{"id":565202,"date":"2026-04-05T02:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/565202\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T02:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:03:18","slug":"why-trumps-god-squad-is-not-like-the-god-squads-before-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/565202\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Trump\u2019s \u2018God Squad\u2019 Is Not Like the God Squads Before It"},"content":{"rendered":"

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio\u2019s environmental news magazine<\/a>, an interview by Jenni Doering with Pat Parenteau, an emeritus professor and senior fellow for climate policy at Vermont Law and Graduate School.<\/p>\n

On March 31, a panel known as the \u201cGod Squad,\u201d consisting mostly of Trump cabinet members, voted to exempt the oil and gas industry operating in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act, or ESA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Endangered Species Committee was established by Congress decades ago to evaluate cases where the ESA could pose a threat to the national interest or security. If courts do not intervene, this most recent decision would waive the standard ESA requirements<\/a> for the oil and gas industry to take steps to protect the endangered species living in the area. One of them is the critically endangered Rice\u2019s whale, of which there are only a few dozen left.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pat Parenteau is an emeritus professor and senior fellow for climate policy at Vermont Law and Graduate School and a former EPA regional counsel. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

JENNI DOERING: What exactly is this God Squad, as it\u2019s nicknamed?<\/p>\n

PAT PARENTEAU: This is a cabinet-level committee, and it was created in 1978 after the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, the infamous snail darter case in which the Supreme Court basically said only Congress can decide how to deal with a situation where the Endangered Species Act is causing a matter of national interest to be blocked. That\u2019s where the term \u201cGod Squad\u201d comes from, because the committee does have the power to waive the requirements of the ESA all the way to the point of allowing a species to go extinct\u2014but only after there has been every effort expended to avoid that outcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The exemption process is the last resort where there\u2019s truly an irreconcilable conflict between a matter of national interest, sometimes national security, and preservation of an endangered species. That\u2019s the background.<\/p>\n

DOERING: When you say that this is usually part of a long process, this is the measure of last resort, there\u2019s no other options available, everything else has been exhausted \u2026 I don\u2019t think there\u2019s been much of a process at all when it comes to this most recent use of the God Squad.<\/p>\n

PARENTEAU: There\u2019s been no process at all. None of the steps required in the statute have been met. All that\u2019s happened as a result of the meeting of the Endangered Species Committee\u2014that\u2019s its formal name\u2014is that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared and said \u201cThere\u2019s a national security problem here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"EmeritusEmeritus Professor Pat Parenteau. Credit: Vermont Law and Graduate School<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t terribly specific. He talked about the fact that there are lawsuits challenging oil and gas development in the Gulf, of which there are, and there will be more, but none of those lawsuits are blocking oil and gas development. None of those lawsuits have resulted in a determination that the Endangered Species Act is actually being violated by anything happening in the Gulf right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This idea that you can invoke a national security exemption when there is no threat to national security is not only brand new, it\u2019s ridiculous. And I certainly hope that the courts will agree with me and see it that way, but we\u2019ll have to wait and see how that plays out.<\/p>\n

DOERING: What does this decision to exempt oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act really mean?\u00a0<\/p>\n

PARENTEAU: Well, if it was upheld by the courts, it would be a devastating blow to multiple endangered species that are in the Gulf of Mexico. That includes the critically endangered Rice\u2019s whale, of which there are only about 51 in the wild, as well as the sperm whale, two species of endangered sea turtles and the manatee. These are all species that require protection of the Endangered Species Act to survive and recover. Without those protections, the risk of extinction becomes much greater for these species. So that\u2019s the real world consequence of what Trump is trying to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He could actually be the first president in history to be responsible for the extinction of a marine mammal, the Rice\u2019s whale. The science is saying if just one breeding female of that population were to be killed as a result of a vessel strike, that could doom the Rice\u2019s whale to extinction. This kind of decision is not only unprecedented, it\u2019s wildly irresponsible, because the mechanisms to avoid jeopardy to these species are common-sense things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example, NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has determined that to avoid jeopardy to the Rice\u2019s whale, boats need to keep a lookout for when whales are in the vicinity, and then slow down so you don\u2019t run over them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The law is operating very reasonably, just trying to avoid the worst impacts to these species. And along comes Secretary Hegseth [who] says, \u201cI don\u2019t care about any of that. I want oil and gas development to proceed without regard to protection of any of these species.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe could actually be the first president in history to be responsible for the extinction of a marine mammal, the Rice\u2019s whale.\u201d<\/p>\n

