White House defends Biden over backlash on Willow Project: ‘Kept his word where he can’

WKarine Jean-Pierre, hite House press secretary, supported the approval by the Biden administration of the ConocoPhillips Willow Project. This large-scale oil drilling and production project is huge.

Environmentalist activists have reacted furiously to President Joe Biden’s breach of a campaign pledge not to approve. “new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters,” Jean-Pierre insisted on Biden “kept his word where he can by law” The company also highlighted that it had preexisting lease rights.

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“As the Interior Department said, some of the company’s leases are decades old, granted by prior administrations. The company has a legal right to those leases. The department’s options are limited when there are legal contracts in place,” Jean-Pierre stated this during a White House briefing.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management announced earlier this week that it had approved three of five potential drilling sites for the Willow Project. This project is scheduled to take place in a federal oil reserve similar to Indiana.

An array of progressives, including Senator Ed Markey (D, MA), attacked the Biden government for allowing the project forward. They cited his past comments about new oil projects in federal lands and criticized Biden’s previous statements. Biden had previously pledged to not allow the project to be greenlit during the 2020 election cycle. “new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters.”

“Number one, no more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, no more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore, no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, No. 1,” Biden spoke at the time.

Jean-Pierre cited an ex-official from the Clinton administration who stated that ConocoPhillips had been dissolved. “lease rights and that can’t be ignored.” She also claimed that Biden has made big strides in environmental causes.

“The president is delivering the most aggressive climate agenda in U.S. history. And that is going to be his continued commitment to the American people,” She spoke.

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CNN reported that 9.2 million metric tonnes of carbon could be released into the atmosphere by the project. That’s roughly equivalent to 2,000,000 gas-powered cars. Initial estimates indicated that the project would produce 180,000 barrels per day and 500,000,000 barrels over its life span on five of the five requested pads.

Biden’s decision on the Willow Project was seen by some as a move to the center in advance of the midterm election and was welcomed as such by moderates within his party like Sen. Joe Manchin (D–WV).