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Biden administration approves limited development of Alaska's Willow oil project
Source: Anchorage Daily News
The Biden administration on Monday approved a massive oil development project on Alaska’s North Slope, and said it is adding new environmental protections to limit future oil development in several areas of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. ConocoPhillips’ $8 billion Willow prospect in the Indiana-size reserve is expected to be one of the largest oil fields developed in Alaska in decades. It would produce oil for three decades, including 180,000 barrels of oil daily at its peak.
The administration approved three drill sites, which ConocoPhillips has said is economically viable. The approval is a reduction of the five drill sites that ConocoPhillips had originally sought, though the company said Monday that it’s pleased with the approval. The White House’s decision bucked intense pressure from environmental groups, which have called the project a “carbon bomb” and said it contradicts President Joe Biden’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.
Many Alaska Native leaders, politicians and business groups have lobbied intensely for approval of the field, saying it would provide badly needed revenues to support North Slope villages and help Alaska’s struggling economy — though the mayor of the Inupiaq village closest to the project had opposed it.
ConocoPhillips said Monday it expects to immediately begin building gravel roads to launch development. The company is also reviewing the 124-page decision from the Interior Department and internally will take steps toward making a final investment decision in the project.
Read more: https://www.adn.com/business-economy/energy/2023/03/13/biden-administration-approves-limited-development-of-alaskas-willow-oil-project/
Article updated.
Previous article -
The Biden administration on Monday approved a massive oil development project on Alaska's North Slope.
ConocoPhillips' $8 billion Willow prospect in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is expected to be one of the largest oil fields developed in Alaska in decades, and would produce oil for three decades, including 180,000 barrels of oil daily at its peak. The administration approved three drill sites, which the ConocoPhillips has said is economically viable.
The White House's decision bucked intense pressure from environmental groups, which have called the project a "carbon bomb" and said it contradicts President Joe Biden's goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.
Many Alaska Native leaders, politicians and business groups have lobbied intensely for approval of the massive oil field, saying it would provide badly needed revenues to support North Slope villages and help Alaska's struggling economy -- though the mayor the Inupiaq village closest to the project had opposed it.
ConocoPhillips' $8 billion Willow prospect in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is expected to be one of the largest oil fields developed in Alaska in decades, and would produce oil for three decades, including 180,000 barrels of oil daily at its peak. The administration approved three drill sites, which the ConocoPhillips has said is economically viable.
The White House's decision bucked intense pressure from environmental groups, which have called the project a "carbon bomb" and said it contradicts President Joe Biden's goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.
Many Alaska Native leaders, politicians and business groups have lobbied intensely for approval of the massive oil field, saying it would provide badly needed revenues to support North Slope villages and help Alaska's struggling economy -- though the mayor the Inupiaq village closest to the project had opposed it.
Updated source.
Original article/headline/link -
Biden administration approves controversial Willow oil project in Alaska
CNN -- Breaking news:
The Biden administration has approved the massive Willow drilling project in Alaska, angering climate advocates and setting the stage for a court challenge.
This story will be updated.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/politics/willow-project-alaska-oil-biden-approval-climate/index.html
CNN -- Breaking news:
The Biden administration has approved the massive Willow drilling project in Alaska, angering climate advocates and setting the stage for a court challenge.
This story will be updated.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/politics/willow-project-alaska-oil-biden-approval-climate/index.html
64 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Biden Backs $8 Billion Alaska Oil Project Despite Climate Peril
Willow project in Alaska posed key climate test for Biden
Activists said ConocoPhillips project risks climate peril
President Joe Biden authorized a giant ConocoPhillips oil project in northwest Alaska that environmentalists argue has no place in a warming world, even as he sought to bar future drilling across US Arctic waters and lands.
The approach represents Biden’s bid for a middle ground, as he seeks to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels while bound by the legal decisions of past administrations. ConocoPhillips has held some leases underpinning its 600-million-barrel Willow oil development since 1999, and the project was already approved once under former President Donald Trump.
With the Interior Department’s new authorization, the company now will be permitted to drill from three locations across its Willow site in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. ConocoPhillips, which originally sought to drill from five well pads at Willow, had said anything short of three would not be viable. But Biden’s conservation moves mean oil companies also will have far fewer opportunities to find and develop prospects north of the Arctic Circle.
The authorization represents one of the most significant climate decisions yet for Biden, who campaigned on a pledge to block new drilling on public lands and presided over sweeping government investments in clean energy. Yet he’s also implored oil companies to boost output to tame prices and address market disruptions spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Willow project created additional political challenges, as Biden faced intense pressure from unions and some indigenous groups in Alaska who argued the development would provide an economic lifeline to the region.
more at link
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-13/biden-backs-giant-alaska-oil-project-despite-climate-peril?srnd=premium-europe&leadSource=uverify%20wall
more on environmental impact in this article
edited to add:
The pollution produced would comfortably wipe out the emissions saved from all renewable energy projects on US public lands by 2030.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217722394
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217722394
I am not often disappointed by Joe Biden, but this decision saddens me!
These were leases that were in place years ago that had not been used and have been whittled down to a handful.
Time to put some pressure on the biggest coal producers and users in the world that we can't seem to get enough imports from - China.
