Gulf oil drilling approval comes as baby turtles head to sea in Florida

By Trimmel Gomes, Florida News Connection

The Endangered Species Committee has voted to exempt oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from certain Endangered Species Act requirements, a March decision that has sparked rallies across the Gulf Coast.

The committee, sometimes called the “God Squad,” made the decision in what was only its third meeting in nearly 50 years. Advocates are calling on the Trump administration to reverse course.

Jewel Tomasula, national policy director for the Endangered Species Coalition, said the decision affects the migration of baby sea turtles, which head out to sea in late spring.

“They’re more at risk than they were just last year because there’s not the same safeguards from the Endangered Species Act in place as the oil industry is doing their drilling,” Tomasula said. “The sea turtles are vulnerable to ship strikes, the blast from the exploration in a way that they weren’t last summer.”

The committee’s decision came at the request of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who argued disruptions to Gulf oil production would benefit U.S. adversaries amid the war with Iran.

Environmental groups have vowed to challenge the exemption in court. During this month’s Endangered Species Day, hundreds rallied across the nation to demand protections be restored.

Christian Wagley, coastal organizer for Healthy Gulf, one of the groups planning legal action, said the Rice’s whale — which lives only in the Gulf, mainly off the Florida coast — is now one step closer to extinction.

“The oil and gas industry, which is really the biggest single threat to the whales in a variety of ways, no longer has to take actions at all to protect them,” Wagley said.

Wagley said the Trump administration’s five-year drilling plan released last fall shows proposed drilling in the eastern Gulf. He said the site is closer to Florida than ever before and touches areas where the Rice’s whale had been a legal barrier.

He said the decision was made hastily, without public hearings or the usual volume of data.

Organizers are planning a summer of action, including postcard events and phone banks, urging Florida residents to call their members of Congress and demand the Trump administration reverse the exemption.

Florida News Connection is a bureau of the Public News Service. Banner photo: A leatherback sea turtle hatchling (jimmyweee, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons).

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