16. Department of the Interior · Notable
Approve the Willow project and expand it to five drilling pads
Printed page 530 16. Department of the Interior
“Approve the 2020 Willow EIS, the largest pending oil and gas projection in the United States in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and expand approval from three to five drilling pads.”
What has happened
- Not started
The rule the 2026-08-27 note anticipated has published, and it is still not this ask. BLM proposed **Production Site Development in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska** on 2026-09-08, the rulemaking the May 2026 notice of intent announced: pre-defined eligibility criteria for "qualifying" oil and gas production sites and their rights-of-way, a 60-day BLM decision window, and conditions drawn item by item from the Willow Master Development Plan's 2023 record of decision — the preamble cites Willow design features by number, 49 mentions in all, as the template for what a streamlined approval would require. That is Willow used as precedent, not Willow approved: the rule does not touch the 2020 Willow environmental impact statement and does not expand the project from three drilling pads to five. The preamble's account of the reserve confirms the wider picture the earlier note described — the 2025 IAP implements section 50105 of Public Law 119-21, requiring at least five lease sales by 2035 on the 2020 IAP's terms. Neither half of this ask has happened, and the instrument that would speed a project like Willow is now proposed rather than final.
- Not started
No approval of the 2020 Willow environmental impact statement and no expansion from three to five drilling pads was found. Greps of every Federal Register rule, proposed rule and notice in the window return no document mentioning Willow; Interior's 2025 and 2026 press releases do not mention the project; and Interior's Secretary's Orders series through SO 3453 does not. BLM's National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska work in the window went to the wider plan instead — the 2025 record of decision reopening about 82 percent of the reserve (#1479), the rescission of the 2024 rule, the first lease sale since 2019, and a May 2026 notice of intent to write a rule pre-approving "qualifying production sites" and their rights-of-way, which would speed a project like Willow without being one.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Willow was approved in March 2023, under the previous administration and on the 2022 supplemental environmental impact statement, with three drilling pads rather than the five ConocoPhillips sought. Neither half of this ask — approval of the 2020 environmental impact statement, expansion to five pads — has happened inside the window.
Checked against the full 2026 Unified Agenda on reginfo.gov (Interior, agencyCd 1000, active stages, read 2026-09-01; agenda published in the Federal Register 2026-08-14). No entry names Willow or the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska, and the May 2026 notice of intent on “qualifying production sites” has not become a RIN. BLM’s one live oil and gas leasing entry is RIN 1004-AF05, “Oil and Gas Leasing Rule” (Proposed Rule Stage, Previously Published; the agenda projects the NPRM for 07/2026 but it in fact published on 2026-06-24 as FR document 2026-12734), which rescinds and replaces the Fluid Mineral Leases rule — leasing and bonding, not a project approval. Recorded so the next pass does not re-search it.
- Action
- expand
- Object
- Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska
- ID
- 1487