President Trump has complained extensively about environmental harms to whales posed by offshore windfarms, saying wind turbines are “driving them crazy” and leading to whale deaths up and down the Atlantic coast. However, both federal agencies and independent scientists have found no causal link between offshore wind development and whale deaths.
Despite its supposed concern about whales, the administration has voted to exempt oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from protections under the Endangered Species Act. The co-called “God Squad”, a federal committee empowered to lift regulations under the Endangered Species Act, has only convened three times over the past 50 years. It came together for this new ruling for the purpose of protecting oil and gas developers from having to potentially meet new environmental regulations that could force them to shut down. The moniker God Squad refers to its power to decide whether a species lives or dies.
The ruling puts a target on the Rice’s whale, a critically endangered species with fewer than 100 individuals that lives in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. It will be stripped of the modest safeguards that oil and gas companies are required to observe, such as slowing boats in the whale habitat and monitoring for the creatures when undertaking exploratory and drilling work.
Now that oil prices have skyrocketed from the war in Iran, the plight of whales, the excuse for shutting down offshore wind, has become a petty annoyance in light of national security. According to the administration, energy streams must not be held hostage.
