'POTUS is wrong': Markey blasts Biden's approval of Alaska's Willow oil drilling project as 'environmental injustice'

WASHINGTON - Sen. Ed Markey slammed President Joe Biden on Monday for his administration's decision to approve the major Willow oil project on Alaska's petroleum-rich North Slope.

It's one of Biden's most consequential climate choices that is drawing condemnation from environmentalists who say it flies in the face of the Democratic president's pledges. 

"Approval of the Willow Project is an environmental injustice," Markey said in a statement. "The Biden administration's decision to move forward with one of the largest oil development projects in decades sends the wrong message to our international partners, the climate and environmental justice movement, and young people who organized to get historic clean energy and climate investments into law last year."

The Massachusetts Democrat and "Green New Deal" sponsor says the decision "leaves an oil stain on the administration's climate accomplishments" and puts both Native Alaskans and the environment in harm's way.

"By investing in the fossil-fueled past and not the green-energy future, we are failing frontline environmental justice communities who are bearing the brunt of climate chaos, and American consumers who remain at the whim of rising and volatile prices of oil and gas," Markey said.

Climate activists have been outraged that Biden appeared open to greenlighting the Willow project, which they said put Biden's climate legacy at risk. Allowing oil company ConocoPhillips to move forward with the drilling plan also would break Biden's campaign promise to stop new oil drilling on public lands, they say.

The project could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, create up to 2,500 jobs during construction and 300 long-term jobs, and generate billions of dollars in royalties and tax revenues for the federal, state and local governments, the company says.    

The administration's decision is not likely to be the last word, with litigation expected from environmental groups.

The project, located in the federally designated National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, enjoys widespread political support in the state. Alaska Native state lawmakers recently met with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to urge support for Willow.

But environmental activists have promoted a #StopWillow campaign on social media, seeking to remind Biden of his pledges to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy.

The announcement comes a day after the administration, in a big move toward conservation, said it would bar or limit drilling in some other areas of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.