The panel of Trump Administration officials on Tuesday voted unanimously to exempt oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from environmental safeguards in place to protect the endangered wildlife living in its waters.
But the decision to grant the exemption met with condemnation from environmental groups and activists. Protestors gathered outside the Interior Department, chanting and holding up signs bearing slogans including “Don’t Play God.”
The meeting marked the first time the so-called God Squad had convened since 1992, over three decades ago. Here’s what to know about the committee and the potential impact of its Tuesday decision.
The committee was established to create a process for carving out potential exemptions to the law, which agencies may apply for “if the jeopardy that is expected to result from a proposed agency action cannot be avoided and the agency proposing the action nonetheless wishes to go ahead with the action,” according to an Endangered Species Act primer from the Congressional Research Service.
The God Squad had previously reached decisions on just three applications for exemptions over the course of more than four decades.
In 1992, the last time the God Squad convened, it voted in favor of allowing the Bureau of Land Management to carry out timber sales in a forest in Oregon that was a habitat for the threatened northern spotted owl species.
Who is on the committee?
The committee is composed of six permanent members: the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of the Army, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
What did the committee decide on Tuesday, and what’s at stake for wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico?
Burgum said during its meeting on Tuesday that the panel would “be issuing an exemption from the requirements of the [Endangered Species Act] for all oil and gas exploration, development and production activities associated with the … outercontinential shelf oil and gas program.”
Hegseth told the committee on Tuesday that “recent hostile action” by Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global crude oil flows, “highlights yet again why robust domestic oil production is a national security imperative.”
Lowell tells TIME that the Gulf of Mexico is home to 20 threatened, endangered species that include sea turtles, manta rays, sharks, and, notably, the Rice’s whale.
“We really should not be putting profits over species protection, especially when we're talking about extinction,” Lowell says.
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