(from here - https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2019/07/14/ten-countries-that-dominate-fossil-fuel-production/?sh=261f35f75b13)
The Interior Department says it cannot finish a new offshore plan until December, a delay that has again angered the senator from West Virginia
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/08/offshore-oil-drilling-biden-manchin/
HOUSTON — In his latest clash with the White House, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) sharply criticized the Biden administration Wednesday for delays on a new federal offshore drilling plan that the Interior Department says it needs until December to put into effect. Manchin — an oil industry advocate who has been key to supporting Biden policies in a narrowly divided Congress — has recently pushed back against the administration for its appointments and its implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, including on how it affects oil and natural gas leasing in Alaska.
In court documents this week, Interior Department officials argue that they need the rest of this year to finish a legally required five-year plan to lease offshore territory for oil and gas development. The plan is months behind deadlines set in law, but in a federal appeals court brief Monday, department officials said they need the extra time to review public comments and complete other legally required analyses on a proposal issued last summer.
Manchin says the delays pose a risk to steady domestic supplies of oil and natural gas. He accused the administration of slow-walking a new plan as part of its push against fossil fuels. He also said the administration was failing to meet legal requirements that every other administration has met to have a new five-year offshore leasing plan in place before the prior plan expired.
“They are putting their radical climate agenda ahead of our nation’s energy security, and they are willing to go to great lengths to do it,” Manchin said in a news release Wednesday. “I will hold their feet to the fire on this.” An Interior Department spokeswoman declined to respond to Manchin’s comments.
snip
Joe Manchin’s ties to Big Oil under renewed scrutiny after chief of staff leaves for job with lobbying group
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/joe-manchin-api-oil-industry-b2261991.html
Joe Manchin’s connections to the oil and gas industry are no secret. The West Virginia senator is among the leading recipients of donations from fossil fuel companies in Congress, and he still has substantial interests in a coal brokerage firm that he co-founded and which is now owned by his son. But those ties are under renewed scrutiny following the announcement on Friday that his chief of staff, Lance West, is leaving his office for the top lobbying job at the American Petroleum Institute, a group that represents oil and gas interests.
“Lance joins API at a critical time for our industry,” API president and chief executive officer Mike Sommers said in a statement, which was reported by Axios. “His position on Capitol Hill placed him at the center of some of our country’s more important legislative debates, and his deep relationships on both sides of the aisle will be a tremendous asset to our organization and the industry we serve,” the statement added.
The move by one of Mr Manchin’s closest advisers has been seized upon as further evidence of the influence of the oil and gas industry on Congress. The Washington Post described it as “[m]ore evidence of the revolving-door phenomenon on Capitol Hill” — a reference to the common practice of lobby groups hiring the staff of politicians that they formerly lobbied, and vice versa.
According to data compiled by OpenSecrets, more than 60 per cent of oil and gas lobbyists working in Washington, DC have previously worked for the federal government in some capacity. Last year, the door swung the other way when Mr Manchin hired a natural gas industry lobbyist, C.J. Osman, from the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, to work on the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, of which he is chair.
snip
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/08/offshore-oil-drilling-biden-manchin/
HOUSTON — In his latest clash with the White House, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) sharply criticized the Biden administration Wednesday for delays on a new federal offshore drilling plan that the Interior Department says it needs until December to put into effect. Manchin — an oil industry advocate who has been key to supporting Biden policies in a narrowly divided Congress — has recently pushed back against the administration for its appointments and its implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, including on how it affects oil and natural gas leasing in Alaska.
In court documents this week, Interior Department officials argue that they need the rest of this year to finish a legally required five-year plan to lease offshore territory for oil and gas development. The plan is months behind deadlines set in law, but in a federal appeals court brief Monday, department officials said they need the extra time to review public comments and complete other legally required analyses on a proposal issued last summer.
Manchin says the delays pose a risk to steady domestic supplies of oil and natural gas. He accused the administration of slow-walking a new plan as part of its push against fossil fuels. He also said the administration was failing to meet legal requirements that every other administration has met to have a new five-year offshore leasing plan in place before the prior plan expired.
“They are putting their radical climate agenda ahead of our nation’s energy security, and they are willing to go to great lengths to do it,” Manchin said in a news release Wednesday. “I will hold their feet to the fire on this.” An Interior Department spokeswoman declined to respond to Manchin’s comments.
snip
Joe Manchin’s ties to Big Oil under renewed scrutiny after chief of staff leaves for job with lobbying group
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/joe-manchin-api-oil-industry-b2261991.html
Joe Manchin’s connections to the oil and gas industry are no secret. The West Virginia senator is among the leading recipients of donations from fossil fuel companies in Congress, and he still has substantial interests in a coal brokerage firm that he co-founded and which is now owned by his son. But those ties are under renewed scrutiny following the announcement on Friday that his chief of staff, Lance West, is leaving his office for the top lobbying job at the American Petroleum Institute, a group that represents oil and gas interests.
“Lance joins API at a critical time for our industry,” API president and chief executive officer Mike Sommers said in a statement, which was reported by Axios. “His position on Capitol Hill placed him at the center of some of our country’s more important legislative debates, and his deep relationships on both sides of the aisle will be a tremendous asset to our organization and the industry we serve,” the statement added.
The move by one of Mr Manchin’s closest advisers has been seized upon as further evidence of the influence of the oil and gas industry on Congress. The Washington Post described it as “[m]ore evidence of the revolving-door phenomenon on Capitol Hill” — a reference to the common practice of lobby groups hiring the staff of politicians that they formerly lobbied, and vice versa.
