{"id":357313,"date":"2026-03-31T19:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/357313\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T19:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:37:09","slug":"god-squad-waives-endangered-species-law-to-allow-us-drilling-in-gulf-of-mexico-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/357313\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018God squad\u2019 waives endangered species law to allow US drilling in Gulf of Mexico | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

A US government panel on Tuesday exempted oil<\/a> and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a move which critics say could doom a rare whale species and harm other marine life<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Endangered Species Committee \u2013 which had not convened in more than three decades \u2013 voted to approve the request for the ESA exemption at the request of the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hegseth has said environmentalists\u2019 lawsuits against the industry threatened to hobble the nation\u2019s energy supply, while environmentalists fear drilling could kill off protected species <\/a>including Rice\u2019s whales, whooping cranes and sea turtles.<\/p>\n

Only about 51 Rice\u2019s whales remain, and they and other wildlife are largely on the brink of extinction because of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill<\/a>, which devastated the gulf when it leaked about 210m gallons.<\/p>\n

Nicknamed the \u201cGod squad\u201d by groups who say it can decide a species\u2019 fate, the committee includes several Trump administration<\/a> officials and is chaired by the interior secretary, Doug Burgum.<\/p>\n

Burgum, Hegseth and five other panel members unanimously voted for the exemption.<\/p>\n

Steve Mashuda, attorney for the non-profit environmental law organization Earthjustice, criticized the move. \u201cThe 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecretary 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donald Trump has made increased fossil fuel production a central focus of his second term. He wants to open new areas of the gulf off the Florida coast to drilling, and has proposed sweeping rollbacks of environmental regulations disliked by industry.<\/p>\n

Hegseth notified Burgum on 13 March that an ESA exemption for oil and gas drilling in the gulf was \u201cnecessary for reasons of national security\u201d, according to a court filing from the administration. The request came amid global oil shocks and soaring energy prices brought on by the Iran war.<\/p>\n

Hegseth told committee members on Tuesday that Iran\u2019s efforts to block shipping through the world\u2019s busiest oil route, the strait of Hormuz, underscored the national security imperative of a robust domestic oil production. He said the energy industry was under threat from pending litigation from environmental groups challenging government approvals for drilling.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisruptions to gulf oil production doesn\u2019t hurt just us, it benefits our adversaries,\u201d Hegseth said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Gulf of Mexico is one of the nation\u2019s top oil-producing regions. It accounts for more than 10% of crude pumped annually in the US, plus a small share of domestic natural gas production.<\/p>\n

But the gulf also has been the scene of environmental disasters such as BP\u2019s Deepwater Horizon blowout in 2010 that killed 11 workers and spilled millions of gallons of oil. A spill in the gulf earlier this month spread 373 miles (600km), contaminating seven protected natural reserves.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration in mid-March approved BP\u2019s new $5bn ultra-deepwater drilling project in the gulf.<\/p>\n

Environmental groups sought unsuccessfully to block Tuesday\u2019s meeting and have pledged to legally challenge any action by the committee. They say an exemption would doom the rare Rice\u2019s whale to extinction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Trump is successful here, he could be the first person in history to knowingly extirpate a species from the face of the earth. That\u2019s how precarious the condition of the Rice\u2019s whale is,\u201d said Patrick Parenteau, emeritus professor of law at the Vermont Law School.<\/p>\n

A 2025 National Marine Fisheries Service analysis determined the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas program was likely to harm several species of whales, sea turtles and gulf sturgeon that face potential harm from ship strikes, oil spills and other adverse events.<\/p>\n

The Endangered Species Committee was established in 1978 as a way to exempt projects from the Endangered Species Act, which makes it illegal to harm or kill species on a protected list, if no alternative would provide the same economic benefits in a region or if it was in the nation\u2019s best interest.<\/p>\n

Before this week, the panel had convened just three times in its 53-year history and issued only two exemptions. The first was in 1979 to allow construction on a dam on the Platte River in Wyoming, home to the whooping crane. It last met in 1992, allowing logging in northern spotted owl habitats in Oregon. That exemption request was later withdrawn.<\/p>\n

Its latest meeting follows a federal judge\u2019s ruling on Monday that struck down attempts during Trump\u2019s first term to weaken rules for endangered species.<\/p>\n

The panel\u2019s members include the secretaries of agriculture, interior and the army; the chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisers; and the administrators of both the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They all voted in favor of Hegseth\u2019s request for an exemption.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed reporting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A US government panel on Tuesday exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-357313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}