Trump’s ‘God Squad’ chose oil drilling over endangered species in the Gulf. This whale could be in particular danger

By Ella Nilsen, CNN

(CNN) — Several high-ranking Trump officials that make up the so-called “God Squad” voted on Tuesday to quash longstanding Endangered Species Act regulations in the Gulf of Mexico, exempting all oil and gas drilling. It’s an outcome environmentalists fear could spell doom for the critically endangered Rice’s whale, a species that only exists in the Gulf and has just 50 whales left in existence.

The “God Squad” is a panel of six high ranking federal officials on the Endangered Species Committee that has the ability to decide exemptions in the Endangered Species Act. It earned the name because the committee has the power to play God.

“It literally has the power of life or death,” said Pat Parenteau, an emeritus law professor at the Vermont Law School, who helped write the original exemption provision in the law. “It can grant an exemption that would actually result in the extinction of a species.”

Such exemptions to the Endangered Species Act are extremely rare. Tuesday marked just the fourth time in history the committee has voted, and the first it has voted for an exemption on national security grounds.

Last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requested an exemption to the Endangered Species Act requirements across all oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico “for reasons of national security.”

Hegseth at Tuesday’s meeting said that the national security threat stems from environmental group lawsuits that aim to protect endangered species in the Gulf. Groups have sued in recent years, aiming to reduce boat traffic speeds in the area that can strike and kill Rice’s whales and restrict seismic air gun activity that can interfere with whale navigation and communication. Oil spills also pose a threat to the species; a federal study found the 2011 Deepwater Horizon oil spill killed approximately 17% of the Rice’s whale population, even though it occurred outside their habitat.

President Donald Trump has complained extensively about environmental harms to whales posed by offshore wind farms, saying wind turbines are “driving them crazy” and leading to whale deaths up and down the Atlantic coast. Federal scientists have found no link between wind farms and whale deaths.

The Rice’s whale is the species closest to the brink of extinction in the Gulf, but other endangered and threatened species live there too, including sea turtles, manatees and whooping cranes.

The rationale provided by Hegseth and other Trump officials for the exemption was that these lawsuits and environmental regulations to protect endangered species make it less certain for oil and gas companies to plan and execute their drilling operations — therefore hurting US national security.

“These legal battles waste critical government resources and make it impossible for energy companies to plan and invest in new projects,” Hegseth said. “When development in the Gulf is chilled, we are prevented from producing the energy we need as a country.”

Hegseth tied that to US military preparedness, citing the ongoing war with Iran that was started by the Trump administration. That conflict has caused cascading global energy shocks as Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz and effectively cut off a fifth of the world’s oil supply, and Middle Eastern countries have bombed each other’s oil and gas infrastructure. Trump administration officials have argued the US needs to produce more oil to stabilize the global situation, even as energy analysts have pointed out that drilling for more oil here can’t alone solve that problem.

“Disruptions to Gulf oil production doesn’t just hurt us; it benefits our adversaries,” Hegseth said. “We cannot allow our own rules to weaken our standing and strengthen those who wish to harm us. For these reasons, exemption from the Endangered Species Act in the Gulf is not just a good idea, it is a critical matter of national security.”

The American Petroleum Institute did not lobby the administration for the exemption and is deferring to the Trump administration on national security matters, an industry source said.

“Our industry has a long track record of protecting wildlife while developing offshore energy responsibly,” API spokesperson Andrea Woods said in a statement.

Environmental groups said they would sue to challenge the administration’s action, calling it illegal.

“There’s no rational way to claim that national security interests require vaporizing the Endangered Species Act in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation at environmental group Earthjustice. Caputo argued that current oil and gas development isn’t impacted by Endangered Species Act regulations; the law hasn’t been used as a reason to deny oil and gas permits in the Gulf.

The God Squad has a mixed voting record throughout the years, at times voting to nix ESA exemptions and other times voting for them. The last vote was in 1992, when the God Squad decided to proceed with a small number of old growth forest timber sales in Oregon that could have hurt the threatened northern spotted owl. Environmental groups sued, and the exemptions were later withdrawn.

Parenteau, the law professor who helped write the Endangered Species Act exemption process, said the administration’s rationale in this current case is weak from a legal standpoint.

Because of the enormous stakes of granting an ESA exemption, there’s supposed to be an extremely high bar to clear it, such as active military operations in the Gulf being hurt by species protections, Parenteau said.

“This is too good to be true from a litigation standpoint; this is the worst possible basis they could have come up with,” he said. “The whole idea that the lawsuit that’s pending could somehow interfere with Gulf oil and gas production – talk about speculation.”

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