Pared Down Willow Project Approval Needs Further Explanation (1)

The Bureau of Land Management’s approval of the Willow oil project in Alaska was largely upheld by an appeals court Friday after the panel ruled the agency adequately studied impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and endangered species.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said it was within the agency’s discretion to conduct a full field development plan for a National Environmental Policy Act review for such a large oil extraction proposal, but that BLM failed to explain why it chose to back away from that standard in the final decision, which “does not allow ConocoPhillips to extract ...