Trump administration officials took an unprecedented step Tuesday, declaring that all oil and gas activity on federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico is exempt from Endangered Species Act protections.
To do so, they convened a federal committee — nicknamed the “God Squad” for its potential to condemn a species to extinction — that has not met for more than 30 years.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the move was needed to ensure a continuous energy supply and to head off litigation from environmental groups. The Interior Department notified the Department of Defense in January that ongoing litigation “threatened to halt oil and gas production in the Gulf,” Hegseth said Tuesday.
“There are serious consequences if our ability to get oil from the Gulf is compromised,” Hegseth said. “We cannot allow our own rules to weaken our standing and strengthen those who wish to harm us.”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum — who also leads the National Energy Dominance Council — convened the Endangered Species Committee on Tuesday to consider a Department of Defense request to exempt oil and gas activities in the Gulf from endangered species protections. The rarely used committee was created in the 1970s as an escape hatch for instances where major energy or other infrastructure projects could be halted because of their potential to wipe out an endangered species.
But the committee has never considered an exemption as broad as the one declared Tuesday, which applies to all oil and gas production in what President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of America. All six members of the committee voted to approve the exemption, saying that under the national security provision of the law, they had no discretion to vote otherwise.
Plans to convene the committee this month already drew litigation from environmental groups, raising concerns about species like the Rice’s whale, which teeters on the brink of extinction. There are an estimated 51 individual whales left, and the species only inhabits the Gulf and is vulnerable to boat strikes and noise from oil and gas operations.
A recent federal environmental analysis concluded that oil and gas operations in the region had the potential to extinguish the species if oil and gas operators do not take additional precautions.
The committee’s formal members include the secretary of the Interior, secretary of Agriculture, secretary of the Army, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, EPA administrator and administrator of NOAA.
Burgum said that Hegseth joined Tuesday’s meeting as a “guest.”
Tuesday’s meeting broke new legal ground for invoking a never-before-used national security exemption under the Endangered Species Act, and the government’s scant details puzzled legal observers about what its decisions may amount to.
Prior deliberations by the committee — including the most recent, in the early 1990s — have been focused on specific projects and included detailed public, formal administrative hearings and government reports.
“Its really hard to know what to compare this to,” said Erika Kranz, a senior staff attorney at Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program. She said that exemptions declared by the committee are permanent. “It’s not just things that are happening now or projects contemplated now. It’s forever.”
Environmental groups including the Sierra Club have challenged last year’s environmental analysis from NOAA Fisheries, arguing it did not adequately consider harms to threatened species.
“It’s pretty remarkable that the administration here acted to basically circumvent current or potential future litigation,” Kranz added. “It wasn’t just about the requirements of the [Endangered Species Act] but was specifically aimed at [nongovernmental organizations] that seek to make the [law] meaningful by holding agencies to its requirements.”
Last week, a federal judge declined to halt the committee from meeting after the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit. Interior announced the Endangered Species Committee meeting through a Federal Register notice on March 16 but did not say it was related to a national security exemption until it filed a response to the lawsuit last week.
The environmental group said Tuesday that it plans to amend its lawsuit to try to stop the exemption from taking effect.
“I’m sure CEOs are gleeful about this vote, hoping to make even more money by sacrificing our country’s wildlife and gutting environmental protections,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the group. “When we overturn this heartless, cowardly act by Hegseth and the goons on the extinction committee, it’s important for people to remember who failed to speak out against their actions.”
Industry groups on Tuesday said they supported the administration’s decision.
“Offshore oil and gas activities in the Gulf of America are already subject to one of the most comprehensive and robust environmental regulatory frameworks in the world,” said Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, in a statement. “Today’s decision reflects that these robust protections are in place, and that serial litigation from activist groups targeting a lawful, well-regulated industry should not be allowed to indefinitely obstruct projects of clear national importance.”
Protesters outside Interior
More than 70 environmental protesters gathered at the steps of the Interior Department on Tuesday sporting cardboard whales, inflatable frog suits, turtle onesies and Monarch butterfly capes to protest Tuesday’s meeting. They gathered with advocacy groups including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Endangered Species Coalition and Defenders of Wildlife.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), co-chair of the Congressional ESA Caucus, said he was “just amazed” the meeting was justified as a national security emergency. “What we really have here is a political emergency,” he told the crowd.
The Trump administration may be motivated to expand Gulf projects to fight hiked up oil prices from the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, Beyer said, but it’s still impossible to know what else may be at play behind closed doors.
There are already permitted Gulf sites that adhere to ESA and haven’t been drilled on, he argued, and further expanding would just take time, likely dragging past the war’s end.
“Does this mean they’ll be using the ‘God Squad’ for a lot of other things?” Beyer asked in an interview. “It’s a very dangerous precedent.”
GOP measures have continually targeted ESA beyond the Tuesday meeting, he added, and granting exceptions could open the floodgates for workarounds that put more species in harm’s way.
The committee also didn’t follow proper procedure and neglected to provide appropriate notice for the meeting, he said.
“The fact that they won’t let anyone come in is also very scary,” he said. “These are not the kinds of decisions that should be made in a closed room without public input.”
Susan Holmes, executive director at the Endangered Species Coalition, expressed concern for the future of imperiled Rice’s whales, sea turtles and manatees, among other endangered Gulf species. The Trump administration is framing extinction as “acceptable collateral damage” for short-term profit, Holmes said.
However, the American Petroleum Institute argued its industry has a “long track record” of considering wildlife protections in offshore projects.
“Over the long term, American energy leadership depends on getting that balance right through reasonable, science-based protections while meeting growing energy demand,” said API spokesperson Andrea Woods.
Carlos Anchondo contributed to this report.
