Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, citing "reasons of national security," has triggered a meeting this week that could exempt the oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico from requirements of the Endangered Species Act, a move that would lift protections for endangered whales, turtles and other animals threatened with extinction.
The news, revealed in court filings last week, astonished environmental lawyers, who were already shocked after the Department of the Interior announced two weeks ago that a meeting to discuss an exemption would take place on March 31.
A gathering of the six-person committee, nicknamed the "God Squad" for its power to make life-or-death decisions about endangered animals, has only happened before after extensive prior consultation with environmental agencies and months of public notice. Just three meetings have happened over the past 50 years and only once did an exemption take effect.
"Not only is a God Squad convening as rare as hen's teeth in the first instance, but this snap announcement that came a week and a half ago is so vague that the public doesn't even really know what the committee is supposed to consider," said Jane Davenport, a senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation nonprofit. "So it's just completely baffling, but it is on brand for this administration."
In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recommended oil and gas companies adopt basic measures to protect Gulf species, like discarding trash into the Gulf and suspending their use of loud technology when they spot whales, among other requests. It is unclear whether the committee will vote on Tuesday to let agencies stop enforcing those standards.
The Center for Biological Diversity sued U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in federal court March 18, saying the government violated the law by not taking the proper steps before calling a committee meeting and owed the public more information.
In its response to that lawsuit, filed Wednesday night, the Trump administration said Hegseth was the one who asked the Interior Department to call the committee meeting. The Endangered Species Act includes a provision requiring the committee to "grant an exemption for any agency action if the Secretary of Defense finds that such exemption is necessary for reasons of national security."
A federal judge last week declined to delay the meeting, which the Interior Department plans to stream on YouTube.
The Interior Department did not respond to NPR's request to explain the national security implications of oil exploration and production in the Gulf. A representative from the Department of Defense said the agency could not comment because of pending litigation.
National security has never been used to justify a meeting of the committee. But this is not the first time the Trump administration has invoked national security to attempt to bypass laws meant to protect the environment.
Shortly after Trump's inauguration, an executive order laid the groundwork for decreasing legal protections for animals because of a "national energy emergency."
"Our Nation's current inadequate development of domestic energy resources leaves us vulnerable to hostile foreign actors and poses an imminent and growing threat to the United States' prosperity and national security," the order stated. The order also indicated the Interior Department should call the Endangered Species Act Committee together to meet at least four times a year.
Environmental defenders believe that if the committee votes to approve an exemption on Tuesday, it could have consequences for the endangered Rice's whale, which lives its entire life in the Gulf. Scientists estimate that only about 51 Rice's whales are left on Earth, all of them in waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which the Trump administration has termed the Gulf of America.
"On the one hand, you have the oil and gas industry, it's one of the wealthiest industries on the planet, and the other, you have one of our most endangered whales," said Michael Jasny, a senior policy analyst for Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's caused enormous outrage and astonishment."
The energy industry has been accused of causing the whales harm before. After the Deepwater Horizon spill leaked more than 200 million gallons of BP's oil into the Gulf in 2010, covering about half of the Rice's whale habitat, the Rice's whale population declined by as much as 22 percent. The number of existing whales is so low that scientists have warned the loss of a single additional whale could endanger future reproduction and tip the species toward extinction.
Rice's whales are not the only animals at risk in the Gulf. Sperm whales, the West Indian manatee and several Gulf sea turtles are also listed as threatened or endangered.
"We're very concerned that this administration is interested in pursuing a 'big oil, drill everywhere, all the time' agenda as opposed to a 'protect public resources and imperiled wildlife agenda,' " said Davenport.
How energy companies work in the Gulf — and Washington
For the Endangered Species Act Committee to agree to grant an exemption, the law typically requires evidence that it's impossible for industry to operate in an area without jeopardizing an endangered species.
But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration determined in the document published last May that there were measures the energy industry could take to avoid harming Rice's whales and other species in the Gulf, including slowing down boats near the Rice's whale habitat and maintaining a safe distance from any whales that were seen.
"It said, 'take these electively reasonable measures to avoid running over and killing Rice's whales with boats. And yes, oil and gas can proceed," said Davenport. "You can have your cake and eat it, too."
Some people working in the Gulf argue that oil companies could do even more to protect animals.
Energy companies look for oil and gas in the ocean by blasting sound waves into the water from ships to record how they reflect off the rock below. The air guns used to emit those sound waves are responsible for near-constant underwater noise in the Gulf.
Some companies have developed tools that limit the energy used when conducting the surveys. Reports show those air guns can expose animals to lower levels of noise, over areas up to nine times smaller than the regions affected by traditional air guns.
"They are much easier on the environment," said Shuki Ronen, a geophysicist at Sercel, one of the companies developing the new technology. "And I think the industry can adopt them more than they do now."
An NPR review of public documents found that of the 25 seismic survey projects approved by 2023 to use air guns for more than 1,000 days over the next few years, all but two energy companies said they would use conventional airgun systems.
Lawyers for conservation groups say the Endangered Species Act did not intend for an exemption to be granted when there are steps an industry can take to avoid harm to animals.
"There's plenty that can be done," said Jasny. "This is not what the Endangered Species Act is designed to do. It's not how we protect endangered species in our country."
Still, many oil and gas companies want less restriction in the Gulf, and are willing to pay for it.
Energy companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobile and Occidental Petroleum, which acquired Anadarko Petroleum Corporation in 2019, spent more than $8 million since October lobbying the government about the Endangered Species Act, permitting reform and, specifically, Rice's whales, lobbying reports reviewed by NPR show.
Part of a pattern of 'making it harder to list species'
Other federal agencies have changed how they operate to protect threatened and endangered animals since the start of Trump's second term in 2025.
In April 2025, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cited Trump's "energy emergency" order in a notice that said the agency planned to move forward with an underwater cable replacement project in the Puget Sound near Seattle, without first consulting wildlife agencies. The project is planned in waters used by a killer whale population that has been protected by the Endangered Species Act since 1972.
Under Biden, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration added an average of around 14 animals each year to the federal list of endangered and threatened animals. During Trump's first administration, the agencies listed an average of about five animals annually. During Obama's second term, the agencies averaged about 54 new additions.
Since the start of Trump's second term, no new animals have been listed. It is the first time in almost 20 years that no animals were added to the list, NPR found.
Brian Segee, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said calling the Endangered Species Act Committee is just the latest of a host of federal efforts to remove protections for endangered and threatened animals.
"In a nutshell, they're making it harder to list species or protect their habitats," said Segee.
NPR would like to hear from people with information about how energy companies are working in the Gulf. You can send an email to the reporter of this article at ceisner@npr.org, or contact her on the end-to-end encrypted platform Signal here. Her username is: ceis.78.
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