Biden Walks a Cliff Edge on Alaskan Oil
With approval for ConocoPhillips’s Willow project, the president is attempting to be pragmatic on energy security, oil prices and the transition away from fossil fuels.
A ConocoPhillips building in Anchorage, Alaska, from 2014.
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergPresident Joe Biden’s Alaskan oil policy can be summed up as: One if by land, none if by sea. Monday’s approval of ConocoPhillips’ Willow project in northern Alaska was twinned with new restrictions on drilling in the Beaufort Sea off the coast.
On one side of Biden stand his own party’s environmental priorities, exemplified in his presidential campaign pledge to end drilling on federal land and last summer’s passage of the green-tinged Inflation Reduction Act. On the other lie the demands of energy security, sharpened by the fallout from Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and last summer’s peak in pump prices.