DOERING: Can you explain how the Trump administration is using national security to justify this most recent use of the God Squad?<\/p>\n

PARENTEAU: There is a provision in the law for a national security exemption, but the legislative history of the 1978 amendments that created the exemption process makes it clear that that is a very narrow exception, and it is only to be used where there is a direct threat to military readiness and military operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hegseth\u2019s finding that he presented to the committee is that the supply chain for oil has been interrupted because of the war in Iran and the closure of the Straits of Hormuz. But none of that has anything to do with the Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act is not threatening oil supplies in the United States at all. It\u2019s not even slowing down oil and gas development. There\u2019s no outstanding injunction against oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico\u2014none. So I don\u2019t know what Hegseth is talking about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n

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DOERING: What are the broader legal and environmental implications?<\/p>\n

PARENTEAU: If, God forbid, this exemption were upheld by the courts all the way up to perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court, this kind of an exemption could apply in all kinds of circumstances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example, Trump has also said we have a timber emergency in the United States, and he\u2019s called upon the Forest Service, which manages 190 million acres of forest land in the country, to use every means at its disposal to increase clear cutting on national forests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Hegseth were to come along and declare\u2014like he\u2019s just done here with the Gulf\u2014that the timber supply is a vital national security interest, and domestic production of timber needs to proceed expeditiously, and therefore he\u2019s directing or demanding that the Endangered Species committee also grant an exemption for timber harvest \u2026 You see what I mean? You can apply this kind of national security rationale to any kind of natural resource extraction affecting endangered species anywhere in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m getting at here is there\u2019s always an alternative to driving species to extinction, always.\u201d<\/p>\n

DOERING: Wow. Can you share a little bit of the backstory about the first God Squad convening nearly 50 years ago, and how you helped secure protections for endangered whooping cranes? They\u2019re still endangered, but they\u2019re doing OK. What do you think we can learn from the past when it comes to navigating ESA exemptions?\u00a0<\/p>\n

PARENTEAU: It\u2019s not an either-or choice. It never is. In the case of the whooping crane, what we were able to do there, we brought a lawsuit. We stopped the construction of a massive coal-fired power plant, but then we negotiated an agreement that created a mechanism\u2014it\u2019s now called the Crane Trust on the Platte River in Nebraska\u2014which would work actively to conserve the habitat on the Platte River for the whooping crane and also educate people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Each year, the Crane Trust brings tens of thousands of people to the river to watch the magnificent migration of sandhill cranes, whooping cranes, and millions, literally, of ducks and geese and migratory waterfowl.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m getting at here is there\u2019s always an alternative to driving species to extinction, always. It\u2019s a choice we have to make. Are we willing to live with some limitations on resource extraction that\u2019s threatening the survival of these species? Or would we prefer a world in which these species keep going extinct one after another?\u00a0<\/p>\n

If it weren\u2019t for the Endangered Species Act, thousands of species would have gone extinct by now. The science has documented that. It\u2019s a shame, isn\u2019t it, that we don\u2019t have an administration that sees the world that way?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s find a way to develop the resources we need without driving species to extinction. We have that ability. We can make that choice, if we will.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAbout This Story<\/p>\n

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Thank you,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio\u2019s environmental news magazine, an interview by Jenni Doering with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[2027,47138,192,245032,203562,222726,13353,79,644,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-565202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-endangered-species","9":"tag-endangered-species-act","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-god-squad","12":"tag-living-on-earth","13":"tag-pat-parenteau","14":"tag-qa","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-trump-administration","17":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565202","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=565202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}