‘God Squad’ Removes Endangered Species Protections In Gulf Of Mexico
The unnecessary and poorly planned war in Iran has drastically increased oil prices across the globe. In what seems to be an effort to save face, the Endangered Species Committee, known as the “God Squad,” voted to exempt gas and oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from endangered species protections.
According to the New York Times, officials with the Trump administration argued that the endangered protections limited oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump refers to as the Gulf of America. As a result of both Iranian strikes on energy processing facilities in the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz being effectively closed, the price of oil has steadily increased in recent weeks, with no sign of dropping. Administration officials acknowledged how the war in Iran has impacted oil prices, and said removing the protections would bolster domestic energy production and strengthen national security.
I feel like the Trump administration always invokes “national security” every time it’s trying to sell an atrocity.
“When development in the Gulf is chilled, we are prevented from producing the energy we need as a country,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the God Squad meeting. “Recent hostile action by the Iranian terror regime highlights yet again why robust domestic oil production is a national security imperative.”
I’m pretty sure the hostile action was initiated by the U.S. and Israel, but go off, I guess.
The God Squad is led by the interior secretary and includes the agriculture secretary, the Army secretary, and the leaders of the Council of Economic Advisers, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s called the God Squad because the committee essentially holds the power to determine whether an endangered species lives or dies. A God Squad meeting is rare, with the last one in 1992 granting logging companies an exemption from burrowing owl protections.
“This is nonsensical,” Jane Davenport, a senior attorney at conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, told the Times. “Oil and gas activities in the Gulf have been proceeding apace, and there is not a shred of evidence that the [Endangered Species Act] has resulted in any restrictions on the amount of oil produced there.”
AP reports that there are concerns among several environmental groups that the God Squad’s vote could lead to the extinction of rice whales, which live exclusively in the Gulf of Mexico. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill killed 20% of the rice whale population, with only 50 rice whales still in existence. Rice whales are particularly picky eaters and dive the ocean floor to find food. While there are obviously concerns that a potential oil spill would endanger the rice whales, another major concern is that oil drilling would kill the fish that the rice whales eat.
Rice whales aren’t the only endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico. Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, the smallest and most endangered species of sea turtle, exclusively resides in the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf is also home to the whooping crane and the piping plover, both of which are endangered.
“It’s … sea turtles, it’s manatees, it’s whooping cranes, it’s various seabirds, it’s rice whales, it’s sperm whales, it’s endangered corals,” Michael Jasny, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s marine mammal protection project, told AP. “It is every endangered or threatened species in the Gulf of Mexico.”
So thanks to the poor planning of the Trump administration, we’re not only witnessing the real-time destruction of the American economy, but potentially the extinction of several endangered species.
If this is what winning looks like, I’d rather get back to losing.
SEE ALSO:
From Groceries To Cyberattacks: How The Iran War Is Affecting The US
Iran War Already Increasing Gas Prices, Mortgage Rates
Economists Warn Iran War Increases Risk Of Recession In Next 12 Months
The Gas Is Too High: What Triple Digit Oil Prices Mean For You