'God Squad' Puts Endangered Whales at Risk

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1:26IBM. J.P. Morgan Chase Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Copyright 2026. J.P. Morgan Chase and Company. This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio. The committee in doing this will be issuing an exemption from the requirements of the ESA for all oil and gas exploration development and production activities associated with the Boehm and Bessey Outer Continental Shelf. They're called the God Squad because they can play God in deciding whether a species lives or dies. The Endangered Species Committee last met 34 years ago, but it was convened last week by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Why?

2:15To consider waiving the protections for critically endangered whales and other species in the Gulf of Mexico in favor of oil and gas development. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseff said that pending litigation by environmentalists is a threat to oil and gas operations in the Gulf, risking national security. These legal battles waste critical government resources and make it impossible for energy companies to plan and invest in new projects. When development in the Gulf is chilled, we are prevented from producing the energy we need as a country and as a department. After 15 minutes, without any testimony from experts or discussion, by voice vote the committee unanimously exempted all oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act.

3:08At risk is the extinction of endangered species such as Rice's whale. There are only 50 left on Earth and they're all in the Gulf. Also, Kemp's Ridley sea turtle, the world's smallest and most endangered species of sea turtle, and endangered manta rays, to name a few. Joining me is environmental law expert Pat Parenteau, a professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School who's had experience with the God Squad. Pat, tell us about the God Squad. So this is a cabinet-level committee, federal officers. It was created in 1978 in response to the Supreme Court's decision in the infamous Teleco Dam case, TVA versus Hill, where the Supreme Court said if there's a violation of the Endangered Species Act that could result in the extinction of a species, the courts are basically powerless to do anything about that.

4:09Only Congress could exempt an action that might jeopardize a species. And so Congress responded to that decision by creating this cabinet-level committee, literally with the power of life or death over a species, which has now come to be known as the God Squad. The God Squad has only met three times in its history until last week. What was different about this meeting? Well, this time around, for the first time, Burgum convened the committee with just the federal officers. You know, and in the other God Squad proceedings, there were always states involved. But this time, it's just the feds. And this time, the committee was convened at the request of Secretary Hegseth, who is claiming that there is a national security issue here with regard to oil and gas development in the Gulf of what we still call Mexico, Gulf of Mexico.

5:12And so this is the first time that that kind of national security rationale has been invoked. And the law, the 1978 amendments does say if the secretary determines there is a national security threat as a result of some action that has been stopped by the Endangered Species Act, then the committee must issue an exemption. So the real question is, is there really a national security emergency in this situation? And the answer is no, there is not. You're anticipating my next question. Is there any evidence at all that the Endangered Species Act has resulted in any restrictions on the amount of oil produced in the Gulf?

6:03None. In fact, oil and gas development in the Gulf is at an all-time high. There is no action that has been stopped by the Endangered Species Act. There are lawsuits challenging the Trump administration's analysis of threats to various species, most prominently the rice's whale, which is one of the most endangered whales and marine mammals in the world. There are only 50 or so of these whales left, and they're all in the Gulf. Their primary habitat is close to Florida, actually. And clearly, oil and gas development poses a serious threat to these whales. But there are many other. There's over a dozen listed endangered species in the Gulf.

6:56There are sea turtles. There are sperm whales. There are manatees. There are all kinds of iconic marine mammals on the list of endangered species. But the point is, none of them have stopped any of the oil and gas, either exploration or development. So this is a made-up fictional crisis. Does that sound familiar for this administration? And the defense secretary said the pending litigation by environmentalists threatens to shut down all oil and gas operations. But if it's pending, then they don't know what the result will be. And it could take many years, as we know, for litigation. Right. And the point is that Congress never intended or even considered the notion that lawsuits would be a trigger for exemptions.

