Washington’s ‘God Squad’ assembles to debate the fate of a rare endangered whale and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico

A U.S. government panel was due to convene Tuesday for the first time since 1992 to consider exempting oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act due to unspecified national security concerns, a move critics say could doom a rare whale species and harm other marine life.

Nicknamed the “God Squad” by groups who say it can decide a species’ fate, the Endangered Species Committee comprises several Trump administration officials and is chaired by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

Republican President Donald Trump has made increased fossil fuel production a central focus of his second term. He wants to open new areas of the Gulf off the Florida coast to drilling, and has proposed sweeping rollbacks of environmental regulations disliked by industry.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth notified Burgum on March 13 that an Endangered Species Act exemption for oil and gas drilling in the Gulf was “necessary for reasons of national security,” according to a court........

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