ALASKA’S NORTH SLOPE, the arctic edge of America’s 49th state, is home to beavers, bears and caribou. Its coastal waters boast bearded seals and bowhead whales. Indigenous people have lived here for millennia. But the region also encompasses the National Petroleum Reserve, or NPR-A. On February 1st the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which helps govern America’s vast federal lands, advanced a colossal drilling project in the reserve. The ConocoPhillips project, known as Willow, could produce 180,000 barrels of crude each day. Environmentalists howl that the project is a “carbon bomb” anathema to President Joe Biden’s green goals. A final decision is expected within the month.
The Biden administration’s expected approval of Willow may indeed seem
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Published on 2/20/2023 (30 days ago) Oil/Gas