According to data compiled by OpenSecrets, more than 60 per cent of oil and gas lobbyists working in Washington, DC have previously worked for the federal government in some capacity. Last year, the door swung the other way when Mr Manchin hired a natural gas industry lobbyist, C.J. Osman, from the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, to work on the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, of which he is chair.
snip
which really helped to provide context (the map was from that newspaper).
And IIRC, one of those "rogue balloons/objects" ended up being shot down up in that area! 
and I had been refreshing on and off all day to get updates from that source and they did finally update their page and I updated the OP.
The map that the newspaper's site had also showed where the pipeline is relative to that patch of land associated with Willow.
I have been hearing about that "reserve" since Carter and I finally got chance to focus long enough to see exactly where it was located. I also found his statement about proposed legislation related to the creation of that reserve from over 40 years ago (something that might be upsetting to DU) -
Jimmy Carter
39th President of the United States: 1977 ‐ 1981
National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Statement on Proposed Legislation.
January 28, 1980
Today I have sent the Congress legislation calling for a private oil and gas leasing program for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. A vital element of my energy program is to accelerate domestic energy production as a means to lessen our dependence on foreign oil and increase this Nation's energy security. We must make greater use of America's abundant natural resources, including oil, if we are to succeed in our struggle to win the energy fight.
To stimulate increased oil production here at home, I have already decontrolled the price of domestically produced "heavy" crude oil, implemented a phasing out of oil price controls for conventional crude oil, and stepped up the leasing schedule for oil production from the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. The proposal sent to the Congress today will be another step in our overall plan of accelerating domestic energy production.
The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska is situated on the Arctic North Slope of Alaska and in size is larger than the combined acreage of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Delaware. My proposal will rename the Reserve the Western Arctic Management Area under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management. The area will be managed under the principles of multiple use. This region has been the site of substantial Government-sponsored oil exploration since 1923. It was in that year that President Harding first set the area aside as a Naval Petroleum Reserve and directed the U.S. Navy to explore and manage the area. Based on the data gathered by the Navy and the Interior Department since then, the Reserve is believed to have promising oil and gas potential, with current estimates projecting an average of 7 billion barrels of oil and 14 trillion cubic feet of gas in place. It is my belief that exploration and development of these resources can be achieved most quickly and at least cost to the Government by a federally managed private leasing program. I am encouraged by the prospects that this proposal has for bringing into production badly needed domestic oil and gas.
When enacted, the legislation will provide for an accelerated leasing schedule, with the first competitive bids taking place 20 months after passage of the legislation. This is the minimum amount of time required to allow for development of necessary land management plans, environmental assessments, and lease sale preparation.
I am also confident that this legislation contains sufficient protection for the fragile arctic environment found there; because not only does this area of Alaska hold promise for oil development, but it possesses unique surface resources, including magnificent wildlife populations, native cultural and archeological heritage, scenic grandeur, and recreational opportunities. The land use plan which will be developed will direct special attention to these resources and will be designed especially to protect wildlife from adverse effects of exploration and drilling operations.
The proposal is a well-balanced one. It will expedite oil and gas development and ensure the protection of the other natural resources of the area. It is in the interests of our Nation's security, and I urge early congressional action on this legislation.
Jimmy Carter, National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Statement on Proposed Legislation. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/249623
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/national-petroleum-reserve-alaska-statement-proposed-legislation
39th President of the United States: 1977 ‐ 1981
National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Statement on Proposed Legislation.
January 28, 1980
Today I have sent the Congress legislation calling for a private oil and gas leasing program for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. A vital element of my energy program is to accelerate domestic energy production as a means to lessen our dependence on foreign oil and increase this Nation's energy security. We must make greater use of America's abundant natural resources, including oil, if we are to succeed in our struggle to win the energy fight.
To stimulate increased oil production here at home, I have already decontrolled the price of domestically produced "heavy" crude oil, implemented a phasing out of oil price controls for conventional crude oil, and stepped up the leasing schedule for oil production from the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. The proposal sent to the Congress today will be another step in our overall plan of accelerating domestic energy production.
The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska is situated on the Arctic North Slope of Alaska and in size is larger than the combined acreage of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Delaware. My proposal will rename the Reserve the Western Arctic Management Area under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management. The area will be managed under the principles of multiple use. This region has been the site of substantial Government-sponsored oil exploration since 1923. It was in that year that President Harding first set the area aside as a Naval Petroleum Reserve and directed the U.S. Navy to explore and manage the area. Based on the data gathered by the Navy and the Interior Department since then, the Reserve is believed to have promising oil and gas potential, with current estimates projecting an average of 7 billion barrels of oil and 14 trillion cubic feet of gas in place. It is my belief that exploration and development of these resources can be achieved most quickly and at least cost to the Government by a federally managed private leasing program. I am encouraged by the prospects that this proposal has for bringing into production badly needed domestic oil and gas.
When enacted, the legislation will provide for an accelerated leasing schedule, with the first competitive bids taking place 20 months after passage of the legislation. This is the minimum amount of time required to allow for development of necessary land management plans, environmental assessments, and lease sale preparation.
