WASHINGTON, D.C. – Approximately 100 people gathered this morning outside the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) as Trump administration officials, serving on the so-called “God Squad,” voted unanimously to grant sweeping Endangered Species Act (ESA) exemptions for offshore oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico. Members of Congress, environmental advocates, and community members joined the demonstration to demand that the administration protect the Gulf’s two dozen threatened and endangered species. 

This blanket exemption could push critically endangered species like the Rice’s whale toward extinction while exposing sea turtles and manatees to harm from vessel strikes, seismic blasting, and oil spills. The exemption sets a precedent for dismantling ESA protections well beyond the Gulf.

This vote comes as the Trump administration has moved to increase oil and gas drilling in the Gulf while slashing the staff and budgets needed to respond to oil spills and the regulatory frameworks that make spills less likely. The administration is simultaneously moving forward with a plan to dramatically increase offshore oil and gas leasing in the Gulf over the next five years and proposing revisions to the 2016 Blowout Preventer and Well Control rule, put in place after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, to relax safety requirements and industry standards for well operators. Already this month, an oil spill in federal waters is impacting Louisiana’s seafood industry, underscoring the real and ongoing costs of offshore drilling to Gulf communities and wildlife. Speakers argued the administration’s move to gut environmental protections increases the risks to Gulf wildlife and communities in a desperate attempt to boost oil and gas industry profits.

The demonstration also featured a striking light projection installation on the facade of the DOI building, illuminating images of Gulf endangered species to stress what is at stake if the exemption is granted. Advocates and lawmakers will continue opposing this exemption and call on the administration to halt its efforts.

Voices from the Rally

• Statement from House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) Lands, Waters, and Nature Task Force, led by Co-Chairs Reps. Don Beyer (VA-08), Maxine Dexter (OR-03), and Doris Matsui (CA-07):  “Today, President Trump’s Administration hastily convened the so-called ‘God Squad’ to consider sweeping exemptions from endangered species protections for Big Oil in the Gulf of Mexico. After causing a predictable energy crisis with their illegal war abroad, the Trump Administration is now scrambling for solutions and is doubling down on endangered species carveouts for Big Oil. This is a ridiculous sideshow; it will not lower gas prices for the American people, but it will risk the extinction of species, and the Trump Administration knows it.” 
  “If Trump wanted to address the energy crisis, he could do so by stopping his forced dependency on the oil and gas industry. Handing out all-you-can-pollute passes to oil and gas companies not only represents a death knell for the threatened and endangered Gulf wildlife we know and love, but it also means more oil and gas spills that harm the health of our families and cost millions in lost tourism and fishing revenue for coastal economies.”

• Karyn Bigelow, Next 100 Coalition: “For too long, industries have viewed the Southeast of the US and the Gulf of Mexico as what they can take from it. What they can take from our environment. What they can take from our communities…They don’t see it as a place that is home to over 15,000 species, including over 20 endangered species.”
• Susan Holmes, Endangered Species Coalition: “[This ‘God Squad’ convening] means a small group of political appointees is attempting to override science, silence public input, and decide out of the view of the American people which species live and which species die.”