(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Members from the Alaska state legislature joined their Washington, D.C. representatives in the swamp last week to beg President Joe Biden to bring back oil drilling to the state.
Even leaders of Indian tribes across the state asked for Biden to press for the allowance of the Willow Project permit for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the Daily Caller reported.
Biden’s administration is expected to decide on the permit this week. According to the Daily Caller, the Willow Project would produce approximately 188,000 barrels of oil per day.
While opponents have called the project a potential “carbon bomb,” the project would only supply a small portion of the nation’s needs. Further, it would still be dwarfed by the likes of the New Mexico oil industry, which produces approximately 1.4 million barrels per day.
The pending decision has reportedly caused rifts within the Biden administration to grow.
The president’s Interior Secretary Deb Haaland opposes Willow, while insiders report that the decision also has major supporters within the administration.
John Podesta, Biden’s climate advisor who served in the former Clinton and Obama administrations, even led the way in driving Shell out of the state.
But Republicans are pushing back.
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, former commissioner of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, presented a map to the president last week showing the numerous actions–46, to be precise–that the Biden administration has taken to slow or stop economic development in Alaska.
Sullivan was joined by fellow Alaska Republicans Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Mary Peltola.
“Where’s the racial justice and racial equity for the Indigenous people of Alaska? They’re the biggest proponents of this project,” Sullivan said.
“If they go with Greenpeace and Center for Biological Diversity and Lower 48 radicals and tell the Native people of my state, ‘sorry, we’re going to listen to lower 48 radicals, not you,’ all of their talk of racial justice and racial equity is, quite frankly, bulls—.”