I am also confident that this legislation contains sufficient protection for the fragile arctic environment found there; because not only does this area of Alaska hold promise for oil development, but it possesses unique surface resources, including magnificent wildlife populations, native cultural and archeological heritage, scenic grandeur, and recreational opportunities. The land use plan which will be developed will direct special attention to these resources and will be designed especially to protect wildlife from adverse effects of exploration and drilling operations.
The proposal is a well-balanced one. It will expedite oil and gas development and ensure the protection of the other natural resources of the area. It is in the interests of our Nation's security, and I urge early congressional action on this legislation.
Jimmy Carter, National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Statement on Proposed Legislation. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/249623
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/national-petroleum-reserve-alaska-statement-proposed-legislation
put it out there. Thank you. 
No, the critics here are wrong.
Biden is not being stupid about oil and he's not going back on a campaign promise about climate. This was a BARE MINIMUM deal that had been kicked around since it got brought up in Obama days.
Half of Alaska and its leaders wanted this, but it was up to Alaskans and Interior Secretary Haaland with Biden's input. It was not all up to Biden.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-oil-drilling-alaska-arctic-ff58d8a7fda5a00a1b4bbbbebd7d8781?fbclid=IwAR0aiFmSbY7lDMhMIXMpwbiQEgrYaYG0RD1LFoHwHX2ONhFqfEAFURIFEOM
What the critics say is not the Biden way of doing things. Everyone here should know that by now.
They should not think Biden doesn't know the geopolitics of oil.
One reason environmentalists get all arch about this is because they can't stop the shale/fracking revolution that has already made the U.S. globally #1 now in oil & gas as a resource.
But it's not because the U.S. is mindless about oil.
It's because after WWII, when America came out the economic leader, the American-led Order transformed areas that had rarely, if ever, been participants in any large-scale, multistate trading system.
Most of the world does not enjoy a geographic setup that naturally encourages trans and intercontinental economic activity, like the Arctic watershed and dense river networks that exist for North America.
The American order across oceans made geography matter less, and would now protect other nations' borders as well a their external commerce.
The result: the necessaries and goods of modern life everywhere -- because a new peaceable trade order compelled previous millennia old adversaries to be on the same human rights and prosperity side.
If most old and young environmentalists are not aware, they need to face a number of facts about energy AND greentech, some of which I brought up yesterday. https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217720260
where they are doing fracking - notably for natural gas.
But one of the biggest shocks that I experienced over 35 years ago, was when I went to a training course in Los Angeles, which was my first trip to California. And much to my amazement and chagrin, was what I saw along the trip from the airport to the hotel. The freeway was LINED with... brace for it.... OIL PUMPS.
I was like WTF? 
I had NO IDEA. Not one "movie or television location" image nor P.R./tourist-directed image shows "oil pumps" in California. "HOLLYWOOD".
Little or nothing is uttered (at least outside of California) about "oil drilling and pumping" in that dark blue, "energy conscious" state. And the wells ARE "active". It was my first time actually seeing an oil well pump "in person". And I was born and raised in a city that at one time had a cluster of the largest oil refineries on the east coast.
CURBED
no drilling where we're living | Feb. 10, 2022
L.A. Just Banned Oil Drilling. Now Comes the Hard Part.
By Alissa Walker, a Curbed senior writer
Across Los Angeles, oil wells bob in yards, near schools, and at parks. Photo: Citizen of the Planet/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
In a city aiming to be carbon-neutral by 2035, neighborhood oil wells have become an increasingly incongruous element of the Los Angeles landscape. About 600,000 Angelenos live within a half-mile of one of L.A.’s 1,000 active wells, where a recent study demonstrated that toxic particulates can travel up to two-and-a-half miles, blanketing local communities with chronic respiratory issues and higher cancer rates. Starting in 2013, the unusually broad coalition of groups known as Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling (STAND L.A.) began a campaign under the slogan “No drilling where we’re living.” And last week — nearly a decade after the campaign began — L.A. finally passed a motion to officially phase out oil and gas extraction. It’s a first step toward holding oil companies accountable for the damage they have inflicted upon L.A.’s most vulnerable neighborhoods for over a century. “It’s a vision beyond oil drilling,” says Eric Romann, an environmental-justice coordinator for Physicians for Social Responsibility and a co-leader of STAND L.A.’s campaign. “It’s the vision that communities that are overwhelmingly Black and Latino and working class who have borne the brunt should actively have a role in shaping what their future will look like.”
The oil companies won’t exactly quit drilling tomorrow. New drilling permits would likely stop being issued by the end of 2022, but oil companies may get up to a 20-year period to phase out everything that’s already siphoning fossil fuels out of the ground. That will mean not only properly plugging wells — including cleaning up 3,000 inactive drilling sites and another 1,000 abandoned wells located around the city — but also fully remediating the land. If the city can prove oil well operators have already recouped their initial investment, it may go faster. Neighboring Culver City recently conducted a similar study for its oil wells and is requiring full remediation by 2026.
Since 1892, L.A. has been dotted with oil wells, which lined up along beaches and sprouted out of backyards. But whereas drilling sites in wealthier neighborhoods have largely shut down over the last 25 years — a few continue to operate, cleverly camouflaged and with improved safety measures in place — many of the sites in lower-income communities have persisted. The city’s new ordinance would start to chip away at L.A.’s many land-use inequities, from its freeways to its port, says Romann: “We have an economy based not only on the extraction but the production and consumption of fossil fuels, and in order for that to function, we have placed this in the neighborhoods where the people with the least power live.”
