At the beginning of his term, president Joe Biden allocated $15 billion to establish a Solar Manufacturing Accelerator to meet the administration’s domestic solar energy goals. Now, less than three years later, more than two-thirds of that amount is being spent on developing yet another oil drilling venture. 

On March 13, the Biden administration approved ConocoPhilip’s Willow Project, an $8 billion oil drilling site in the middle of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Originally shut down during the Trump administration by a lawsuit that accused the project of violations against environmental acts, a proposed alternative has made a return, and Biden claims that it is significantly less impactful than the previous one. The revision came after nationwide discontent for the project, including protests from the organizations like the Sienna Club and Greenpeace, as well as a social media campaign under the tag #stopwillow. While the revision is obviously an attempt to make the project more acceptable, it does not mediate its risks. 

According to the Bureau of Land Management, the project is estimated to release around 6,000 metric tons of carbon gas every year. While the department estimates that this only slightly adds to current emissions nationwide, its effects on the surrounding area are extreme and irreversible. Black carbon that lands on the ground will absorb sunlight and raise ground temperatures even further. 

During the project’s 30 year span, over 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals like nitrous oxide will be released into the atmosphere. Nearby Nuiqsut and Utqiaġvik communities are at risk as well; infrastructure that will surround the oil drilling site will likely impact the caribou populations that make up a large part of indigenous subsistence farming. No, another oil rig will not end the world, but it will destroy ecosystems that are already vulnerable to rising temperatures. 

 Though these statistics have been not only acknowledged but offered up by the BLM itself, the department continues to release memos on how Biden has “protected more lands and waters than any president since John F. Kennedy.” While it is obvious that the Biden administration’s decision to continue the project is detrimental to the environment and the native communities that surround the site, the decision also doubles back on the slew of promises he made at the beginning of his term. The president not only assured that no new domestic drilling projects would start, but he did so while being fully aware of Willow, as it had been previously approved by the Trump administration in 2020 before it was shut down. Government officials have never taken clean energy seriously, and Biden’s case is no exception. How many more promises will they break before climate change is important enough to address? 

Biden’s decision to approve the Willow Project is not only in direct hypocrisy to his earlier promises, and is not legally unopposed. On March 15, environmentalists filed a lawsuit against the BLM under the claim that the Willow Project violates a slew of environmental policies by refusing to acknowledge the risks that it poses to the environment. While it shouldn’t take a class action lawsuit for clean energy to be taken seriously, environmentalists can only hope that the ordeal has encouraged government officials to consider it an option.