Another Broken Promise: The Inevitability of Project Willow

The recent approval of “Project Willow” by President Joe Biden has sparked new contention in the United States. Project Willow is the largest-ever proposed oil extraction project on federal land.¹ The project, in itself, is already highly controversial. Willow will bring an estimated 2,500 jobs to Alaska and potentially help to lower the soaring gas prices in America.² However, it will also threaten the environment of Alaska — the stability of which is necessary for Alaska’s wildlife and outdoor industry — by releasing over 250 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in the next 30 years.³ However, what makes Willow more controversial is the fact that President Biden freely approved it, without any court orders or congressional mandates, which distinguishes it from other oil and gas leases Biden has previously signed off on.⁴ While Biden may seem hypocritical for approving a major project in an energy field that he has openly and repeatedly condemned, perhaps this inconsistency in Biden’s political activity has been a long time coming.

Much of the anger around this new project stems from a sense of betrayal rampant among Biden’s supporters. Biden largely based his 2020 presidential campaign on promises to battle the current climate crisis.⁵ Although his administration has invested over 50 million dollars in climate resilience through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act, it also approved 6,430 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands within its first two years.⁶ Shockingly, this exceeds the Trump administration’s 6,172 drilling-permit approvals in its first two years, the same administration that claimed to prioritize “energy independence” and “at-home oil drilling.”⁷ This statistic can be misleading since it ignores the aforementioned court orders and congressional mandates that have often forced Biden to approve oil leases. Still, alongside the freely-approved Project Willow, these efforts to support the highly controversial fossil fuel industry do highlight the deceptive nature of political campaigning in America.

Just three years ago, during a Democratic presidential debate in Washington D.C., Biden made his promise: “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.”⁸ Simply put, President Biden made an empty promise. President Biden may have said there were “[n]o ifs, buts, and maybes” when it came to his pledge to end oil drilling, but inevitably, there were a plethora of court orders and congressional mandates that forced him to go against his word.⁹ While Biden had issued a pause on new oil and gas leasing at the beginning of his term, many republican representatives responded with lawsuits, which ended in a U.S. district judge declaring Biden’s ban to be illegal. Additionally, Biden could not have predicted the serious inflation that currently afflicts the United States. Undeniably, the Biden administration has felt an overwhelming pressure to lessen the economic burden of rising gas and oil prices. The United States is under completely different circumstances in comparison to when he was campaigning, and therefore his past promises are no longer feasible. While these examples do not in any way negate Biden’s other efforts to fight climate change, generally speaking, practically all politicians break promises, whether by choice or out of necessity. This is a simple truth of American politics.

As voters, we choose to put our trust in politicians. When we vote, we vote based on two main things: their policy history and their promises. Past policies are something that cannot be changed. Candidates often have tendencies to vote for certain bills or push for certain legal changes. Promises, however, are abstract. We put half-blind faith in our candidates to fulfill their promises if elected. The actions of the Biden administration surrounding environmental justice have shone light on the reality of campaigning: it is easy to make promises, but nearly impossible to keep them all.

Cover Image: Photo by Zbynek Burival on Unsplash

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