That’s a start, but there’s a lot of petroleum infrastructure left in L.A. County, and that means the hardest part comes next. The region is home to multiple refineries that pollute the same neighborhoods affected by oil drilling. Remember that one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history was a gas leak at a storage facility in Aliso Canyon. Six years later, residents are still experiencing health issues, yet officials recently voted to expand the facility anyway. Reforms at the county and state level are helping, like new rules governing setback requirements around schools and parks. (The state also continues to issue new fracking permits but says it wants to phase out oil extraction by 2045.) There’s assistance coming from the Biden administration as well: Interior Secretary Deb Haaland visited L.A. in December and promised federal funds to clean up drill sites.
(snip)
https://www.curbed.com/2022/02/los-angeles-ends-oil-drilling-stand.html
no drilling where we're living | Feb. 10, 2022
L.A. Just Banned Oil Drilling. Now Comes the Hard Part.
By Alissa Walker, a Curbed senior writer
Across Los Angeles, oil wells bob in yards, near schools, and at parks. Photo: Citizen of the Planet/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
In a city aiming to be carbon-neutral by 2035, neighborhood oil wells have become an increasingly incongruous element of the Los Angeles landscape. About 600,000 Angelenos live within a half-mile of one of L.A.’s 1,000 active wells, where a recent study demonstrated that toxic particulates can travel up to two-and-a-half miles, blanketing local communities with chronic respiratory issues and higher cancer rates. Starting in 2013, the unusually broad coalition of groups known as Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling (STAND L.A.) began a campaign under the slogan “No drilling where we’re living.” And last week — nearly a decade after the campaign began — L.A. finally passed a motion to officially phase out oil and gas extraction. It’s a first step toward holding oil companies accountable for the damage they have inflicted upon L.A.’s most vulnerable neighborhoods for over a century. “It’s a vision beyond oil drilling,” says Eric Romann, an environmental-justice coordinator for Physicians for Social Responsibility and a co-leader of STAND L.A.’s campaign. “It’s the vision that communities that are overwhelmingly Black and Latino and working class who have borne the brunt should actively have a role in shaping what their future will look like.”
The oil companies won’t exactly quit drilling tomorrow. New drilling permits would likely stop being issued by the end of 2022, but oil companies may get up to a 20-year period to phase out everything that’s already siphoning fossil fuels out of the ground. That will mean not only properly plugging wells — including cleaning up 3,000 inactive drilling sites and another 1,000 abandoned wells located around the city — but also fully remediating the land. If the city can prove oil well operators have already recouped their initial investment, it may go faster. Neighboring Culver City recently conducted a similar study for its oil wells and is requiring full remediation by 2026.
Since 1892, L.A. has been dotted with oil wells, which lined up along beaches and sprouted out of backyards. But whereas drilling sites in wealthier neighborhoods have largely shut down over the last 25 years — a few continue to operate, cleverly camouflaged and with improved safety measures in place — many of the sites in lower-income communities have persisted. The city’s new ordinance would start to chip away at L.A.’s many land-use inequities, from its freeways to its port, says Romann: “We have an economy based not only on the extraction but the production and consumption of fossil fuels, and in order for that to function, we have placed this in the neighborhoods where the people with the least power live.”
That’s a start, but there’s a lot of petroleum infrastructure left in L.A. County, and that means the hardest part comes next. The region is home to multiple refineries that pollute the same neighborhoods affected by oil drilling. Remember that one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history was a gas leak at a storage facility in Aliso Canyon. Six years later, residents are still experiencing health issues, yet officials recently voted to expand the facility anyway. Reforms at the county and state level are helping, like new rules governing setback requirements around schools and parks. (The state also continues to issue new fracking permits but says it wants to phase out oil extraction by 2045.) There’s assistance coming from the Biden administration as well: Interior Secretary Deb Haaland visited L.A. in December and promised federal funds to clean up drill sites.
(snip)
https://www.curbed.com/2022/02/los-angeles-ends-oil-drilling-stand.html
When I had a work conference in Galveston, TX almost 30 years ago, the highway trip from Houston to Galveston was littered with retread truck tires and oil pumps. I expected that THERE but NOT California. And these California pumps are IN the city where people LIVE - NOT in the middle of the wilderness and tundra near the Arctic Circle.
The lack of focus on THAT - achieving environmental justice for EXISTING, poorly-maintained fossil fuel extraction locations in the middle of URBAN areas - is exactly the scotoma that many environmentalists seem to suffer from due to racism. It's not going to happen overnight but valid replacements need to be developed - and not just insisting that everyone "buy an EV" and "just plug it into a socket in their garage" (assuming the person lives in an actual house and not an apartment, and even has a garage or off-street parking to run a damn cord because at least here in Philly, you can't legally run EV electric cords across sidewalks to the street where the car might be parked).
Of course the first oil well was drilled right here in PA (Titusville, PA).
(sorry to dump that as a reply to you
)From that article at your link -
(snip)
Methane is a colorless, odorless, highly flammable gas. High levels of methane can reduce the amount of oxygen breathed from the air and can result in vision problems, memory loss, nausea, vomiting, facial flushing and headache.
Across much of California, fossil fuel companies are leaving thousands of oil and gas wells unplugged and idle, potentially threatening the health of people living nearby and in many cases handing taxpayers the bill for the environmental cleanup.
