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On March 31, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum will convene a rare meeting of the Endangered Species Committee. Sometimes referred to as the “God Squad,” the panel could effectively roll back existing environmental protections by exempting companies from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), paving the way for oil and gas projects throughout the Gulf of Mexico.

Environmental organizations warn that such a move could threaten the region’s wildlife, including a local species of baleen whale that is nearly extinct already.

The Trump administration is technically required to hold a public hearing on the issue, but it’s claiming that the event is “open to the public” because the meeting will be streamed on YouTube.

The “God Squad” was established by Congress in 1978 in response to a Tennessee dam project that was being impacted by a small freshwater fish. Its permanent members are the leaders of six federal agencies, which means that the group will consist of Trump officials committed to his regulation agenda.

This includes Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, Secretary of the Army Daniel P. Driscoll, Acting Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Pierre Yared, and Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin. The only scientist on the panel will be National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) head Neil Jacobs, who made headlines in 2020 when he was found to have violated NOAA’s code of ethics by supporting Trump’s erroneous claim that Hurricane Dorian would make landfall in Alabama.

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Meetings of the “God Squad” are rarely invoked, and the last time members granted an exemption was 1992, when President George H.W. Bush moved forward with extended timber sales that threatened the endangered Northern Spotted Owl. That decision was eventually overturned after it was legally challenged.

This time around, the move would primarily threaten Rice’s whales, which were found to be a distinct species in 2021, and are the only whales that live in the Gulf year-round. The whales were severely impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010, as scientists estimate that roughly 48 percent of the whales’ habitat was contaminated with oil. Based on 2018 data, it’s estimated that there are 50 Rice’s whales left.

In 2022, 100 scientists sent then-President Joe Biden a letter warning that the whales could end up representing the first human-caused extinction of a great whale species in recorded history if protections weren’t heightened.

“Gulf of Mexico whales can recover,” it read.........

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