Trump Admin Calls God Squad to Override Gulf ESA Rules
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- Doug Burgum announced the Endangered Species Committee (“God Squad”) will meet on March 31 to consider overriding Endangered Species Act rules for all federal oil and gas projects in the Gulf of Mexico, with the session to be livestreamed.
- Pete Hegseth requested a national‑security exemption that would blanket‑exempt Gulf fossil‑fuel operations from ESA protections, a move the administration says is unprecedented.
- The Center for Biological Diversity sued to block the meeting, but a federal judge denied the request, allowing the committee to proceed.
- The Trump administration has approved a $5 billion deep‑water drilling project and invoked a “National Energy Emergency,” aligning the God Squad discussion with its “drill, baby, drill” agenda.
- Experts note that boosting Gulf oil output is unlikely to improve national security, and the administration plans to skip the usual evidentiary hearing before the committee’s decision.
- Historically, the God Squad has met only a few times and granted just two exemptions; it has never been used to override ESA protections for an entire sector.
Why it matters: Oil companies stand to gain expanded drilling access while endangered species such as sea turtles and the critically low‑population whale face heightened extinction risk, and the lawsuit shows environmental groups are losing a legal avenue to halt the exemption; the administration’s bypass of evidentiary hearings undermines standard environmental review.