From Kern County to Los Angeles, companies haven’t set aside anywhere near enough money to ensure these drilling sites are cleaned up and made safe, according to a 2020 data analysis and investigation by the Los Angeles Times and the Center for Public Integrity.
Of particular concern are about 35,000 wells sitting idle, with production suspended, half of them for more than a decade. Though California recently toughened its regulations to ensure more cleanup funds are available, those measures don’t go far enough, according to a recent state report and the Times/Public Integrity analysis.
(snip)
Methane is a colorless, odorless, highly flammable gas. High levels of methane can reduce the amount of oxygen breathed from the air and can result in vision problems, memory loss, nausea, vomiting, facial flushing and headache.
Across much of California, fossil fuel companies are leaving thousands of oil and gas wells unplugged and idle, potentially threatening the health of people living nearby and in many cases handing taxpayers the bill for the environmental cleanup.
From Kern County to Los Angeles, companies haven’t set aside anywhere near enough money to ensure these drilling sites are cleaned up and made safe, according to a 2020 data analysis and investigation by the Los Angeles Times and the Center for Public Integrity.
Of particular concern are about 35,000 wells sitting idle, with production suspended, half of them for more than a decade. Though California recently toughened its regulations to ensure more cleanup funds are available, those measures don’t go far enough, according to a recent state report and the Times/Public Integrity analysis.
(snip)
THIS is what needs to be focused on - getting the fossil fuel industry's leftover, unmaintained, and broken infrastructure out of the urban areas.
IMHO instead complaining about drilling in the middle of nowhere in the Alaskan tundra in the Arctic Circle, the environmental movement needs to demand the removal and remediation of the poison wells in the middle of urban minority neighborhoods.
Another example that was akin to what happened in East Palestine, OH after that train derailment and tanker leaks/explosions, but probably hundreds of times worse - was a huge explosion at the now-closed PES refinery down in South Philly (NOT a rural area full of MAGats like East Palestine, OH, but adjacent to dense city neighborhoods) -
PES was the oldest and largest oil refinery on the east coast before that explosion and closure. Most of the refineries here have now all been pretty much shut down and were some of the few that processed sweet oil.
Anyone who grew up in Philly and who either lived in or made the trip down to South Philly to the stadiums/arenas or even to the airport, drove by the huge oil refineries that lined the Delaware River near where the Schuylkill River emptied into it. It was the standard joke that when on the expressway that runs adjacent to the refinery (I-76), you had to roll up your car windows or else gag on the rotten egg (or worse) fumes.
Commodities News
February 16, 2021 6:01 AM Updated 2 years ago
150 years of spills: Philadelphia refinery cleanup highlights toxic legacy of fossil fuels
By Laila Kearney, Valerie Volcovici
(snip)
SURPRISES IN A TOXIC SOUP
Oil refining at the Philadelphia site began in 1870, 100 years before the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Gasoline, once a worthless byproduct of heating oil, was routinely dumped by the refinery into the soil, according to historians and researchers.
Leaks and accidents spewed more toxins. The June 2019 blasts alone released 676,000 pounds of hydrocarbons, PES said at the time. The Philadelphia site is not unique. About half of America’s 450,000 polluted former industrial and commercial sites are contaminated with petroleum, according to the EPA. “That’s one of the reasons that a lot of these refineries have been kept going for such a long time,” said Fred Quivik, a Minnesota-based industrial historian. “They’re so contaminated, it’s hard to figure out what else to do with them.”
Cleanup in Philadelphia will be painstaking. After asbestos abatement comes the demolition and removal of 3,000 tanks and vessels, along with more than 100 buildings and other infrastructure, the company said. Then comes the ground itself. Hilco’s Perez said dirt quality varies widely on the site and will have to be handled differently depending on contamination levels.
Clearing toxins like lead must be done with chemical rinses or other technologies, said Charles Haas, professor of environmental engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia. The site also has polluted groundwater and giant benzene pools lurking underneath, according to environmental reports Sunoco filed over the years with the federal and state governments.
(snip)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-energy-refinery-cleanup-insight/150-years-of-spills-philadelphia-refinery-cleanup-highlights-toxic-legacy-of-fossil-fuels-idUSKBN2AG12O
February 16, 2021 6:01 AM Updated 2 years ago
150 years of spills: Philadelphia refinery cleanup highlights toxic legacy of fossil fuels
By Laila Kearney, Valerie Volcovici
(snip)
SURPRISES IN A TOXIC SOUP
Oil refining at the Philadelphia site began in 1870, 100 years before the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Gasoline, once a worthless byproduct of heating oil, was routinely dumped by the refinery into the soil, according to historians and researchers.
Leaks and accidents spewed more toxins. The June 2019 blasts alone released 676,000 pounds of hydrocarbons, PES said at the time. The Philadelphia site is not unique. About half of America’s 450,000 polluted former industrial and commercial sites are contaminated with petroleum, according to the EPA. “That’s one of the reasons that a lot of these refineries have been kept going for such a long time,” said Fred Quivik, a Minnesota-based industrial historian. “They’re so contaminated, it’s hard to figure out what else to do with them.”
Cleanup in Philadelphia will be painstaking. After asbestos abatement comes the demolition and removal of 3,000 tanks and vessels, along with more than 100 buildings and other infrastructure, the company said. Then comes the ground itself. Hilco’s Perez said dirt quality varies widely on the site and will have to be handled differently depending on contamination levels.
