President Donald Trump's administration is removing all protections for endangered species in the Gulf.
The Endangered Species Committee met for the first time in 34 years to make the decision. Environmentalists call the group the "God Squad" because it can decide the fate of some species.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requested the meeting. He wants all offshore oil-and-gas drilling in the Gulf to be exempt in the name of “national security.”
"Disruptions to Gulf oil production doesn’t hurt just us, it benefits our adversaries," Hegseth told the committee. "We cannot allow our own rules to weaken our standing and strengthen those who wish to harm us. When development in the Gulf is chilled, we are prevented from producing the energy we need as a country and as a department."
Martha Collins, executive director of the environmental group Healthy Gulf, scoffs at that assertion. She says a lawsuit will soon be filed.
"I think this signals the administration is getting ready to open up the eastern Gulf to drilling because that's the Rice's whales' primary habitat."Martha Collins of Healthy Gulf
"Wouldn't it make more sense that Iran would be a threat to national security, Venezuela might be a threat to national security, but no, they're saying the Rice's whale is a threat to national security," Collins said.
She added that she thinks this is a signal the administration is getting ready to open up the eastern Gulf to drilling, as that's the Rice's whales' primary habitat.
"And so they're trying to circumvent the legal process here because they know they're going to lose in court, and they know that every single member of the Florida congressional delegation signed a letter demanding that the Trump administration not open up the eastern Gulf to drilling. So I think it's another smoke and mirror show," she said.
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Environmentalists are particularly concerned for the future of the Rice's whale. There are estimated to be from 50 to 100 Rice's whales left, mostly in the northeastern Gulf. They were only recognized as a distinct species in 2021.
Last year, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a biological opinion concluding that oil industry ship strikes were jeopardizing the existence of the extremely endangered Rice’s whale, which lives only in the Gulf of Mexico, and harming endangered sperm whales and sea turtles. This followed an earlier 2020 opinion also reaching the same conclusion.
The Rice’s whale population collapsed after the Deepwater Horizon spill and is today only at about 51 animals.
The agency therefore established “reasonable and prudent alternatives” requiring the industry to drive boats at slower speeds within the whale’s core habitat in the eastern Gulf and to monitor the location of Rice’s whales to avoid accidentally striking and killing them.
The environmental group Earthjustice said there are no oil and gas projects being held up by the Endangered Species Act in the Gulf.
"In fact, the Trump administration is already letting oil and gas corporations 'incidentally kill' imperiled wildlife through a 2025 biological opinion," it said in a news release. "It allows oil and gas corporations to kill or harm a half million sea turtles every year for the next 45 years – an underestimate that, incredibly, doesn’t even include harm from oil spills. "
Steve Mashuda, Managing Attorney for Earthjustice’s Oceans Program, issued this statement:
"The Trump administration is exploiting its self-made gas crisis to get rid of protections for endangered whales and other imperiled species in the Gulf of Mexico. Secretary Hegseth and his Extinction Committee claim this will eventually cut costs for cash-strapped Americans, but Gulf communities know what unrestrained drilling will really bring: devastating oil spills and the destruction of ecosystems and coastal economies.
"Earthjustice and our partners will go to court to stop this illegal order."
