 | | Maxine Joselow | | Exclusive analysis: Alaska oil project would negate Biden's progress on clean energy on public lands |  An oil pipeline outside Alaska's Prudhoe Bay in 2019. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post) | | | President Biden has set ambitious targets for deploying more renewable energy on public lands and waters by 2030. But if the Interior Department approves a massive oil and gas project planned in Alaska, it would negate the greenhouse gas emissions avoided by meeting those clean energy goals, according to an analysis shared exclusively with The Climate 202. The analysis by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, looked at ConocoPhillips's Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The controversial project poses a major test of the Biden administration's willingness to block new fossil fuel infrastructure that could generate planet-warming emissions for decades to come. The Willow project would pump more than 500 million barrels of oil over 30 years from a fragile Arctic ecosystem. This would release more than 250 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to the analysis and estimates by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management. Meanwhile, Biden has promised to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 and to permit 25 gigawatts of solar, onshore wind and geothermal energy on public lands by 2025. Achieving these goals would prevent 129 million metric tons of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere, the center found. In sum, the Willow project would unleash nearly double the planet-warming pollution that all clean energy progress on public lands and waters would avoid in the next decade, the analysis concludes. "The Biden administration has set ambitious renewable and climate commitments, and I think they need to recognize that this project could have a legacy-defining impact just due to its carbon emissions alone," Jenny Rowland-Shea, the center's deputy director for public lands and the author of the analysis, told The Climate 202. Dennis Nuss, a spokesman for ConocoPhillips, pushed back on the report's methodology and findings. | | "Any analysis of the Willow project which tries to equate its 30-year emissions profile with single-year emissions from coal or compared with just a subset of emissions reduction goals from the Biden administration is flawed and defies logic," Nuss said in an email. "ConocoPhillips has long recognized the importance of leading on sustainability issues including climate change, and we continue to address climate-related risk and opportunity." Melissa Schwartz, an Interior spokeswoman, declined to comment on the center's analysis or the future of the Willow project. | | While Willow was approved in the final months of the Trump administration, the Biden administration initially defended the project in court, angering many climate activists. But last summer, a federal judge in Alaska threw out permits for the project, faulting the way the federal government had assessed its impact on the climate, wildlife and Indigenous communities. U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote in her decision that the Interior Department had failed to adequately analyze the project's greenhouse gas emissions and potential harm to polar bears, a threatened species. Following the ruling, the Biden administration is writing a supplemental environmental impact statement for Willow. Once that process is complete, the administration will decide whether to proceed with approving the project. Bridget Psarianos, a staff attorney with Trustees for Alaska, which represented six clients in the successful lawsuit challenging Willow's permits, said the center's analysis shows that the Biden administration should not move forward with the project, for the sake of the climate. "I'm glad to see this report come out because I think it puts a pretty fine point on how incompatible Willow is with the rest of the administration's stated priorities," Psarianos told The Climate 202. | | Alaska's congressional delegation, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), has championed Willow's potential to bring jobs and economic opportunities to the region. | | In her annual address to the Alaska legislature last week, Murkowski touted her advocacy for Willow with the Biden administration and said she expects the project to be approved this year. "Anytime I have a conversation with anybody in the White House, the subject of Willow comes up," Murkowski said. "I actually found out that the president has a new cat that he named Willow. This is a true story. So think about that. That name had to be in his head for some reason." Some environmentalists suspect that the Interior Department began drafting a supplemental environmental impact statement for Willow — a step it was not legally required to take — to appease Murkowski, a key swing vote in the 50-50 Senate. The Alaska Republican has already exerted an influence over the Interior Department under Biden. The White House last year withdrew its nomination of Elizabeth Klein to be Interior's deputy secretary following opposition from Murkowski and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who took issue with Klein's advocacy for curbing fossil fuels. Asked for comment, Murkowski spokeswoman Karina Borger said in an email: "Senator Murkowski and Alaskans across the spectrum — including the North Slope Borough, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, the Alaska Federation of Natives, and the Alaska AFL-CIO — support the Willow project. We are confident the Biden administration will likewise realize the project's importance to Alaska's economy and domestic energy security. American energy flowing from the National Petroleum Reserve into the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is a perfect fit for [the] administration's 'Made in America' initiative." | | |  | Pressure points | | Exclusive: LCV endorses Rep. Casten in potentially divisive primary |  Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) at a news conference last month. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) | | | The League of Conservation Voters Action Fund today plans to endorse Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), who is running in a closely watched primary against Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.), marking its first member-on-member endorsement, according to details shared exclusively with The Climate 202. The campaign arm of the League of Conservation Voters endorsed both Casten and Newman in the 2020 election, when Newman ousted incumbent Rep. Dan Lipinski, a moderate Democrat who opposed the Green New Deal. | | But after a redrawn congressional map pitted the two against each other, the group opted to support Casten, who co-chairs the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition's power-sector task force and is a member of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. "I'm honored to be endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters and will continue to work hand-in-hand with them to ensure we provide a livable planet to our children and grandchildren," Casten said in a statement. Newman, who scored an endorsement from the Sunrise Movement in 2020, is facing an ongoing congressional ethics investigation into her campaign hiring. The League of Conservation Voters Action Fund plans to endorse 18 other candidates today as part of its second round of incumbent House endorsements in the 2022 election cycle. They include House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Reps. Katherine M. Clark (D-Mass.), Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.). All 19 candidates received ratings of 96 percent or higher in LCV's 2021 National Environmental Scorecard released yesterday. | | |  | On the Hill | | Manchin lays out scaled-down version of Build Back Better, with climate spending in the mix |  Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) at an Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing. (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg News) | | | Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on Wednesday laid out a much narrower version of the stalled Build Back Better Act that could win his vote, and he specifically mentioned climate and clean energy spending, Politico's Burgess Everett and Nicholas Wu report. Manchin, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told Politico that a potential deal would include measures that produce revenue, such as prescription drug savings and tax reform, as well as new spending to tackle climate change. Manchin added that while he would support large clean energy investments in a theoretical deal, he still wants domestic oil, gas and coal production to be a big part of the mix. "You want to be able to defend your people, have reliable, dependable and affordable power? You have to use 'all of the above,'" he said. "They say 'Manchin doesn't care … he's killing the environment.' I'm not killing anything." | Manchin, Murkowski to introduce bipartisan bill to block Russian energy shipments to U.S. |  Manchin at the Capitol on March 2. (Julia Nikhinson/Bloomberg News) | | | Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) plan to introduce bipartisan legislation to ban Russian crude oil and petroleum shipments to the United States, according to draft bill text obtained by The Climate 202 and first reported by Politico Pro's Joshua Siegel and Ben Lefebvre. The draft legislation says that Russian President "Vladimir Putin has used energy as a weapon of war. Russia's actions demand a fundamental rethinking of American national security and our national and international energy policy, which currently support the Russian Federation by allowing the purchase and import of their energy resources." After Russia invaded Ukraine last week, pressure has increased to target the Kremlin's massive energy sector, but it remains uncertain whether the bill could attract enough support to pass in the Senate. The draft bill also does not suggest how the United States would supplement its reliance on Russian crude oil in the future. | | |  | International climate | | U.N. adopts resolution aimed at ending plastic pollution |  A sculpture at the U.N. Environment Assembly in Nairobi on March 2. (Brian Inganga/AP) | | | After three days of talks in Nairobi, the United Nations on Wednesday agreed on a plan for developing a legally binding treaty by the end of 2024 that would "end plastic pollution," The Post's Tik Root reports. More than 150 countries were represented at the biennial U.N. Environment Assembly, where they settled on a resolution that includes all phases of the plastic life cycle, from design and production to waste management. It comes at a time when the world produces billions of pounds of plastic waste annually, and amid mounting concerns about marine plastic debris. The agreement "is the beginning of the end of the scourge of plastic on this planet," said U.S. delegate Monica Medina, the assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs, who choked back tears. "I think we will look back on this as a day for our children and grandchildren." | | |  | Viral | | | When it's only Thursday but it feels like this week has brought a month's worth of climate news: |  | | | | |
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