Clearing toxins like lead must be done with chemical rinses or other technologies, said Charles Haas, professor of environmental engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia. The site also has polluted groundwater and giant benzene pools lurking underneath, according to environmental reports Sunoco filed over the years with the federal and state governments.
(snip)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-energy-refinery-cleanup-insight/150-years-of-spills-philadelphia-refinery-cleanup-highlights-toxic-legacy-of-fossil-fuels-idUSKBN2AG12O
That PES facility (which used to be owned by Sunoco) alone had churned out twice as much as Willow is supposedly expected to produce.
Just found this article too -
Green
How to Tear Down an Oil Refinery in the Middle of Philadelphia
There are some 130 aging oil refineries in the U.S., most of which will need to be decommissioned if the country is to meet its climate goals.
By Josh Saul
September 30, 2021
After part of the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery exploded into flames one night in 2019, its owners filed for bankruptcy and put the 1,300-acre site up for sale. Hilco Global, a company with a track record of transforming fossil-fuel infrastructure like coal-fired power plants, bought the South Philadelphia facility out of bankruptcy with a grand new vision that includes logistics facilities and research labs.
But first the company has a daunting task: safely dismantling over 100 buildings, 3,000 tanks and 950 miles of dirty pipeline.
The Problem
Oil refining has taken place on the banks of the Schuylkill River since just after the Civil War. By the time the explosion scattered debris across the site and even over the river, the PES Oil Refinery was turning 330,000 barrels of crude day into gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products such as heating oil and jet fuel.
Right now, some parts of the PES Oil Refinery have the feel of a ghost town. Weeds sprout head-high among the pipelines, Canada geese strut down empty roads and small herds of deer bound past a silent railyard. But other parts are bustling with workers and big, yellow excavators as Hilco enters the second year of taking apart equipment and preparing the site for construction. The first tenants are supposed to move into the site in 2023.
(snip)
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-decommissioned-philadelphia-oil-refinery/
Justice
A Vast Refinery Site in Philadelphia Is Being Redeveloped and Called ‘The Bellwether District.’ But for Black Residents Nearby, Justice Awaits
Three years after a fire and explosion shuttered what was once the East Coast’s largest refinery, toxic benzene continued leaking well into the cleanup.
By Victoria St. Martin
July 4, 2022
One minute, the 3-year-old was playing tag in the grass—her braided hair bouncing with each step—while the hulking remains of a 150-year-old oil refinery loomed nearby. Then, suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. Many residents here in the Grays Ferry section of Philadelphia live with asthma and other chronic health conditions that they, advocates and even some medical experts attribute to the close proximity of the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions Refinery, which was destroyed in an explosion in June 2019 and closed shortly afterward.
Now, at a recent gathering of her neighbors and environmentalists in a local park to celebrate the refinery’s closure, the toddler was experiencing an asthma attack. When an inhaler offered no relief, family members rushed her to a nearby hospital where she was treated, released and made a full recovery.
“Look at all the damage that’s been done,” the toddler’s grandmother, Sheryl Russell, 45, said of the health ailments that many residents trace to the refinery. “And it’s, like, where do they pay? They need to pay for that.”
The closure of the 1,300-acre refinery here—once the largest on the East Coast—had been cheered as a major victory for those working at the intersection of equity, social justice and environmentalism. Yet in the three years since the refinery closed, the kind of sustained change sought by residents and environmental activists has proved elusive.
(snip)
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04072022/philadelphia-refinery-health-black-residents/
A Vast Refinery Site in Philadelphia Is Being Redeveloped and Called ‘The Bellwether District.’ But for Black Residents Nearby, Justice Awaits
Three years after a fire and explosion shuttered what was once the East Coast’s largest refinery, toxic benzene continued leaking well into the cleanup.
By Victoria St. Martin
July 4, 2022
One minute, the 3-year-old was playing tag in the grass—her braided hair bouncing with each step—while the hulking remains of a 150-year-old oil refinery loomed nearby. Then, suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. Many residents here in the Grays Ferry section of Philadelphia live with asthma and other chronic health conditions that they, advocates and even some medical experts attribute to the close proximity of the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions Refinery, which was destroyed in an explosion in June 2019 and closed shortly afterward.
Now, at a recent gathering of her neighbors and environmentalists in a local park to celebrate the refinery’s closure, the toddler was experiencing an asthma attack. When an inhaler offered no relief, family members rushed her to a nearby hospital where she was treated, released and made a full recovery.
“Look at all the damage that’s been done,” the toddler’s grandmother, Sheryl Russell, 45, said of the health ailments that many residents trace to the refinery. “And it’s, like, where do they pay? They need to pay for that.”
The closure of the 1,300-acre refinery here—once the largest on the East Coast—had been cheered as a major victory for those working at the intersection of equity, social justice and environmentalism. Yet in the three years since the refinery closed, the kind of sustained change sought by residents and environmental activists has proved elusive.
(snip)
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04072022/philadelphia-refinery-health-black-residents/
Again sorry for dumping here but I had to speak my peace.
wanted it? 
I don't live up there (although I had friends who did when they had parents who were stationed on the big base up there).
