Environmental groups have sued the Trump administration for removing protections for endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico to allow oil and gas offshore drilling. The unprecedented blanket exemption would leave several Gulf species and ecosystems vulnerable to extinction, including the critically endangered Rice’s whale. The move was approved by a six-member committee chaired by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth invoked the vote, claiming that lifting the Endangered Species Act protections in the Gulf was a matter of national security as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has disrupted global oil supplies. The Sierra Club said in a statement, “The Trump administration is playing god with our most vulnerable wildlife by deciding which endangered species are worth saving and which can be sentenced to extinction to pad oil and gas profits.”