Wildlife at risk: Trump cabinet pushes exemptions for oil & lead polluters

Whales,  sea turtles,  eagles,  waterfowl & bears all menaced by Trump administration rule reversals

WASHINGTON D.C.––Moving to plant U.S. oil industry feet deeper in the public trough while global oil prices are soaring due to the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz,  Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on March 30,  2026 is to convene a rare meeting of the federal “God Squad” to––as Inside Climate News reporter Kiley Price put it––”discuss whether overriding Endangered Species Act regulations for all federally regulated fossil fuel operations in the Gulf of Mexico is more important than preventing the extinction of several imperiled species.

“That includes sea turtles and a whale species,”  the Rice’s whale,  also known as the Gulf of Mexico Bryde’s whale,  “down to its last 51 individuals,”  Price mentioned.

That Burgum et al will waive the Endangered Species Act in favor of the oil industry,  in the very waters sullied by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill,  is practically a foregone conclusion.

Kangaroo court

“After the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity filed [an unsuccessful] lawsuit in an attempt to block the meeting,”  Price reported,  “the Trump administration told the court that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wanted all federal oil and gas activities in the Gulf exempted ‘for reasons of national security.'”

That the Hegseth request will be approved is practically a forgone conclusion.

In addition to Burgum and Hegseth,  permanent members of the “God Squad” include:

•  Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins of Texas,  the state whose oil industry stands to make the most money from an Endangered Species Act waiver;
• Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin,  whose focus since his appointment has been on deregulating the fossil fuel industry;
• National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration chief Neil Jacobs;
• Council of Economic Advisors chair Pierre Yared;

and one additional member representing the affected state(s),  to be appointed by U.S. president Donald Trump.

Uncharted waters

Waiving the Endangered Species Act as applied to oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico requires the approval of five of the seven “God Squad” members.

None of the seven members are considered likely to oppose the Trump administration.

“Only twice in the panel’s nearly half-century has it ever lifted restrictions,”  recalled Price.

“The situation puts the country in uncharted waters,”  Price wrote.  “No administration has ever before requested a national security exemption from endangered-species protections.”

Meanwhile,  “U.S. oil production is hovering around record highs,”  Price noted.  “Companies working offshore in the Gulf’s federal waters produced 1.9 million barrels of oil per day last year,  and that’s with endangered species protections in place,  which require companies to minimize their impact on animals rather than limiting or prohibiting oil and gas operations altogether.”

House passes bill to block lead shot limits

The Republican-dominated House of Representatives meanwhile on March 19,  2026 passed HR 556,  summarized by Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle as “a bill to bar the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,  the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management from placing limits on the use of deadly lead ammunition in hunting.

“Hunters annually disperse 40,000 to 80,000 tons of lead ammunition across three-quarters of the landmass of the United States,”  Pacelle reminded,  pointing out that eagles,  “supposedly protected in America under two statutes — the Bald & Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act,”   are continuously jeopardized by lead fragments from ammunition in the carrion that eagles––and endangered California condors––consume.

Continent-wide lead poisoning in eagles

“A landmark 2022 study published in Science,”  Pacelle recalled,  “documented continent-wide lead poisoning in bald and golden eagles.  The eight-year study of 1,210 eagles across 38 states found that nearly half of the eagles had bone lead levels consistent with chronic poisoning,  and roughly one-third showed evidence of acute exposure.”

At the Wildlife Center of Virginia,  Pacelle continued,  “veterinarians treated a record 76 bald eagles in 2025, with 70% testing positive for lead poisoning.”

Additional recent reports of lead-poisoned eagles came from avian rehabilitation facilities in Iowa,  Michigan,  and Colorado,  Pacelle mentioned.

“And it’s a threat to all people who consume wild game meat where hunters go afield with rifles and shotguns loaded with lead,”  Pacelle added.

Maryland state house moved to ban lead shot

“We have two federal agencies — the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture — responsible for enforcing safety standards to keep us safe from dangerous substances in foods,”  Pacelle said.  “Neither food safety agency would ever allow the levels of lead that impregnate the carcass of a deer or a dove that hunters take home for the pot or pan.”

