Trump’s God Squad Exempts Gulf Drilling from Endangered Species Protections

The Endangered Species Committee, a little-used panel of US senior federal agency leaders, on Tuesday exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from sweeping endangered species protections, citing reasons of national security.

Dubbed the God Squad, the committee has the power to effectively condemn a species to extinction by revoking environmental protections. The group, which hadn’t met in more than 30 years, had only previously issued exemptions twice before and for specific projects that threatened specific species: in 1979 for whooping cranes in Wyoming and in 1992 for northern spotted owls in Oregon.