US appeals court refuses to vacate Biden approval of Alaska's Willow oil
project
[June 14, 2025] By
BECKY BOHRER
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A federal appeals court panel on Friday refused to
vacate the approval of the massive Willow oil project on Alaska’s
petroleum-rich North Slope though it found flaws in how the approval was
reached.
The decision from a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes
in a long-running dispute over the project, most recently greenlit in
March 2023 by then-President Joe Biden’s administration and under
development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska by ConocoPhillips
Alaska.
The court’s majority opinion found what it called a procedural error —
but not a serious or substantive one — by the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management as part of the analysis in approving Willow. The court sent
the matter back to the agency for additional work.
The majority determined that vacating the project’s approval would be
unwarranted and its consequences severe, though Judge Gabriel P. Sanchez
dissented on that point.
A prior version of the project approved late in President Donald Trump's
first term was overturned in 2021, leading to the environmental review
process completed under Biden that drew the latest legal challenges from
environmentalists and a grassroots Ińupiat group.
Alaska’s Republican governor and its congressional delegation and state
Legislature have backed Willow. The project also has broad support among
Alaska Native leaders on the North Slope and groups with ties to the
region who see Willow as economically vital for their communities.
But critics cast the project as being at odds with Biden’s pledges to
combat climate change and raised concerns that it would drive further
industrialization in the region.
Trump expressed support for additional drilling in the reserve as part
of a broader, Alaska-specific executive order he signed upon his return
to office aimed at boosting oil and gas drilling, mining and logging in
the state.
During the cold-weather seasons, ConocoPhillips Alaska has worked to
build infrastructure such as new gravel roads, bridges and pipelines at
the project site, and it has laid out a timeline for producing first oil
in 2029. In a statement Friday, the company said it welcomed the ruling
and looked forward to “continuing the responsible development of
Willow.”
J. Elizabeth Peace, a spokesperson with the U.S. Department of the
Interior, said the agency doesn’t comment on litigation. The Bureau of
Land Management falls under Interior.
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This 2019 aerial photo provided by ConocoPhillips shows an
exploratory drilling camp at the proposed site of the Willow oil
project on Alaska's North Slope. (ConocoPhillips via AP, File)
 The appeals panel ruling comes more
than a year after it heard arguments in the case. Environmental
groups and the grassroots Sovereign Ińupiat for a Living Arctic had
appealed a lower-court ruling that upheld Willow’s approval.
Attorneys representing the groups on Friday were evaluating next
steps.
Arguments before the appeals court panel focused largely on claims
the land management agency did not consider a “reasonable” range of
alternatives in its environmental review, as well as the groups’
contention the agency had limited its consideration of alternatives
to those that allowed for full-field development of the project.
Attorneys for ConocoPhillips Alaska argued the leases in the
company’s Bear Tooth Unit in the northeast part of the petroleum
reserve are in areas open to leasing and surface development — and
that the agency committed the unit to development in issuing leases
there over a number of years. Willow is in the unit.
Friday's ruling said the agency during the environmental review
process took a stance that it needed to screen out alternatives that
stranded an economically viable quantity of oil but then never
explained whether the pared-back plan it ultimately approved
satisfied the full-field development standard.
The agency “framed its environmental review based on the full field
development standard and had a rational explanation for doing so,”
the ruling states. “But that does not permit BLM to potentially
deviate from the standard without explanation.”
ConocoPhillips Alaska had proposed five drilling sites for Willow
but the Bureau of Land Management approved three, which it said
would include up to 199 total wells.
Erik Grafe, an attorney with Earthjustice who represented some of
the groups that challenged Willow, saw the ruling as a partial
victory.
“They found a fundamental flaw that led them to conclude that the
BLM acted arbitrarily in approving the Willow project and have sent
that back to the agency to reconsider in a non-arbitrary way and
make a new decision,” he said.
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