A ‘recipe for extinction’: can the US’s envied nature protections survive Trump and his ‘God squad’?

Donald Trump has already begun dismantling parts of the envied US endangered species protections in his quest to boost oil and gas drilling, in part using a panel with an ominous name: the God squad.

A slew of early actions by the Trump administration has set about throwing open more land and waters for the fossil fuel industry, triggering the reversal of regulations that strengthen the Endangered Species Act, the country’s landmark 1973 conservation bill, including a rule that protects migratory birds from unintentional killing.

The department of interior has been tasked with allowing all previously refused drilling leases, including in the Alaskan Arctic, and with drawing up plans to “review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands”. This could shrink wildlife refuges and national monuments, which are protected lands designated by the president. Trump slashed the size of two vast national monuments in Utah when last in office.

“Today marks the beginning of an exciting chapter for the department of the interior,” said Doug Burgum, interior secretary, at the unveiling of the seven-page directive last week.

“We are committed to working collaboratively to unlock America’s full potential in energy dominance and economic development to make life more affordable for every American family while showing the world the power of America’s natural resources and innovation.”

But critics argue that endangered species will be steamrolled under this agenda, and the Endangered Species Act imperilled. The legislation has helped safeguard more than 1,700 species and their habitats, preventing 99% of those listed from going extinct, most famously the bald eagle.

The Sacramento River in the north delta, California. Trump has attacked California’s water policies, including protections for the delta smelt. Photograph: Mette Lampcov/The Guardian

However, a lack of resources has stymied many listed species from a full recovery and opponents of the act claim that it has unduly blocked economic development. Trump recently railed against protections afforded to the delta smelt, a small, unassuming creature in California that the president called an “essentially worthless fish”.

The last Trump administration demanded economic considerations be weighed when deciding upon endangered species listings, contrary to the text of the act. It listed just 25 species for protection during its first term, the lowest of any administration, and refused petitions to protect species such as wolverines and hellbender salamanders.

“Burgum and Trump are strapping dynamite to basic rules that protect our natural world,” says Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Even as imperilled species dwindle and vanish across America, this order will fan the flames of the extinction crisis. If it’s fully implemented, Burgum’s order threatens to leave future generations with a greatly impoverished, hotter planet. It’s monumentally shortsighted,” he says.

A ‘God squad’ to decide protections for species

One of Trump’s first executive orders after returning to the White House in January shows, though, that he is prepared to further escalate an overhaul of endangered species laws, experts say. The order, which declared a national energy emergency even amid a record glut of oil and gas drilling, calls for the endangered species committee, a group nicknamed the “God squad”, to meet at least quarterly.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters accompanied by interior secretary Doug Burgum and Burgum’s wife, Kathryn Burgum, onboard Air Force One where Trump signed a proclamation declaring 9 February Gulf of America Day. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP

This committee, which would be led by Burgum, five other senior officials from different government agencies and a representative from an affected state, has rarely been used but has the power to override the Endangered Species Act even if it results in the extinction of a species, hence its existential nickname.

“It has the power of life and death over a species,” says Patrick Parenteau, an environmental law expert at Vermont Law School who was involved in writing the legislative language for the God squad in the late 1970s. “It can allow a project to go ahead and expatriate a species from the face of the Earth.”

The committee can only be convened through a stringent set of conditions, including a requirement that an exemption to the act can only be taken due to some sort of national emergency. The panel has never decided to kill off a species without some other ameliorating settlement in place, Parenteau said, with the body last meeting in 1992 to decide the fate of the spotted owl, menaced by logging in the Pacific north-west.

“They have never actually pulled that lever of extinction, until now,” says Parenteau. “Invoking a fictional energy emergency is not grounds for short-changing the consultation process, there’s no way of meeting those requirements legally. This is about throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks, while distracting us from all the other endangered species rules Trump is repealing.”

A wild eastern screech owl using camouflage to protect its home and ambush its prey, in Florida, US. Photograph: Media Drum World/Alamy

Even if the squad isn’t able to sweep aside wildlife protections, environmental groups fear a broader assault is under way against the protections of species in several states that will find strong support from the Trump administration.

The Republican-led states of Montana and Wyoming both unsuccessfully asked the federal government, during Joe Biden’s term, to remove protections from grizzly bears, while Republican members of Congress have backed a bill similarly stripping grey wolves from the endangered species list.

“Grey wolves are threatening the livelihoods of our ranchers and farmers with attacks on livestock because our agriculture community has their hands tied by out-of-date policies and progressive legal activism,” Lauren Boebert, a Republican congresswoman, has said.

Such moves may succeed with Trump in the White House, but species could also die out because of neglect from the federal government, Parenteau says. Programmes to recover species are chronically underfunded and private landowners, who host many of the last individuals of certain species, are unlikely to be incentivised in the coming term to safeguard those animals.

“Without the Endangered Species Act, many species would go extinct,” says Parenteau. “But if the act isn’t being implemented and enforced, of course those species won’t recover. Weakening that law is a recipe for extinction. Extinction is a process not a destination but a lot of species will reach a point of no return under Trump.”