Economics > The Endangered Species Act

“Rice’s whales—like many marine mammals—are subject to various human threats. Vessel collisions and noise, and activities related to energy exploration, development, and production are high on that list. These whales suffered substantial impacts at population-level as a result of the 2010 oil spill, as described in the comprehensive Deepwater Horizon Trustee Council’s Final Programmatic Restoration Plan. It is estimated that 48 percent of the whale’s core habitat was exposed to surface oil, 17 percent of the population died, 22 percent of females had reproductive problems, and an additional 18 percent suffered adverse health effects. Scientists estimate the population declined approximately 22 percent from their pre-spill population size and it will take 69 years for the population to recover from these losses.” - Trophic Interactions and Habitat Requirements of Rice’s Whales via NOAA

Another week, another environmental atrocity.

The hits keep coming and they will continue until regime change and even then…I have my doubts significant course reversal will happen for quite a while.

Here’s the reality: enough people simply do not care. My preferred choice of words would be “give a fuck” because I do think that’s the reality. Care implies one meaning, in my opinion: A tone, a feeling of gentleness, of overall concern and interest. You can not care about something but, perhaps, also don’t necessarily feel significant animosity towards the thing you don’t care about. It can be a neutral term. But not giving a fuck? There’s a negative connotation to that phrase. I think that’s where a significant portion of the population is at when it comes to environmental policy and certainly where this federal administration lands. It’s goes beyond not caring—it’s a strict animosity and their priorities and concerns outweigh the overall health and well-being of not only their neighbors but the environment around them.

You can see this with some of the comments last month regarding the proposed border wall that was to be (and still might be) constructed through Big Bend: nothing is more precious and worth preserving, even ecologically or culturally sensitive, than addressing the perceived threats that only they deem important. And in that case, a mythological amount of immigrants crossing the border through the Big Bend region. It is likely that a significant number, if not all, of the proponents who want the wall through the region have never actually been directly negatively impacted by immigration, illegal or otherwise. At this point, these protestations appear to be reflexive and habitual.

"We cannot allow our own rules to weaken our standing ​and strengthen those who wish to harm us," Hegseth said during the livestreamed meeting. "So for these reasons, exemption from the Endangered Species Act in the Gulf ​is not just a good idea, it is a critical matter of national security." - US exempts Gulf of Mexico drillers from endangered species rules via Reuters

Last Tuesday (03/31/2026), the Endangered Species Committee met to discuss granting exemptions to the Endangered Species Act and subsequent requirements through NEPA processes for oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico under the guise of “national security”. That committee was created in 1978 and is made up of the following people: Secretary of the Interior (Doug Burgum), Secretary of Agriculture (Brooke Rollins), Secretary of the Army (Daniel P. Driscoll), Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (Lee Zeldin), Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Neil Jacobs), one person appointed by the President, and a representative of the affected state. It appears Pierre Yared, Acting Council of Economic Advisers, was also on this list and I presume he was the one person appointed by the President. The Gulf of Mexico isn’t a state, so it doesn’t get representation, apparently.

Obviously, none of the people on this committee are at all friendly to endangered species:

• Doug Burgum is a business man, venture capitalist, and former governor of North Dakota, who is very much pro-oil and gas expansion and US energy independence. He appears to have a net worth somewhere between $100 million and over $1 billion, according to the few articles I was able to find. No one can seem to pin a number down.

• Brooke Rollins is a Texas gal, hailing from Glen Rose. She’s an Aggie with an ag degree and, props to her, was the first woman to be elected student body president at A&M (credit where credit is due! It does appear in the 30 years since, there have only been five other women to serve as SBP…not great, A&M!) Alas, Brooke took her ag degree and got a JD from the rival university and joined a bunch of think tanks and was the instigator of eliminating the Roadless Rule in the USFS last summer.

• Lee Zeldin, who is somehow my age/school cohort, is running EPA. Lee doesn’t have an environmental background, shocker. He has a political science degree, a JD, served in the military, was elected to the NY State Senate and then to the US House, and then tried to run for governor of NY in 2022. Most of his political work is not tied to the environment at all and he’s had dubious statements on the environment that were somewhat walked back during his congressional hearings to be head of EPA. His tenure at EPA has drastically changed the way the agency is run and the rules the office has implemented for decades. He may be the next attorney general if the news rumor mill is correct.