7:48You have to understand if the entire oil and gas program, and that's what Hegseth is demanding an exemption for the whole the whole operation in the Gulf. If a lawsuit, and there's only one lawsuit right now, was enough to justify an exemption, that means there is no Endangered Species Act protection for any of these species. That's the dramatic impact of an exemption. And that's why Congress said it is to be emphatically a last resort mechanism where there is an irresolvable conflict between a vital federal action and the Endangered Species Act. We don't have anything like that. But the idea that an exemption could be granted could wipe out all kinds of protections for these species in the Gulf.

8:38Pat, why do you think they decided to do this at this point? Well, Trump issued an executive order a year ago in which he said that the Endangered Species Act poses a threat to energy development in the U.S., by which he means fossil fuel development, oil and gas in particular. and he ordered the Secretary of Interior to convene the God Squad on a quarterly basis, sort of like a bridge tournament, you know, get them together and see if they can figure out how to exempt federal actions from the Endangered Species Act. And then secondly, he said, and there is this emergency provision in the Endangered Species Act rules, which allows for a kind of fast-track sort of consultation, review, and analysis of federal actions, again, fossil fuel development actions.

9:31So he also said, use that emergency provision as often as you can. So we know that Trump has ordered his cabinet to get environmental laws out of the way for fossil fuel development. So this action is part of that overall attack. And it isn't the only attack on the Endangered Species Act. The Trump administration is also proposing to roll back all of the Biden rules that were strengthening protections for endangered species. Plus, the Trump administration is firing and running off the staff of the Fish and Wildlife Service. It's been reduced by 20 % the staff and cutting its budget. So there's a full-scale assault on all the aspects of the Endangered Species Act.

10:18And this exemption is just one aspect of that. There are two lawsuits over this decision, one by the Center for Biological Diversity and the other by the National Resources Defense Council. What are the grounds they're alleging? The Endangered Species Act sets up a really complex series of steps for exemptions. I know this because I'm the only lawyer that's been involved in all four of the God Squad proceedings, all four of them. And I was the spotted owls lawyer in the last God Squad proceeding. And I was the whooping cranes lawyer in the first God Squad proceeding. So I've been with this process forever.

10:57You have good clients. Yeah, good clients. My favorite clients. They never complain. In any event, so, you know, there's multi-steps involved in this process, including, did you engage in good faith consultation? Did you make a diligent effort to identify alternatives to avoid jeopardy and avoid a conflict that would require an exemption? Did you write an adequate environmental impact statement? Did you write an adequate biological assessment? You see what I mean? So there's all kinds of these safeguards. And I know about these safeguards because I had a hand in lobbying Congress to include them.

11:35None of that's been done. None of those steps has been followed. Hegseth showed up at this meeting, which lasted 15 minutes among the cabinet officers, all of whom were sycophants, you know, nodding in agreement with what Hegseth is saying and praising Hegseth for his incredible loyalty to the country and all that. But nothing about whether there really was an irresolvable conflict, nothing about the fact that there had been steps taken to protect the rice's whale. And those steps are very modest. They're common sense steps. They basically come down to keep a sharp lookout for whales when the vessels are moving through the Gulf.

12:15And if there are whales in the vicinity, slow down, limit your speed, don't run them over. I mean, these are the kinds of very modest protections. In fact, I don't think they're totally adequate protections. But the point is, those are the only protections that were imposed on oil and gas development. Now, the oil industry doesn't want to slow down. They want to speed up. They want to get as much oil out as fast as they can, particularly now, right? So that's kind of the context of what we're talking about. Very modest steps to protect these highly endangered, critically endangered species. And yet this administration is saying, the hell with all of that.

12:58It's full speed ahead. Damn the whales. Drill the oil. There is a question of whether this kind of decision by the God Squad is even subject to judicial review. Yes, we'll find that out because this is the first time that a national security rationale has been used. There's no precedent for how that gets reviewed, how Hegseth's determination gets reviewed. But the legislative history, and again, I had a hand in this, of the 1978 amendments makes it really clear that that decision is subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act in the district courts. And both the NRDC and the Center for Biological Diversity have filed lawsuits in district court in D.C.

