Federal judge rejects Trump-era permits for major Alaska oil project
Source: Washington Post
A federal judge on Wednesday threw out the permits for a controversial oil project planned for Alaska’s North Slope, faulting the way the federal government had assessed its environmental impact, including how it might harm polar bears. ConocoPhillips’s Willow project had been backed by both the Trump and Biden administrations, despite a host of concerns environmentalists and others raised about how the large operation might impact wildlife and the Indigenous communities.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason — an Obama appointee — wrote in her ruling that the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service incorrectly approved the project because it failed to adequately analyze its climate impact and other possible development plans, and didn’t specify how polar bears would be protected.
The decision is a major blow to the project, which has been touted by Alaska’s congressional delegation and industry as an important source of jobs for the state. The project, located west of Prudhoe Bay in the Alaskan Arctic, could potentially produce up to 160,000 barrels of oil per day. After the Trump administration approved the drilling, Alaska natives and environmental activists sued to stop it, resulting in a preliminary injunction by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in February. Opponents of the project hailed Gleason’s decision.
“We and our clients are just celebrating that there’s not going to be any Willow construction this winter,” said Bridget Psarianos, a staff attorney with Trustees of Alaska, which represented six clients in the case, including the group Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic. “The project can’t move forward without a significant amount of redoing."
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/08/18/biden-climate-willow-project/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Bad decision from the word go, and it surprises me that Biden's people would go along with it.
at that time of night EDT, although am guessing it was done in AKDT since the judge is from the District Court in AK (4 hours difference)! 
