Biden Asked Point Blank About Canceling The Keystone XL Pipeline And Approving Drilling In Alaska

Mr. President, when you took office, you cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline. This week your government delayed the environmental assessment to reroute Enbridge Line 5, and at the same time you're approving oil drilling in Alaska. So what's your response to people who say it's hypocritical to stymie Canadian energy projects while allowing your own? First of all, I don't think it is, but I'll be very brief. The difficult decision was on what we do with the Willow Project in Alaska. And my strong inclination was to disapprove of it across the board. But the advice I got from counsel was that if that were the case, I may very well lose in court and lose that case in court to the oil company, and then not be able to do what I really want to do beyond that.

And that has conserved significant amounts of Alaska sea and land forever. I was able to see to it that we could literally be able to conserve millions of acres, not a few, millions of acres of sea and land forever. So it cannot be used in the future. I am banking on, we'll find out, that the oil company is going to say that's not going to be challenged, and they're going to go with three sites. And the energy that is going to be produced there, estimated, would account to 1 percent, 1 percent of the total production of oil in the world. And so I thought it was a good, a, the better gamble and a hell of a trade-off to have the Arctic Ocean, the Bering Sea, and so many other places off limits forever now. I think we put more land in conservation than any administration since Teddy Roosevelt.

I'm not positive of that, but I think that's true. So why do you play at the conference? Thank you all. This is what concludes today's press conference. C'est ce qui m'est fait à la conférence de presse aujourd'hui. Thank you.