What Next: Why Biden Broke his Promise on Drilling

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News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Despite his campaign promises, President Biden has signed off on the Willow Project, an $8 billion plan to extract 600 million barrels of oil from public lands in Alaska. But how useful might this 30-year project be with the country continually prioritizing electric energy? Guest: Ben Lefebvre, energy reporter at Politico. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Amicus—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So Ben, if I told you in 2020 that Joe Biden was going to approve an $8 billion plan
0:14.0	to extract 600 million barrels of oil from the Arctic, would you have believed me?
0:20.2	No, I would not have.
0:28.2	I would have said Joe Biden, the candidate who on the campaign trail vowed to stop drilling
0:34.3	at all on public land.
0:37.4	Not that Joe Biden, no way.
0:40.2	I called up Politico's Ben LaFave because I wanted him to walk me through the president's
0:44.8	decision, earlier this month, to let Conoco Phillips, Alaska's largest crude oil producer,
0:51.2	go ahead and produce more oil.
0:53.5	In a remote part of the Arctic, known to be home to polar bears, caribou, and migratory birds.
1:00.2	This effort is known as the Willow Project, and it was first rubber stamped by Donald Trump.
1:06.4	The problem was that it was approved so hastily, courts would not allow drilling to move forward.
1:13.1	Once the Biden administration came in, the administration had to decide,
1:16.0	are we going to defend this permit or not?
1:18.9	At first, environmentalists were optimistic that Biden would shut the whole thing down.
1:24.4	After all, when he was campaigning and he was asked about projects like Willow,
1:28.7	he sounded like this.
1:29.6	Hi, how are you tonight?
1:30.7	Thank you so much for being here.
1:33.1	Just a quick question about how you feel about drilling in the Arctic, Matthew.
1:37.3	Totally opposed to it.
1:38.9	Completely totally opposed.
	...

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