TikTok campaign targets Biden on Alaska's huge Willow oil plan

A social media campaign urging U.S. PresidentJoe Biden to reject an oil development project on Alaska's remoteNorth Slope has rapidly gained steam on TikTok and other platforms,reflecting the unease many young Americans feel about climate change.

The #StopWillow campaign has garnered more than 50 million viewsand counting, and was trending in the top 10 topics on TikTok, asusers voiced their concerns that Biden wouldn't stick to hiscampaign promises to curtail oil drilling.

"It's just so blatantly bad for the planet," said Hazel Thayer,a climate activist who posted TikTok videos using the #StopWillowhashtag.

"With all of the progress that the U.S. government has made onclimate change, it now feels like they're turning their backs byallowing Willow to go through," Thayer said. "I think a lot ofyoung people are feeling a little bit betrayed by that."

At the same time, Alaska Native leaders with ties to thepetroleum-rich North Slope support ConocoPhillips Alaska's proposedWillow project. They've pushed back, saying the Willow Project wouldbring much-needed jobs and billions of dollars in taxes andmitigation funds to the vast, snow- and ice-covered region nearly965 kilometresfrom Anchorage.

Indigenous voices 'largely ... ignored'

The Alaska Native mayors of two North Slope communities AsisaunToovak, of Utqiavik, the nation's northernmost community formerlyknown as Barrow, and Chester Ekak, of Wainwright, about 140kilometresto the southwest penned an opinion piece for theAnchorage Daily News in support of the project.

In the debate, "the voices of the people whose ancestralhomeland is most impacted have largely been ignored," they wrote."We know our lands and our communities better than anyone, and weknow that resource development and our subsistence way of life arenot mutually exclusive."

Biden's decision on Willow will be one of his most consequentialclimate decisions.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who fought the Willow project asa member of Congress, has the final decision on whether to approveit, although top White House climate officials are likely to beinvolved, with input from Biden himself. The White House declined tocomment Tuesday.

Climate activists are outraged that Biden appears open to theproject, which they call a "carbon bomb," and would risk alienating young voters who have urged stronger climate action bythe White House as he approaches a 2024 reelection campaign.

Willow's critics include the Pueblo Action Alliance, which iswhere Halaand's daughter, Somah Haaland, once worked. The WesternEnergy Alliance, an oil industry trade organization, claims thatcreates a conflict of interest for the secretary. Interiorspokesperson Melissa Schwartz denied any conflict.

Backed by Alaskans in Congress

Alaska's congressional delegation including Democratic Rep.Mary Peltola, who is the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress backs the project and met with top officials at the White House lastweek.

With a decision anticipated soon, attention to Willow is growingonline.

The project's nature-themed name is making it easier for thetopic to gain traction on social media than other oil projects withmore technical-sounding names, said Cassidy DiPaola, spokespersonfor People Vs. Fossil Fuels, a coalition of groups pressing Bidenfor an end to fossil fuel projects. A petition on change.org hadmore than 3 million signatures byWednesday, making it the thirdmost-signed petition in the company's history, it said.

"Young voters felt like this was betraying the climate goalsthey had set forth," said Tyler Steinhardt, a vice president at Pique Action, a company that produces social media andmini-documentaries about climate solutions.

The proposed Willow project is within the National PetroleumReserve-Alaska, an area the size of Indiana, though about half ofthe reserve is off limits to oil and gas leasing under an Obama-erarule reinstated by the Biden administration last year.

It's also where subsistence hunters harvest caribou, seals, fishand bowhead whales to supplement extremely high food costs in ruralAlaska, where for example a 24-ounce bag of shredded cheese can cost$16.99.

1.5% of U.S. oil production at stake

ConocoPhillips Alaska said Willow, one of the biggest oil fieldsto be proposed in Alaska in decades, could produce up to 180,000barrels of oil a day, or about 1.5 per centof the total U.S. oilproduction. It could also help fill the nearly 1,300-kilometretrans-Alaska oil pipeline, which is running at about a fourth of thepeak capacity in the 1980s, when more than 2 million barrels a dayflowed through the line from the North Slope to Valdez for shipment.

In oil-friendly Alaska, there have been visible shows of supportfor the project.

The Alaska Legislature unanimously passed a resolution last monthin support of the project. Local governments and Alaska Nativecorporations on the North Slope also back the project, and unionleaders a major Biden constituency support it.

The Alaska Native mayors said in their opinion piece that theproject is expected to generate $1.25 billion in taxes for the NorthSlope Borough to pay for basic services like education, fireprotection and law enforcement. Another $2.5 billion is expected fora grant program that will provide other improvements like a newrecreation center for youth and community programs in Wainwright.

"It's time for Washington, D.C., to listen to the voices ofAlaska Native communities on the North Slope and approve Willowwithout further delay or deferral," Toovak and Ekak wrote.

Not all elected officials on the North Slope favour the project,however.

Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, the mayor of Nuiqsut, the community thatwould be closest to the Willow project, said she worried about theimpact to her community's subsistence lifestyle.

"There are many who would like to say everybody in Alaskasupports oil and gas development," she told The Associated Presslast month. "Well, for our village, this development is in thewrong area ... We oppose it."

O'Malley reported from Philadelphia, and Gutierrez reported fromNew York. Associated Press journalists Matthew Daly in Washington,D.C., Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska and Matthew Brown in Billings,Montana also contributed to this report.