President Biden pledged during the election campaign: "I guarantee you we're going to end fossil fuels."

The same President Biden today has - much to the angst of conservationists - authorized a giant ConocoPhillips oil project in northwest Alaska.

The $8 billion Willow oil field development project was initially proposed in 2018. It is set within the 23 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA), the largest expanse of federal public lands in the country, located on Alaska's North Slope.

ConocoPhillips had initially proposed five pads as part of the project. In the oil industry, a pad refers to a temporary drilling site. Under the Trump administration, the Department of the Interior (DOI) had approved the proposal in October 2020.

But a lawsuit by multiple groups, including Earthjustice, forced the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to recommend scaling down the number of pads from five to three.

Biden's Willow plan would allow three drill sites initially, the sources said, which project developer ConocoPhillips has said would include about 219 total wells.

A fourth drill site proposed for the project  would be denied. The company has said it considers the three-site option workable.

The authorization represents one of the most significant climate decisions yet for Biden