Alaska’s U.S. senators and several Alaska Native leaders on Feb. 14 urged the federal government to approve a major oil project on the petroleum-rich North Slope, casting the project as economically critical for Indigenous communities in the region and important for the nation’s energy security.

The Biden administration “damn well better not kill the project, period,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski told reporters on a video conference.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management earlier this month released an environmental review for ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project that listed as the preferred...