I was in my freshman year of high school when the Dakota Access Pipeline was commissioned. Learning about how the pipeline was going to go through indigenous land in North Dakota and South Dakota, violating article II of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 was what first brought my attention to issues of environmental justice. Seeing videos online of the Sioux Tribe and their supporters being arrested while peacefully protesting made me enraged.

Two years later, I visited the Lakota Reservation in South Dakota and got to hear first hand from the Lakota people the effects colonization continues to have on their land and people. I knew after that that I wanted to major in environmental studies in college.

During his presidential election, President Joe Biden stated “No more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period.”. The Biden administration also pledged to cut carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030, according to NPR. Flash forward to Monday, Biden went back on his word and approved the Willow Project on federal land in Alaska without a court order or congressional mandate. Federal lands are public lands, meaning that the public should have a say in what happens on them. Alaska’s North Slope is the largest piece of untouched land in the United States. Biden’s approval for the project also came after millions of people came together to oppose the construction of the pipeline online and sent in letters trying to stop it.

The Willow Project will also have a negative effect on wildlife in the area. A government review stated that the United States should not develop Alaska’s North Slope because it is an important site for the yellow-billed loon and part of a caribou migration path. However, President Biden did approve only three drilling sites instead of the five originally proposed. The Biden administration also placed protections on Teshekpuk Lake, coastal wetlands near the area, so the project is unable to expand further. The project is still projected to release 260 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Many argue that the United States needs to be energy independent, especially now that Russia has invaded Ukraine. However, we did the calculations in another one of my classes today, and the United States consumes 20 million barrels of oil a day. The Willow Project is projected to extract around 600 million barrels of oil over several years. This means that this entire project and all of the environmental destruction and infrastructure that comes with it will supply the United States with about a month’s worth of oil. It also means that this project will not get the United States anywhere close to being energy independent.

However, there are still efforts to stop the Willow Project. Six environmental organizations including the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and the Trustees of Alaska have filed suit against the Biden administration stating that the Willow Project is in violation of multiple federal laws. This comes after these same groups spent years trying to prevent the project’s approval.

Time and time again, the United States has exploited indigenous land to obtain natural resources without caring about the consequences. We simply need to stop building pipelines on indigenous land to extract oil that this country currently relies on. There is a reason gas prices are high right now. The United States is extremely low on oil whether we would like to admit it or not. As a country, we need to transition to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar rather than continue a legacy of colonization in order to obtain oil leading to further global warming.