Turtles and whales are endangering us, defense secretary claims 

By Susan Holmes, Endangered Species Coalition

In an outlandish turn of events, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has declared that the U.S. cannot both save endangered species and protect itself.  

Companies producing fossil fuels in the Gulf of Mexico, he reasoned, should not have to worry about whales, manatees and other creatures: “Exemption from the Endangered Species Act in the Gulf … is a critical matter of national security.” 

In fact, it is the Trump administration’s war of choice in Iran – its utter failure to contemplate cascading impacts from a closed Strait of Hormuz – that has choked the world’s oil supply. It’s hardly surprising Hegseth would pin this foreseeable, catastrophic military blunder – the “greatest global energy security threat in history” – on whales and other marine creatures.

But this country has safeguarded endangered species for over half a century. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is the law that rescued the bald eagle. It has a 99% track record of saving species under its protection and has prevented the extinction of roughly 291 species since 1973, a study showed. The ESA has never slowed offshore oil drilling in the Gulf, according to a legal expert. 

There are over two dozen species in the Gulf of Mexico listed under the ESA, including the critically endangered Rice’s whale, sea turtles, manatees and others. Today, only 51 Rice’s whales remain – a species the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls “one of the rarest whales in the world.” 

Nevertheless, in a massive and mercenary gift to Big Oil, Secretary Hegseth claimed he made a finding that national security requires an Endangered Species Act exemption. Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum then convened an emergency meeting of the Endangered Species Committee, the so-called “God Squad.”  

This six-member panel includes secretaries of the Interior and Army, and administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, together with the acting chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. In a livestreamed 15-minute meeting, the God Squad voted unanimously to exempt oil and gas activities in the Gulf from the ESA.  

This is not how the exemption process has worked in the past, and environmental groups have already sued to challenge it. 

This God Squad’s panelists are industry-adjacent and lack any expertise in wildlife. The committee can only issue an exemption upon an application and a series of public hearings and opportunities for public comment. There was no application for an exemption here, and the public was shut out of the process.  

This is the first time the God Squad has granted a national security exemption under ESA section 7(j). Experts say the bar for asserting that rationale is higher, applying in circumstances such as active military operations in the Gulf, and military exercises or drills.

An ESA exemption requires determining that a proposed action will likely jeopardize the continued existence of a listed species or adversely modify critical habitat. Even then, the committee must find that there are no “reasonable and prudent alternatives” to avoid jeopardizing the species. 

A National Marine Fisheries opinion found that oil and gas activity in the Gulf would likely jeopardize the Rice’s whale but that there were reasonable and prudent alternatives that would protect the whale. The catastrophic 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon spill killed 17% of the Rice’s whale population. The opinion also found oil and gas activity would likely harm whales, sea turtles and Gulf sturgeon. Major threats cited include vessel strikes, oil spills and damage to habitat.  

There are reasonable alternatives to jeopardizing Gulf species. We can protect them with lower ship speeds, quieter technology, trained spotters for whales, oil spill prevention and minimizing seismic blasting. The previous administration advised steps like these, but Trump officials removed these protections.

The Trump administration is allowing industry to harm vulnerable species based on a pretext. Despite its rhetorical energy emergency declaration, there is no emergency. The U.S. has exported more than it has imported for years, with the ESA in effect, and is the largest-ever producer of oil and gas, touting record production. 

This administration is proposing a sweeping new leasing program, cutting back staff and seeking to weaken safety rules that would prevent spills, and simultaneously approving a massive new deepwater drilling project by the same company responsible for a catastrophic spill. 

We all depend upon the ecosystem health and biodiversity these species provide and our regional economies, tourism and jobs rely on healthy beaches, coral reefs and wildlife. Gulf communities know better than most how devastating it is for industrial activity to cause oil spills and threaten ecosystems.  

This peremptory action is a dangerous precedent, and not what the law intended. We can’t allow the administration to bypass ESA safeguards on a flimsy basis at its whim. We need members of Congress and governors to stand up for endangered species and oppose this violation and distortion of the ESA. 

Susan Holmes is executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition. Banner photo: A Rice’s whale swimming at the surface of the ocean (Credit: NOAA SEFSC, ESA/MMPA permit No. 21938).

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