Extinction Won’t Make Anyone Safer

On March 31, a panel full of Trump appointees voted to give the oil industry permission to harm and kill imperiled species across the Gulf of Mexico.

The panel is known as the Endangered Species Committee – aka the “God Squad” or the “Extinction Committee,” for its ability to decide the fates of imperiled species. This committee can grant exemptions from Endangered Species Act protections in exceedingly rare cases where they are at odds with “public interest.” Its meeting will be the first of its kind in three decades.

The administration claims this exemption is urgently needed for reasons of “national security,” citing concerns about reliable energy supply. However, this move will not speed up oil production or lower today’s high gas prices. No oil projects in the Gulf have been rejected due to the ESA, nor is the oil industry facing any burdensome requirements under the law that are slowing or halting offshore drilling activities.

Greenlighting extinction in the Gulf will not make anyone safer, nor will it result in lower prices at the pump for Americans. What it could do is trigger ecological destruction.

Rice’s whales, the only whales that live year-round in the Gulf, have seen populations dwindle to fewer than 100 individuals in the years since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster decimated the species. Scientists have warned that we could see the first human-caused extinction of a large whale species in recorded history if better protections are not implemented.

Because of the committee’s vote, sea turtles, fish, rays, manatees, corals, and birds are now without protection. Existing regulations already allow the oil industry to harass, harm or kill sea turtles hundreds of thousands of times per year in the course of its operations.

The Endangered Species Act provides the committee with the authority to waive protections only in extreme circumstances when there is no way for an activity to proceed without leading to species extinction. But that’s not the case here: The oil industry could choose to operate in a way that would be less harmful to imperiled wildlife.

This isn’t the Trump administration’s only recent step to weaken safeguards for the Gulf. Earlier this month, the administration recklessly approved “Kaskida,” a new, ultra-deepwater drilling project. The developer is BP, the company responsible for Deepwater Horizon.

Greenlighting oil and gas projects that will span years threatens to lock us into a future of fossil fuel dependence. Right now, we’re seeing how the volatility of oil prices leads to instability for people across the U.S. That’s one of the many reasons we’re fighting for a clean energy transition. Wind and solar prices have been falling steadily for decades, and they don’t depend on an ongoing supply of fuel.

Earthjustice is prepared to go to court to take on any illegal Trump administration activities in the Gulf. We have challenged all nine offshore oil-and-gas auctions that the U.S. government has held since 2018 for violating federal environmental laws – and we’ve won every case. We will continue our fight to protect this vulnerable region against the harms of fossil fuel development.