oil or 180,000 barrels per day at the peak of production.
It is estimated that the project will create $8.7 billion in royalties and tax revenues for both the North Slope and Barrow, the state of Alaska, and the federal government. In short, this is a huge opportunity in terms of resource potential, revenue, economic benefits, and jobs.
For more than 50 years, the fossil-fuel industry has been the main instrument for providing essential services to the indigenous communities in the state, including healthcare clinics, infrastructure, and first responder services.
Most people (and all reasonable people) agree that the United States is going to need oil for many years to come. That includes the International Energy Agency, which says that in 2050 , we're still going to need 70 million barrels of oil a day under the most aggressive carbon reduction energy-transition scenario.
So we're going to need oil. The only question is, where are we going to get it from? Most level-headed people would rather see those barrels produced in the U.S., where there are strong environmental controls, as opposed to Russia, Iran, or countries in the Middle East with less stringent environmental records and a dangerous propensity to use the profits for terrorism, unjust wars, and abuses of human rights.
The project is located on the North Slope of Alaska, the most northern part of the U.S., 36 miles from the closest village of Nuiqsut. Once it comes online, laborers, engineers, IT professionals, and geologists would work and live at a central processing facility and build an airstrip to support the project.
Alaska relies on resource development, whether that's mining, oil and gas, or timber. But the Native American communities on which the project stands, and the unions involved in making it happen, know not to get their hopes up. There are just too many nonprofit groups and senators from the lower 48 trying to dictate to them what their best interests are.
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