The Alaska Legislature’s Bush Caucus was in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, appearing at a press conference with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Sen. Dan Sullivan, and Rep. Mary Peltola.
They were beseeching the Biden Administration for a favorable decision for the Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. It’s a pending decision that no one seems to be able to predict which way the White House will go.
Rep. Josiah Patkotak of Utqiagvik, Rep. Bryce Edgmon of Dillingham, Rep. C.J. McCormick of Bethel, Senators Donny Olson of Golovin and Lyman Hoffman of Bethel, and AFL-CIO Alaska President Joelle Hall of Anchorage were at the rally, wearing big, red “Willow yes” pins.
Also this week, environmental groups burned the midnight oil on flights to Washington from across the country to work their connections in the Biden Administration, determined to deny Alaskans this critical energy infrastructure project that will put a bandage on our currently wounded national energy security. Environmentalists in Washington this week are like a swarm of cicadas.
The opponents of the Willow Project, which include Gwich’in leaders and the Nuiqsut City and Tribe, call the oil project a “carbon bomb.” They will hold a protest on Friday in front of the White House, to make their objections to oil clear to the national media, which had all-but-ignored the Wednesday press conference.
The environmental lobby may have the last word with the Biden Administration before a decision is released next week. They are leaving nothing to chance. Over 250,000 letters have been written in opposition to Willow, and companies like Patagonia, which makes its products out of oil, have lined up to lobby against the drilling permit.
Inside the Administration, a heated war is raging, and it has everything to do with the 2024 presidential election, and the massive environmental political groups that can give or withhold money for campaigns.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland wants the project killed; some insiders say the White House is taking over the decision on what has clearly become a Biden Administration hot potato.
Wheeling and dealing is in full swing between the Alaska delegation and the Biden Administration, and the environmentalists and the Biden Administration.
What will the president’s campaign want or need in exchange for giving the OK to the Willow Project? What will he need in return for denying the permits? Does the White House care about saving the 2024 reelection bid of Rep. Mary Peltola?
For her part, what vote will Sen. Lisa Murkowski trade to Biden in exchange for a thumbs up on the drilling permit? Will she vote in favor of Biden’s anti-free-speech FCC nominee Gigi Sohn? Will she agree to “no more oil permits for the Arctic”?
The environmental lobby is the most powerful, well-heeled force in Washington, D.C. during this administration. They brought Biden to the dance in 2020, and can pick a different partner in 2024. All they must do is threaten to work their ways inside the Democratic Party to advance a challenger.
Biden has problematic promises to keep. He promised in 2020 that he would end oil drilling in America altogether. His first act in 2021 was to signed an order that halted all new oil and natural gas leases on public lands and waters. He ordered a review of existing permits for oil and gas on federal lands. He brought American energy independence to its knees with the stroke of a pen.
There is the Podesta factor, too. John Podesta, who is Biden’s climate advisor, served as a chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, as a counselor to President Barack Obama, and as Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager in 2016.
Podesta took credit for driving Royal Dutch Shell Oil out of Alaska. After the company had invested more than $7 billion into shallow-water, off-shore oil leases in the Chukchi Sea, the Obama Administration limited the project to just two exploration wells. Shell came up with a dry hole on the first well and decided to pick up its jackup rig and go home, and absorb the loss. Environmentalists called it a major victory, for the Obama Administration had simply made it uneconomic to do business in Alaska.
Podesta was jubilant when Shell left Alaska. In emails obtained by Wikileaks, he took credit for it, and posted on Twitter that it was “great news for the climate.”
The Podesta Playbook might be pulled out now: The administration could reduce the number of drill pads for Willow down to two, and announce that it had been responsive to both Alaska and to the environment. Two wells would make Willow a project that does not pencil out economically for ConocoPhillips, which has had the leases since 1999, and has worked for a permit for five years.
With the Podesta Playbook, Biden could give a win to the environmental lobby and ensure they stay with him for 2024. It worked to drive Shell out of Alaska, and it may work to drive ConocoPhillips out, too.
But it’s a tightrope for Biden, who has just approved importing 100,000 barrels of oil a day from Venezuela, a country that the State Department says is “a permissive environment for known terrorist groups.”
Biden has also drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to 371 million barrels, the lowest in its history, and has no current plan to restore it as a backup energy reserve.
The Washington Post reports that the Alaska delegation has a meeting with Biden to make one last attempt to save the Alaska economy from the “no more Arctic oil” lobby.
“White House officials suggested to environmental groups in recent days that they may pair approval for a controversial Arctic oil project with new conservation measures in Alaska, but have failed to convince activists the idea is an acceptable compromise, according to three people involved in or briefed on the calls,” the newspaper reported.