Even as the U.S. House of Representatives moved to perpetuate the use of lead shot on federal land,  Pacelle mentioned,  “the Maryland House of Delegates approved legislation to phase out the use of lead ammunition in the state. The vote was 91-42.  With just two weeks remaining in the session,”  Pacelle said,  “we expect the state Senate to take up the legislation soon.”

Bear-baiting in Alaska

Pacelle meanwhile expressed alarm “to see political leaders at the U.S. Department of the Interior break from the norms of wildlife management,  commonsense conservation,  and public safety in an effort to restore the baiting of grizzly bears and black bears on 20 million acres of National Park Service lands across Alaska.

Specifically,  Pacelle explained,  the Doug Burgum regime at the Department of the Interior has “proposed a rule-making to let trophy hunters haul garbage onto national preserves and hide nearby to shoot bears at point-blank range when the bears have their heads in barrels or bags of that garbage.

“Wherever bears are found across America’s public lands,  whether managed by the National Park Service,  the U.S. Forest Service,  the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,  or the Bureau of Land Management,”  Pacelle reminded,  “visitors see the same warning posted at trailheads and campgrounds:  ‘Never feed bears.’

You can feed Yogi & Boo Boo––if you shoot them

“Bears accustomed to human food lose their wariness of people and sniff out campsites, cabins,  and vehicles for a quick caloric hit,”  Pacelle said.

“Sure as shooting,  bears are then labeled a ‘nuisance’  and killed.  It’s the people feeding bears who were the nuisance. And they might as well have pulled the trigger on the bear.

“This is Wildlife Biology 101. And that’s why it’s distressing.

“A camper in Yellowstone can face a $5,000 fine and six months in jail for leaving food unsecured,  while in some national forests abutting that national park,  hunters can legally dump hundreds of pounds of human food for weeks — so long as the goal is to shoot the bear.

The National Park Service in 2024,  before the Donald Trump administration took office,  reiterated an older “prohibition on bear baiting on Alaska’s national preserves,”  Pacelle remembered,  after polling “28 North American bear management and research biologists from state and provincial agencies, universities, and non-National Park Service federal agencies.

“All 28 [biologists] agreed that baiting bears as allowed under Alaska state law was functionally equivalent to feeding bears.

“Latest turn in long-running struggle”

“The bear baiting proposal by the political appointees at the Department of the Interior is the latest turn in a long-running struggle over predator-killing practices on Alaska’s national preserves,”  Pacelle noted.

Elaborated Humane World for Animals president Kitty Block and Humane Legislative Fund president Sara Amundson in a jointly signed blog posting,  “One of the very first things President Trump did after resuming office in January 2025 was sign an executive order titled ‘Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential.’  Buried in the long list of instructions, the order contained a directive for the Department of Interior that effectively ordered the agency to once again allow the practice of bear baiting in Alaska.

“Bear baiting is the intentional use of food such as pastries or bacon grease to entice the animals into range,”  Block and Amundson detailed.  “ This cruel practice targets animals while they are simply trying to eat what they need to survive.  Mother bears in particular,  determined to be able to provide enough milk to feed their cubs,  become attracted by these piles of food;  killing these bears can be a death sentence,  too,  for their cubs.

“Federal ban critical for bears”

“Baiting—along with a slew of other practices,  such as killing mother bears,  wolves and coyotes in their dens,  with their cubs and pups—was first banned by the NPS in 2015,”  Block and Amundson recounted.

“When the 2015 ban was reversed in 2020,”  late in the first Donald Trump administration,  “we and our allies successfully challenged the decision in court,”  Block and Amundson continued.

“Finally,  in July 2024, the government restored the bear baiting ban,  but much to our disappointment,  continued to allow other indefensible methods of killing.  Now, the fight against baiting is back on.

“A federal ban is critical for bears,”  Block and Amundson opined,  “because Alaska state law incentivizes aggressive wildlife management practices designed to keep populations of bears and other animals such as wolves and coyotes unnaturally small,”  to try to boost the populations of deer,  elk,  moose,  and caribou available to human hunters.

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