Massive oil project sparked civil war within Biden administration, lawmakers say

[Gavin]

Democrats are assholes.

The approval process for a massive Alaska oil drilling project sparked
intense disagreements within the Biden administration that culminated with
a tactful media leak late last week, according to two senators who
advocated for the project.

President Joe Biden and senior White House advisers ultimately made the
call to green-light the Willow Project, a drilling project that its
developer, ConocoPhillips, forecasted to produce up to 614 million barrels
of crude oil over its 30-year lifespan, but faced stiff opposition from
officials elsewhere in the administration, Alaska Republican Sens. Lisa
Murkowski and Dan Sullivan told reporters during a call Monday.

"Were there people within the administration, within the Department of
Interior, that were working to actively kill this? Absolutely,
positively," Murkowski said. "I don't think you have to name names. Let's
just put out there that this administration has made no secret of the fact
that they want to move beyond oil."

"There are absolutely people in the administration today who are not
viewing this as good news," she continued. "I think they tried to actively
work against us, and they worked against us right up until the end."

BIDEN APPROVES MASSIVE OIL DRILLING PROJECT CLIMATE ACTIVISTS DERIDED AS
'CARBON BOMB'

Murkowski, Sullivan and Alaska Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola had repeatedly
urged the administration over the course of the last year to approve the
project, noting that it had near unanimous support throughout Alaska and
arguing that it would provide a much-needed boost to the state's economy
while bolstering U.S. energy security.

The Department of Interior (DOI) published its decision Monday morning,
approving three of five proposed drilling sites in a major victory for its
proponents and a cause for consternation among environmentalists who said
the project was a "carbon bomb." Interior Secretary Deb Haaland notably
didn't provide a statement in the public announcement.

DARK MONEY ECO GROUP APPEARS TO BE ASTROTURFING OPPOSITION TO MAJOR OIL
PROJECT

"I think we realized some time ago that this was going to be a decision
that was ultimately made at the White House level, not only by senior
leaders but actually with the president's direct involvement himself,"
Murkowski told reporters. "The president had clearly been apprised of
Willow and what Willow was."

"This was not something that I think was ultimately going to reside with
the secretary of Interior."

Sullivan added that he knew "for a fact" the decision to approve Willow
was leaked late last week in a last-ditch effort to change Biden's mind by
those in the administration opposed to the project. Bloomberg first
reported Friday evening that senior administration officials had signed
off on the project.

The report was quickly followed by a statement from White House press
secretary Karine Jean-Pierre that a decision had not been made and that
"anyone who says there has been a final decision is wrong."

"We know, for example, for a fact that the leak to the Bloomberg reporters
on Friday was an attempt by certain anti-Willow forces in the Biden
administration to kill the project," Sullivan said Monday. "That was
disappointing to see that. We were very aware of that from the beginning."

"Secretary Haaland has not been actively engaged, in my view, at all on
this," he continued. "And that may have been from the fact that she, as a
congresswoman, was vocally against Willow. So, it probably wouldn't have
been objective to have her be the decision maker. It was clearly at the
presidential level."

The DOI declined to comment. The White House didn't immediately respond to
a request for comment.

<https://www.foxnews.com/politics/massive-oil-project-sparked-civil-war-
biden-administration-lawmakers-say>

[Gavin]

it's klaus' penis we want to fellate.....
they spend a lot of time thinking about my penis

Several top Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
D-N.Y., heavily criticized President Joe Biden on Monday after his
administration approved a massive oil drilling project in Alaska.

The Democrats argued that the decision moving forward with the Willow
Project — an oil drilling project forecasted to produce up to 614 million
barrels of crude oil over its 30-year lifespan — contradicts Biden's
broader climate agenda. They also indicated that the only acceptable
outcome would have been for the president to completely reject the
project.

"The Biden administration has committed to fighting climate change and
advancing environmental justice—today’s decision to approve the Willow
project fails to live up to those promises," Ocasio-Cortez said in a joint
statement with Reps. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., Jared Huffman, D-Calif., and
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. "Their decision ignores ... the irrefutable
science that says we must stop building projects like this to slow the
ever more devastating impacts of climate change."

"This administration clearly knows what the path to a cleaner and more
just future looks like — we wish they hadn’t chosen to stray so far from
that path with today’s Willow decision," they continued. "The only
acceptable Willow project is no Willow project."

MASSIVE OIL PROJECT SPARKED CIVIL WAR WITHIN BIDEN ADMINISTRATION,
LAWMAKERS SAY

On Sunday evening, ahead of the expected decision on Willow, the
administration announced it would block off roughly 16 million acres of
land and water in Alaska near where the project will be located from being
developed for future oil and gas leasing. Ocasio-Cortez and the other
Democrats added in their statement that "split decisions in the face of
the climate crisis are not good enough."

Overall, the federal analysis of the environmental impact of Willow
estimated that it would produce as much as 278 million tons of greenhouse
gas emissions, the equivalent of the carbon footprint of 2 million cars.
And environmental groups have blasted the project for years as a "carbon
bomb."

DARK MONEY ECO GROUP APPEARS TO BE ASTROTURFING OPPOSITION TO MAJOR OIL
PROJECT

"It’s disappointing to see Secretary [Deb] Haaland and President [Joe]
Biden approve the ‘Willow Project’ for ConocoPhillips," Sen. Martin
Heinrich, D-N.M., tweeted Monday. "The Western Arctic is one of the last
great wild landscapes on the planet and as public land it belongs to every
American. Industrial development in this unspoiled landscape will not age
well."

"This is a step backwards," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., added in a
separate tweet. "The best way to lower energy prices is to shift to
renewables — cheaper in the long run and not subject to Big Oil’s price
gouging whims."

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., noted Monday that, during the presidential
campaign and shortly after taking office, Biden pledged to end all new
drilling on federal lands. Willow represents the largest drilling project
on federal lands currently proposed.

"This disastrous decision to approve the Willow Project in Alaska, one of
the largest oil development projects in decades, will have devastating
consequences on our planet, frontline communities, and wildlife," Tlaib
said.

And Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., blasted the decision, saying it was "wrong
on every level."

"It destroys our climate goals and undermines international climate
ambition," the Oregon lawmaker tweeted. "We can’t ask other nations to
curb dirty energy production if we’re greenlighting fossil projects."

Like the Democrats, several leading environmental groups criticized Biden
over the decision to approve Willow.

As of Friday, two Change.org petitions urging Biden to "say no" to the
Willow Project had received more than 4 million signatures. And the
hashtag #StopWillow went viral on social media, garnering more than 650
million impressions across platforms.

"If Biden wants to protect the Arctic, he needs to protect all of it,"
Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity,
said in a statement. "The president has left us in the cold and missed a
major opportunity to live up to his climate commitments. This project is
on weak legal ground, and we’re gearing up for action."

"This is a crushing step backward at a time when we need this
administration to make every leasing and permitting decision through the
lens of a comprehensive plan to make public lands part of the climate
solution," Karlin Itchoak, the Alaska senior regional director for The
Wilderness Society, added.

<https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aoc-top-democrats-issue-stinging-rebuke-
biden-failed-climate-promises>