Pentagon invokes national security to ease whale protections in Gulf oil operations

The Pentagon has moved to relax environmental safeguards in the Gulf of Mexico, invoking national security to shield the oil industry from obligations to protect endangered whales.

According to a newly disclosed legal filing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth convened a late-March meeting of senior officials known informally as the “God Squad,” a body empowered to grant rare exemptions under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

In a legal brief defending the meeting, Pentagon lawyers wrote: “The Secretary of War informed the Secretary of the Interior that, for reasons of national security, it is necessary to exempt all oil and gas exploration and development activities in the American [Gulf of Mexico] from the requirements of the ESA.”

The committee has issued only two such exemptions since 1978. One allowed construction of a dam despite risks to the endangered whooping crane; the other permitted a logging project affecting the threatened spotted owl.

In the present case, the stakes center on the Rice’s whale, a species found only in the Gulf of Mexico and numbering roughly 50 individuals worldwide, placing it on the brink of extinction.

The use of national security as a justification for waiving protections for endangered species marks an unprecedented step. The Trump administration’s legal submission did not specify the nature of the national security concerns cited.

When the administration first announced the “God Squad” meeting, it did not disclose the origin of the request. Typically, such proceedings follow formal petitions from corporations or developers seeking exemptions.

The Center for Biological Diversity has filed suit, arguing that the meeting violated established procedures. Hegseth’s central role, along with the national security rationale, came to light only as the administration was compelled to defend its actions in court.

Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said: “It is grotesque for Pete Hegseth to invoke national security as a pretext to allow the oil industry to wipe out America’s most endangered whales.”

Offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, which the Trump administration has referred to as the “American Gulf,” already accounts for approximately 13% of total US crude output.

That level has been reached without any exemption from the Endangered Species Act.

The US Energy Information Administration expects production to increase in 2026.