• I was annoyed at Zeldin’s age but Daniel P. Driscoll was born in 1986 so, I guess I’ve reached that age where it seems far-fetched that millennials should be running things. He is the youngest U.S. Army Secretary, so, maybe my instincts aren’t wrong here. Alas, that doesn’t really matter because while Driscoll has a military background and a JD, it seems more important to know that he is friends with JD Vance.

• Neil Jacobs is the most science-based person on this committee, with a PhD in atmospheric science but had primarily worked in research and business development in the private sector before he worked for the first Trump administration. Despite the science background, he has mostly worked as a Trump administration mouthpiece without a lot of backbone and the Union of Concerned Scientists didn’t even like him during the first administration either. Of note, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) or NOAA Fisheries, is of course, under NOAA. NMFS manages marine mammals under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

• Pierre Yared is a Lebanese-American economist with an interest in macroeconomics, heavily focused on debt. This statement from his wiki seems to sum up his presence on this committee: “Yared is described as committed to fiscal restraint and central bank independence, while also supporting U.S. military spending to promote U.S. geopolitical hegemony and financial dominance.”

So, we have a committee of what appears to be people who should never be involved in the decision making surrounding environmental policy, much less policy regarding endangered species. Nary a biologist of any sort on this panel. Sure, Rollins can probably talk cattle and horses, but beyond that?

"I want to highlight that the agency action under consideration — all oil and gas activities in the Gulf of America — encompasses the full suite of actions including various protective measures for the Rice's Whale," said Jacobs. "I will be voting to grant the exemption." - U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for ‘national security’ via NPR

It appears that Dr. Neil Jacobs read the documentation produced by his own agency and thought that Rice’s whales were worth the sacrifice while we instigated a war and threatened our own economic stability along with the rest of the world’s because we elected a madman for a second time.

Elections have consequences, we all know that. Yet, it seems most people keep thinking someone else is going to right the wrongs or prevent the worst of the worst from happening and yet, here we are. Someone else is the electorate and the electorate continues to fail to do their job.

I will say, I am witnessing a very dumb mayoral election in my own tiny city. We haven’t had one in years because it is generally uncontested and finding anyone who wants to take on that role has been difficult. But I’ve been watching it play out on Facebook (yes, I know) and the amount of people who don’t even bother to do basic research astounds me. The same playbook on a federal and state level is just copy and pasted onto the small town level and at least one candidate is just letting a lot of the open ended questions and insinuations posted by residents lie, which leads to gossip/rumors and festers discontent—because well, we’ve let our higher offices get elected in that manner without accountability, so why not replicate it here? It’s gross. Is it any wonder why the electorate failed in the first place?

Gas prices are going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future and impact our daily lives across the board, some in ways we’ve already identified but haven’t wanted to come to terms with, as well as in ways we can’t even begin to fathom. In the meantime, the “God Squad” is putting the lives of species with tenuous populations on the line in the name of economics because of intentionally bad decisions made by the leader of this country. Some of those species were listed in the first place because of economics (sea turtles, whales) - the fisheries industry had decimated oceanic wildlife populations over the last several hundred years because of greed.

And now greed continues to be the biggest threat to endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico.

I’ve been drafting essays in my brain the last few weeks and this one I started, stopped, and floundered around with because there was more bad news last week regarding the USFS closing many of its offices and relocating to Utah. At some point I’ll catch up but by then there will be something else bad to write about. I’ve written about the water crisis here in Texas before but more of that is coming home to roost with the news that Corpus Christi is facing dire water issues and Kerrville is looking to start reclaiming wastewater and treating it for drinking water due to the on-going drought and increased population in the town. And almost daily I see a news story regarding data centers, not just in Texas but throughout the country.

We’re in a pinch-point between cultural, economic, and environmental change and one day we will look back and be able to see the 2020s, and even the mid to late 2010s, as the turning point for some dramatic global upheaval.

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