"We are already prepping an amicus brief for any litigation that will come against this decision," he said.Įrik Grafe of Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, called litigation "very likely" and said it "does not look like Interior has fixed the myriad legal flaws that Earthjustice and others identified for the agency prior to its decision". "We will do so by working closely with the same Alaska stakeholders who brought us this far," Sullivan said. Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, told reporters the state's lawmakers are prepared to defend the decision against "frivolous" legal challenges. "That just adds insult to injury for these species that will be directly harmed by the project through oil spills, habitat destruction, and noise pollution," Monsell said. She said the analysis did not adequately address cumulative impacts of the oil and gas development, including how greenhouse gas emissions from burning the fossil fuels would impact survival of threatened or endangered animals like polar bears and seals. The approval would allow Conoco to develop more than 90% of the oil it had originally aimed for despite limiting the number of well pads, and the administration failed to explain how this was consistent with climate change goals, Monsell said. Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, another group involved in the previous suits, said Monday's approval for the Willow project is "still inadequate in numerous respects." Trustees for Alaska is also analyzing whether the latest approval complied with federal statutes like the National Environmental Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the 1976 Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act, Psarianos said. Judge Gleason had ruled that Trump's Interior Department failed to include projections for greenhouse gas emissions from foreign consumption of Willow's oil and also failed to analyze alternatives to the project. "We'll be looking closely at how (Interior's) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is considering alternatives and what its final approvals are." "We have some serious questions about whether this decision actually complies with the court's order from August 2021," said Bridget Psarianos, senior staff attorney at Trustees for Alaska. Now environmental groups are combing through the Biden Interior Department's approval for flaws that could provide them grounds for new lawsuits.
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