Trump officials have exempted oil and gas activities across the entire Gulf of Mexico from endangered species considerations, asserting that production in the region is under threat.
But no court has so far turned off the oil spigot in the Gulf, and offshore oil production on federal waters is at near-records highs. Some analysts say that weakens the administration’s argument.
Crude oil production from the Gulf, which President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of America, rose to nearly 1.9 million barrels per day in 2025, the highest production since at least 1998 and 111,000 more barrels per day than in 2024, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Production from the Gulf could crest 2 million barrels per day this year, which would be a record, the EIA said in January. That amount could “decline slightly” next year “because of natural field declines.”
Natural gas production since the late 1990s has dropped, according to the data, as many oil majors turn their focus to deepwater oil projects that release less natural gas.
“I think that the national security argument is weak in light of the substantial production levels of fossil fuels being extracted from the Gulf,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.
The Trump administration’s war against Iran has steeply driven up the price of oil to over $100 a barrel, with the national average of gas prices for consumers topping $4 per gallon Tuesday. The U.S. is already the biggest oil and gas producer in the world, with Gulf activity amounting to about 15 percent of U.S. oil volume.
Ed Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston, said that offshore oil projects require years of preparation from oil companies and that companies are unlikely to redouble their investments because the administration removes regulations.
“These companies are risking shareholders money and they’re a lot more deliberate,” he said.
During a 15-minute meeting of the Endangered Species Committee on Tuesday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that ongoing litigation “threatened to halt” oil and gas production in the Gulf.
“Considering this litigation, it is essential to our national security to exempt all Gulf oil and gas activities from the Endangered Species Act requirements,” Hegseth said.
Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, who is one of six federal officials that comprise the committee nicknamed the “God Squad,” said at the meeting that Gulf oil disruptions would “force the army to rework its fuel supply chain.”
Hegseth and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who chairs the committee, did not specify what litigation they meant. But a coalition of environmental groups last year sued NOAA Fisheries the same day the agency released a new environmental analysis of oil and gas activity in the Gulf, which it found could threaten the critically endangered rice’s whale.
While the analysis recommended using technology to improve monitoring of the whales and develop a plan to reduce vessel strikes, it did not restrict oil and gas operations.
The environmental groups — which include the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, the Turtle Island Restoration Network and the Natural Resources Defense Council — have argued the analysis failed to consider environmental harms, particularly to the Rice’s whale, and have asked a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland to force the government to conduct further reviews.
NOAA Fisheries “illogically concluded that oil and gas activity will not jeopardize the recovery of species even after citing species recovery plans finding that oil and gas activity will prevent recovery,” the groups said in an October court filing.
But the demands from environmental groups are unlikely to prompt court-ordered stoppages of oil production.
Devorah Ancel, a senior attorney with the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program, said Tuesday that the environmental groups seek protections for endangered species like limits to boat speeds in habitat areas and using technologies to reduce noise from oil and gas seismic testing, which can impair animals’ communication.
“None of these solutions would shut down oil and gas production,” Ancel said. “The Endangered Species Committee’s decision to exempt all oil and gas activity in the Gulf from Endangered Species Act requirements is a solution in search of a problem that simply does not exist. No oil and gas companies requested this exemption. And there’s no evidence that endangered species protections have halted or even slowed down production in the Gulf, contrary to Hegseth’s national security declaration.”
Democrats in Congress seized on Tuesday’s endangered species action to criticize the administration.
“Trump started a reckless war with Iran that sent gas prices through the roof, and now he’s citing the mess he created as grounds for an exemption that has never been invoked in the history of the Endangered Species Act,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.).
Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, backed the administration’s move and said in a statement that production in the Gulf is “subject to one of the most comprehensive and robust environmental regulatory frameworks in the world.”
