US appeals court refuses to vacate Biden approval of Alaska's Willow oil project
Source: AP
Updated 4:32 PM EDT, June 13, 2025
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 Iñupiat group.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/alaska-willow-oil-court-cc5886e344313edb6b6bb301beb8cb20