{"id":557037,"date":"2026-03-31T22:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T22:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/557037\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T22:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T22:53:13","slug":"trump-officials-use-god-squad-to-yank-endangered-species-protections-for-rices-whales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/557037\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump officials use \u2018God Squad\u2019 to yank endangered species protections for Rice\u2019s whales"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico lives one of the world\u2019s rarest and most elusive marine mammals: Rice\u2019s whale. There are just 51 of them left, according to the most recent scientific estimates<\/a>, meaning they are quite literally on the knife\u2019s edge of extinction.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, in 2019, the federal government \u2014 then under President Donald Trump\u2019s first term \u2014 gave these sleek marine mammals a lifeline. It listed them as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, the most powerful wildlife protection law in the country and among the strongest in the world<\/p>\n

The law makes killing or harming the animals illegal, with some exceptions. It also requires that federal agencies, including those that approve oil and gas leases, ensure that their actions won\u2019t threaten the existence of species with ESA protection. This was key for Rice\u2019s whale, as the main threat they face is from the Gulf\u2019s oil and gas industry: vessel strikes, noise from exploration, and spills.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a><\/p>\n

A Rice\u2019s whale swims just under the surface in waters of the Gulf of Mexico. NOAA Fisheries\/Ocean Alliance (Permit #21938)<\/p>\n

Protecting the whale under federal law gave it a chance for survival, environmental groups said<\/a> when it was listed. But the new Trump administration has shown a formidable ability to water down, or sidestep entirely<\/a>, protections for species under the law \u2014 especially if those animals live in areas with an active oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n

That brings us to this week: On Tuesday, several top Trump officials convened a rarely assembled panel known as the God Squad \u2014 a committee, led by the Interior Secretary, that has the power to override the Endangered Species Act and approve activities that could potentially drive species to extinction. Congress created the committee in 1978, not long after the ESA was enacted, for rare cases when adhering to endangered species protections threaten the US economy or national security. It\u2019s essentially a loophole in the Act, and it\u2019s only been invoked a handful of times before.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Protesters project a sign on the Department of Interior in Washington, DC, on March 30. Tasos Katopodis\/Getty Images for Save Our Parks<\/p>\n

In Tuesday\u2019s meeting, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth \u2014 the highest ranking official present \u2014 said ESA protections for animals in the Gulf, such as Rice\u2019s whales, threaten to limit oil production. The Gulf produces about 15 percent of the country\u2019s crude oil, he said, which helps power the military and defend the US. \u201cExemption from the Endangered Species Act in the Gulf is not just a good idea, it is a critical matter of national security,\u201d Hegseth told the panel.<\/p>\n

The meeting lasted only around 15 minutes and the panel voted unanimously to exempt oil and gas activity in the Gulf from ESA protections. It was the first time the \u201cGod Squad\u201d \u2014 formerly known as the Endangered Species Committee \u2014 has ever granted an exemption on the grounds of national security.<\/p>\n

\"Interior<\/a><\/p>\n

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Graeme Sloan\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

What Hegseth didn\u2019t say is that ESA regulations for Rice\u2019s whales and other species don\u2019t forbid oil and gas drilling, they just require that companies take measures to avoid harming them, such as by minimizing shipping traffic in the whales\u2019 core habitat. (There was also no discussion about the administration\u2019s role in disrupting the flow of oil due to the war in Iran.)<\/p>\n

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, meanwhile, pointed out that efforts to stop energy production in the Gulf \u2014 which, again, are not what the law does \u2014 displace fossil fuel production to countries that don\u2019t produce energy as cleanly and safely as the US. Yet Burgum\u2019s Interior Department has been sidelining clean energy projects in favor of dirtier fuels, such as oil and coal. The memory of BP\u2019s Deepwater Horizon oil spill is also still fresh. It spewed 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf, creating a real national emergency. Not to mention: Rice\u2019s whales declined by an estimated 22 percent<\/a> after the disaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened today is a warrant for the extinction of endangered species in the Gulf, signed by political appointees on behalf of some of the wealthiest companies on Earth,\u201d Andrew Wetzler, senior vice president for nature at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group, said in a statement. \u201cThe \u2018God Squad\u2019 was designed for impossible, intractable conflicts where there was no other way forward. That is not what this is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A Rice\u2019s whale takes a breath at the surface. NOAA Fisheries (NMFS ESA\/MMPA Permit No. 14450)<\/p>\n

Measuring about the length of a school bus, Rice\u2019s whales \u2014 named after the late whale scientist, Dale W. Rice \u2014 are found only in the Gulf of Mexico and nowhere else. For an animal so large and charismatic, scientists don\u2019t know much about them. In fact, researchers only recently identified Rice\u2019s whales as a new species.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the God Squad exemption may get stuck in the courts \u2014 the Center for Biological Diversity, a litigious advocacy group, said in a statement, \u201cwe\u2019ll overturn it.\u201d In the meantime, these whales will continue to struggle to hold on to their very existence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico lives one of the world\u2019s rarest and most elusive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1687,9168,79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-557037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-climate","9":"tag-down-to-earth","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}