Sec. of Defense Invokes False “National Security” Rationale to Eviscerate Endangered Species Act Protections for Wildlife in the Gulf

In a litigation filing yesterday in federal district court, the Trump administration publicly admitted for the first time that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum scheduled a snap meeting of the Endangered Species Committee (the “God Squad”) for March 31 at the request of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. According to the filing, on March 13, 2026, Secretary Hegseth informed Secretary Burgum that, for “reasons of national security,” all federally authorized oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico affecting dozens of threatened and endangered species should be exempted from the Endangered Species Act’s protections.

Already imperiled by decades of poorly regulated fossil fuel extraction and its consequences, from chronic oil spills and leaks to the catastrophic 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout, protected species from whales, sea turtles, and corals to manatees and   shorebirds will be put at further risk of extinction if Secretary Hegseth orders the God Squad to grant this sweeping — and unlawful — exemption.

“Secretary Hegseth’s posturing that our national security somehow requires risking the extinction of the Gulf’s threatened and endangered species by ignoring the Endangered Species Act’s requirements is breathtaking in its utter contempt for America’s national wildlife heritage — and the rule of law,” said Andrew Bowman, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife. “It’s even worse than we thought — the Trump administration is callously willing to sacrifice imperiled species knowing full well that those species and the Endangered Species Act are not an impediment to accessing copious amounts of oil and gas from the Gulf.”

According to the litigation filing, the Trump administration asserts that the ESA’s God Squad provisions allow the Secretary of Defense to invoke “national security reasons” to exempt any federal agency action, any time, anywhere, from the stringent statutory protections Congress designed to ensure that federal actions could proceed without jeopardizing the continued existence of threatened and endangered species.  

“No administration, Republican or Democrat, has ever treated the ESA’s God Squad provisions as a blank check to ignore the carefully crafted exemption decision-making process,” said Bowman. “The God Squad got its nickname because it holds the power of life or death over entire species. This administration should not recklessly play God with our treasured wildlife at Secretary Hegseth’s arbitrary say-so.”

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