In a dispute that pits national security arguments against endangered-species safeguards, the Trump administration is asking the Endangered Species Committee to exempt Gulf of Mexico oil and gas exploration and development activities from requirements of the Endangered Species Act, according to a U.S. Department of Justice filing. The administration’s position is that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth found it necessary, for “reasons of national security,” to exempt those Gulf activities overseen by federal agencies from the act’s requirements, as the Justice Department described in the court document.
At the center of the fight is the committee meeting scheduled for Tuesday, which environmental groups say should not proceed. The committee is chaired by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and is made up of six high-ranking federal officials plus a representative for states involved. Environmental groups said the government has not met legal requirements for how and when such meetings must be held, and they sought judicial relief before the committee convenes.
The Center for Biological Diversity sued last week to block the committee meeting, according to the lawsuit posture described in the reporting. The center argued that requirements for holding the meeting had not been met, including a deadline tied to completing a biological opinion that determines that a species is being jeopardized. The center also argued that the hearing must be public and that an administrative law judge must preside.
A motion filed by the Center for Biological Diversity is set to be heard Friday by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, a judge appointed during the Obama administration who has previously ruled against the Trump administration in related matters, according to the report. The groups are effectively trying to stop the meeting before the committee can consider whether to grant an exemption.
The Justice Department’s filing contends that the Endangered Species Act requirements do not apply because national security provisions are being invoked, and it also says the center cannot sue before the committee takes any future actions. The filing said records relevant to the committee’s meeting would be made public on Tuesday, and that livestreaming would satisfy the public-hearing requirement cited by the plaintiffs, according to the reporting. The report said the Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Experts said the committee mechanism is intended to be used in rare, extreme circumstances. Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School who helped write criteria for the committee, said in the reporting that the act is not stopping oil and gas development and that exemptions are not necessary for that purpose. Parenteau also said the administration’s national-security rationale appears aimed at avoiding Endangered Species Act interference with fossil-fuel development, rather than describing an emergency level threat tied to specific species.
Other experts questioned how much an exemption would realistically do to respond to oil-market disruptions associated with the U.S.-Iran war. Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said in the reporting that drilling new offshore oil and gas wells takes years and that it was not clear whether exemptions would enable new wells that were not already planned. Gerrard also said it would be hard to imagine the approach would address the Iranian crisis unless the conflict dragged on for a long time.
Environmental groups said they were alarmed by what they described as the risk of setting a broader precedent for future fossil-fuel projects. Earthjustice managing attorney for oceans Steve Mashuda said in the reporting that there was “no imaginable justification to sacrifice” endangered species and described such a decision as reckless, adding that greenlighting extinctions would further benefit the oil industry at public expense. The reporting said experts and advocates pointed to the Gulf’s protected species, including the Rice’s whale, of which only about 50 remain in the Gulf.