NCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday threw out Trump administration approvals for a large planned oil project on Alaska’s North Slope, saying the federal review was flawed and didn't include mitigation measures for polar bears.
U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage vacated permits for ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in a 110-page ruling.
The Trump administration approved the project in late 2020, and the Biden administration defended the project in court.
Rebecca Boys, a ConocoPhillips’ spokesperson, said the company would review Gleason's decision “and evaluate the options available regarding this project.”
Spokespersons for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Interior Department said their agencies had no comment. The Bureau of Land Management conducted the environmental review of the project that Gleason found flawed.
Conservation groups and Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic, described as a grassroots organization, had challenged the adequacy of the review process.
Karlin Itchoak, Alaska director for The Wilderness Society, in a statement called the ruling "a step toward protecting public lands and the people who would be most negatively impacted by the BLM’s haphazard greenlighting of the Willow project.”
In October 2020, then-U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed the government’s record of decision that called for allowing ConocoPhillips to establish up to three drill sites, associated processing facilities and gravel roads and pipelines on the North Slope.
Two more drill sites and additional roads and pipelines proposed by ConocoPhillips could be considered later, the Interior Department said at the time.
