Oceana Statement on Biden Administration Announcement to Approve Willow Oil Project and Close Beaufort Sea to Offshore Drilling - Oceana USA

Oceana Statement on Biden Administration Announcement to Approve Willow Oil Project and Close Beaufort Sea to Offshore Drilling

Press Release Date: March 13, 2023

Location: Washington, DC

Contact:

Jamie Karnik | email: jkarnik@oceana.org | tel: Jamie Karnik

Today the Biden Administration approved the Willow oil project on Alaska’s North Slope while also creating new protections for offshore areas of the Beaufort Sea from dangerous oil drilling.   

Oceana Deputy Vice President Susan Murray released the following statement:

“Climate change is already wreaking havoc here in Alaska and around the world in countless ways. Adding any new oil development like Willow would only make that worse, and is a terrible idea rooted in old practices we now know are incredibly harmful. The American people deserve more than business as usual from this administration.

This is especially true regarding offshore drilling in the remote Arctic, where the risks are too great to fragile ocean ecosystems and marine life. Today’s announcement does provide protections for offshore areas of the Beaufort Sea, where no oil company, regardless of best intentions, could possibly be prepared to operate safely. In addition to unpredictability of sea ice, storms, waves, and fog, there is no proven way to respond to an offshore oil spill in icy conditions and almost no infrastructure from which to launch a response to any kind of accident. Given these challenges, oil companies have already been quietly giving up offshore leases for many years now in the Beaufort Sea and all but the last few leases closest to shore have been relinquished or expired.”