President Joe Biden has made fighting climate change a central pillar of his presidency. He’s promised — and the White House says he’s delivered — more to protect the climate than any other US president.
But he just broke a key campaign pledge to stop all new oil drilling on federal land in a major way.
On Monday, the Biden administration officially approved one of the largest-ever drilling projects on federal land: the $8 billion ConocoPhillips Willow oil project, which is expected to produce more than 600 million barrels of crude oil over three decades in Alaska’s North Slope. While the administration has previously been forced by the courts or Congress to approve some oil and gas leasing on federal land, Biden has rarely violated his campaign promise of “no more drilling on federal lands, period” without being compelled to do so.