13:47challenging the exemption and challenging HEGSES finding. So we will find out relatively soon, I think, whether the courts are going to take review. We do know this, that when a national security reason is invoked, the courts are very careful about how to review that. In fact, they're very deferential generally on questions like that. But where there is zero evidence of a national security threat, that's a very different situation. We know that the Trump administration invoked national security when they issued stop work orders on offshore wind farms, all five of them off the East Coast this past year.

14:33And the courts uniformly in all five cases rejected Hegseth's invocation of national security. Judge Lamberth in the D.C. case actually looked at the classified documents that Hegseth was citing for stopping work on these projects. And Judge Lamberth said, I don't see any national security threat in here at all. So my expectation is we'll see something like that. To the extent that Hegseth has some kind of classified information he's relying on, which he hasn't made public, The courts are going to demand to take a look at that and determine for themselves whether there really is a basis for it.

15:15If there were some evidence that the Endangered Species Act was somehow affecting military readiness, military operations, that would be a different situation altogether. But we don't have any evidence of that. What exactly do they want to start up in the Gulf? Do they want to start up drilling? Is there something like on the agenda that they want to do or is this just a general request? Well, there definitely is drilling ongoing and there is exploration for drilling projects. And now they're moving way off the coast into deep ocean waters of the Gulf and talking about drilling wells deeper than we've ever drilled them before.

16:01And that raises the prospect of a really catastrophic spill, like what we had in Deepwater Horizon. That spill killed 20 % of the rice's whale. That one spill damn near wiped out the population. So the idea that drilling can proceed without serious risk to these species is just wrong. That's kind of where we are at this point. There's a lot of activity, a lot of ship traffic. Ship traffic is the leading cause of injury and death to these whales. And we know that also with the right whale off the East Coast in the Gulf of Maine. We know that vessel strikes is the leading cause of mortality for those whales.

16:47And it's the same for the rice's whale, the sperm whale, and the others in the Gulf. So that's where we are. I mean, it isn't as if the Endangered Species Act is stopping oil and gas development, But it is supposed to require at least those kinds of precautions that can reduce the risk, save some of these whales, give them a chance to recover. So, Pat, during Trump's first term, the Interior Department made changes to the way the agencies apply the Endangered Species Act. But a federal judge just struck down some of those changes, saying the agency had overstepped its authority. It took that long to get the case through?

17:29Yes, it did. He struck down four specific aspects of what actually some of what the court struck down were Biden rules, by the way. But the point is that in striking down the current rules, the judge also noted that the Trump administration is engaged in a rulemaking to basically do the same thing again. So we haven't seen the end of the judicial review of what the Trump administration is doing to the Endangered Species Act and its rules. The current schedule is for the Trump rules to be finalized in September. And then the litigation begins all over again. Pat, how is this God Squad different from prior God Squads?

18:13You've seen them all. It's different in the ways that we talked about, which is that this is the first time national security has been invoked. And this is the first time none of the steps for exemption have been followed. That's what distinguishes this particular situation. This is just Hexeth demanding an exemption. That's basically what we have here. And the committee going along with his demand and saying, well, we don't really have any choice. That's really not true either. The committee could have imposed certain conditions like the ones that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had imposed to protect the rice's whale.

18:51But they weren't clear about whether those protections were even going to be maintained. So that's what makes this completely different from anything we've seen before. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card members can earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases wherever they shop. This means you could be earning daily cash on just about anything, like a slice of pizza from your local pizza place or a latte from the corner coffee shop. Apply for Apple Card and the Wallet app to see your credit limit offer in minutes. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch.