It's unfortunate that the First Peoples (whether AK native, Pacific Islanders, indigenous people) are swatted aside for certain subjects. When she mentioned people up in the north paying $15/gallon for stove oil, that is sobering. I know they get income back from those energy companies but then there seems to have been little in terms of investment into other industries there (although we know the GOP believes they know what is "best" there).
Hell... if we can get the damn train infrastructure up to par, we can halt a lot of the poisoning of the topsoil, wells and waterways every time a damn tanker train derails and spills toxic substances.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217727792
A big problem in the "environmental" space, is the conflicting ideals and goals of each group.
One group demands use of more renewables like wind energy which involves wind turbines but then THAT clashes with those who are ornithologists who are concerned with some of the turbines that are obviously in the best positions to be effective to take advantage of natural wind currents, but that are also in the very areas where bird migration patterns happen because of those self-same wind currents.
Similar has happened with a push for more and better use of solar energy and natural sunlight, where new skyscrapers have now been built with more "open" designs and glass to let in more natural sunlight in order to cut down on energy use for daytime lighting, and then allow for more lighting at night, and that resulted in flocks of birds not realizing there was glass in windows in these buildings, and they flew head on into them, ending up dead on the sidewalk -
In another example, environmental proponents of the past had pushed for alternatives for pesticides with use of "natural" predators - bringing an untold number of what has now become the invasive Asian lady beetle into the United States - which has crowded out the native American ladybug. Untold billions and billions sold in stores and online.
https://phl17.com/phl17-news/this-ladybug-look-alike-can-be-very-harmful-for-you-and-your-pets/
So there are good intentions but POOR critical thinking going on in the movement.
A big problem in the "environmental" space, is the conflicting ideals and goals of each group.
One group demands use of more renewables like wind energy which involves wind turbines but then THAT clashes with those who are ornithologists who are concerned with some of the turbines that are obviously in the best positions to be effective to take advantage of natural wind currents, but that are also in the very areas where bird migration patterns happen because of those self-same wind currents.
Similar has happened with a push for more and better use of solar energy and natural sunlight, where new skyscrapers have now been built with more "open" designs and glass to let in more natural sunlight in order to cut down on energy use for daytime lighting, and then allow for more lighting at night, and that resulted in flocks of birds not realizing there was glass in windows in these buildings, and they flew head on into them, ending up dead on the sidewalk -
Glass-walled buildings can mean death for birds, killing 1 to 5 percent of them a year
By Deseret News
Aug 10, 2009, 11:23am EDT
Karen Knee, The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA (MCT) — The front of Temple University's student center is an almost seamless wall of glass, reflecting trees and sky in lifelike detail and adding visual appeal to the urban landscape. But, for the city's winged residents, the glinting surface can be a killing zone.
The very qualities that people prize in glass — its transparency and reflectiveness — make it invisible to birds, who mistake the reflections for reality. They often fly straight into windows, and, according to a study by the New York City Audubon Society, the impact kills them nine times out of 10.
Bird-window mishaps have been overlooked until recently, said Muhlenberg College ornithologist Daniel Klem Jr., who has researched the problem for three decades. In the last five years, environmental groups, city governments, and schools such as Temple and Swarthmore have begun seeking ways to prevent the crashes.
Still, those efforts are dwarfed by the scale of the problem. In a paper published this spring, Klem estimated that 520 birds crash into windows and die during the four-month fall and spring migratory period each year in an average 10-square-block urban area. In Philadelphia, located along the Atlantic Flyway, that adds up to more than 40,000 bird deaths during the annual migrations.
(snip)
https://www.deseret.com/2009/8/10/20333811/glass-walled-buildings-can-mean-death-for-birds-killing-1-to-5-percent-of-them-a-year
By Deseret News
Aug 10, 2009, 11:23am EDT
Karen Knee, The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA (MCT) — The front of Temple University's student center is an almost seamless wall of glass, reflecting trees and sky in lifelike detail and adding visual appeal to the urban landscape. But, for the city's winged residents, the glinting surface can be a killing zone.
The very qualities that people prize in glass — its transparency and reflectiveness — make it invisible to birds, who mistake the reflections for reality. They often fly straight into windows, and, according to a study by the New York City Audubon Society, the impact kills them nine times out of 10.
Bird-window mishaps have been overlooked until recently, said Muhlenberg College ornithologist Daniel Klem Jr., who has researched the problem for three decades. In the last five years, environmental groups, city governments, and schools such as Temple and Swarthmore have begun seeking ways to prevent the crashes.
Still, those efforts are dwarfed by the scale of the problem. In a paper published this spring, Klem estimated that 520 birds crash into windows and die during the four-month fall and spring migratory period each year in an average 10-square-block urban area. In Philadelphia, located along the Atlantic Flyway, that adds up to more than 40,000 bird deaths during the annual migrations.
(snip)
https://www.deseret.com/2009/8/10/20333811/glass-walled-buildings-can-mean-death-for-birds-killing-1-to-5-percent-of-them-a-year
In another example, environmental proponents of the past had pushed for alternatives for pesticides with use of "natural" predators - bringing an untold number of what has now become the invasive Asian lady beetle into the United States - which has crowded out the native American ladybug. Untold billions and billions sold in stores and online.
https://phl17.com/phl17-news/this-ladybug-look-alike-can-be-very-harmful-for-you-and-your-pets/
So there are good intentions but POOR critical thinking going on in the movement.