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21:52It appears that the federal appeals panel is likely to rule that ICE is operating the detention facility lawfully despite no environmental review process. And the issue is whether it's a state site or a federal site? Oh, yeah. This one is really kind of a gnarly legal question. The question boils down to, is there sufficient federal involvement, meaning funding, and control over this detention facility in the Everglades? That turns on whether there's a major federal action with significant environmental impact. Well, we know that the construction and operation of this facility has major environmental and ecological consequences.

22:45It's right next to the Big Cypress National Preserve. It's full of alligators and pythons and panthers. Oh, my. So, yes, there's significant environmental impact from this. But is there federal sufficient? Federal involvement is the way I would put it. And it's true that the panel, the three-judge panel that heard arguments this week, is expressing real skepticism about whether there's sufficient federal involvement and, quote, control. The state did build this facility. DeSantis built it. But it's holding federal prisoners, basically. you know, detainees for deportation. So it's clearly serving a federal purpose, even though it might day to day be under the operational control of the state.

23:37Okay. The second thing is there's a lot of money involved. The construction alone is over 600 million. FEMA approved a reimbursement to the state in September of this year, but they haven't yet cut any checks because the Department of Justice has said, don't pay the state any money while this litigation is pending because that will create federal involvement, right? So the money hasn't been paid. It's been promised. The state certainly expects it. DeSantis expects it. Trump has said, well, we'll reimburse you. We like what you're doing. But right now they haven't cut any money. So then the other question is, well, is the federal government somehow involved in the operation?

24:24Like I said, it is serving a federal purpose, but ICE itself is not on site. To the extent there are any federal involvement, it's not day-to-day operational control. So it is, as I said, it's a tricky legal question. How much federal involvement is enough to trigger the requirement for an environmental impact statement? No environmental impact statement was done despite the very significant environmental impacts. But here's the irony. If this court says that there's not sufficient federal involvement today, and therefore the injunction that the lower court had issued, and actually the lower court had required the facility to be shut down, you know, that's yet another question is whether district courts have that kind of power.

25:11But put that aside. The point is, if this panel says we don't see enough federal involvement here, so we dissolve the injunction. And then the very next day, DOJ lifts the block on the funding and six hundred million dollars of taxpayer money goes to Mr. DeSantis. What the hell does that look like? It looks to me like they're hiding the ball on NEPA review until the courts have ruled. and then they'll pay the state the money. So we'll have to see how this all sugars off, as we say. But right now, it looks like the injunction, at least, is definitely going to be lifted, permanently lifted. It was already temporarily lifted.

25:53It's always so great to talk to you, Pat. I appreciate your time. That's Professor Pat Parenteau of the Vermont Law and Graduate School. Support for the show comes from Public. Lately, it feels like there are two types of investing platforms. Some are traditional brokerages that haven't changed much in decades, and others feel less like investing and more like a game. Public is positioned differently. It's an investing platform for people who are serious about building their wealth. On Public, you can build a portfolio of stocks, options, bonds, crypto without all the bugs or the confetti. Retirement accounts?

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28:28The Cincinnati insurance companies. Let them make your bad day better. Find an agent at CINFIN.com. President Trump has unleashed a flurry of social media posts threatening Iran, but his chilling post on Tuesday pressing Iran to make an agreement before his 8 p.m. deadline or, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, drew the most criticism and alarm. Even Pope Leo weighed in. Trump has been making similar threats, for example, warning he would send Iran back to the Stone Age. And there was this at a news conference on Monday. We have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o 'clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again.

29:28I mean, complete demolition. Trump backed off and announced a two-week extension, but his unrestrained statements have raised concerns and questions about whether the attacks he's threatened would amount to war crimes. Here's Democratic Senator Peter Welch of Vermont. I think the president is really unhinged. You know, the ayatollahs are the problem. The people of Iran are not. And when the president is posting about destroying an entire civilization, that is unhinged. And if he was really serious about doing that, that's a war crime. Joining me is Joshua Kastenberg, a professor at the University of New Mexico Law School and a former judge and lawyer in the U.S.