June 4, 2026
Owl in America is a series of letters tracing the actions of the current U.S. administration from the perspective of an environmental lawyer. These notes follow how, in a time of rapid political and ecological change, governmental decisions are felt in the living world.
Hello all~
The U.S. House is back in session this week after Speaker Mike Johnson sent members home early for the Memorial Day recess—generally understood as an effort to avoid passage of a resolution condemning the war in Iran. Lawmakers nevertheless passed the resolution yesterday, with all House Democrats and four Republicans voting in favor. It heads to the Senate next.
According to Politico, the House planned to fast-track legislation dealing with wildfire, public-lands drilling, and other land-related issues. First, the "License to Drill Act," sponsored by Rep. Mike Kennedy (R-Utah) and broadly supported by the petroleum industry, would reauthorize a lapsing program that funds staff and the processing of drilling permit applications. The House passed it this week; it now moves to the Senate for consideration.
The same is true of the "Cross-Boundary Wildfire Solutions Act," whose lead sponsor is Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat from Colorado. It passed the House this week, and its Senate companion is out of committee, meaning it could be scheduled for a Senate floor vote. As far as I can see, it's pretty benign: it directs "a study on existing programs, rules, and authorities that enable or inhibit wildfire mitigation across land ownership boundaries on Federal and non-Federal land."
It's billed as part of a larger package of regulatory reforms and other "holistic" measures that would address wildfire risk. It may, however, indicate an appetite for quick action on other bills, such as the "Fix Our Forests Act."
That bill was the subject of an oversight hearing in the House this week. It's a bipartisan effort intended to "provide vital tools to accelerate forest management projects, improve wildfire preparedness and strengthen coordination between federal, state, Tribal and local partners before what many are predicting could be one of the most severe wildfire years on record," according to a statement from the House Natural Resources Committee.
It is also widely regarded by environmental groups working in forest protection as a Trojan horse for increased logging with limited oversight. It's up for debate whether, in a less openly oligarchic administration, the bill's provisions might be used for good (i.e., for forest management projects that would actually make communities safer).
Under this administration, though, forest lovers should beware any laws that give the government more freedom to liquidate natural resources. The bill passed the House last year and awaits Senate floor action. You can read more about the "Fix Our Forests Act" here.
The bill repealing the Roadless Area Rule is also making its way through the legislative process. This one is sponsored by Rep. Harriet Hageman, a Republican out of Wyoming. It would remove restrictions on logging and road building in designated roadless national forest lands, in place since 2001. Repeal of the roadless rule is a Trump administration priority and is currently under consideration by the House Natural Resources Committee, in the Federal Lands Subcommittee. It would also affirmatively direct the Forest Service to build roads as required by the Secretary of Agriculture, currently Brooke Rollins, subject to some environmental review.
Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, recently introduced the "Protect Gulf Life Act" to reverse the "God Squad" order reducing protections for endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year. The background is here, but the upshot is that in late March, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth determined that national security concerns warranted invoking a rarely used clause of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to override protections granted to critically endangered Rice's whales and Kemp's ridley sea turtles, along with 18 additional threatened and endangered species.
Technically called the Endangered Species Committee, it's nicknamed the God Squad because its actions can condemn at-risk species to extinction by allowing activities that jeopardize their continued existence.
Records obtained by NPR reporters showed that "Energy companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum . . . spent more than $8 million since October [2025] lobbying the government about the Endangered Species Act, permitting reform and, specifically, Rice's whales."
Composed of the Secretary of the Interior and several other top-level officials, the committee's role here was essentially to rubber-stamp Hegseth's finding that species protections hampered oil and gas drilling activities in the Gulf to the detriment of U.S. military preparedness and the nation's ability to compete in international fuel markets.
The meeting reportedly lasted all of 15 minutes. It broadly exempted covered Gulf oil and gas activities from ESA constraints. It also sets a harmful precedent for potential energy-production exemptions in other contexts.
Representative Beyer's "Protect Gulf Life Act" would roll back the God Squad's action. He stated, "Congress did not establish the Endangered Species Committee to give out sweeping exemptions to special interests, and this abuse of power is another corrupt handout to benefit industry at the expense of threatened species." The bill would (a) nullify the God Squad's recent order; (b) prohibit it from issuing any order exempting Gulf oil and gas activities from the ESA for the next three years; and (c) reinstate the law's protections for Gulf species.
Just about 50 Rice's whales remain. If enacted, this law would reimpose vessel speed limits and other restrictions intended to protect them from ship strikes, currently their greatest survival risk.
In April, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued Hegseth and the members of the God Squad in D.C. federal court arguing that Hegseth's national security declaration was arbitrary and capricious in violation of administrative law because there is no evidence of harm to U.S. security interests from the Gulf ESA regulations. The suit also alleged the committee failed to follow the correct procedures for governmental meetings, including public-access requirements. The case joined related challenges from other environmental groups. NRDC followed with a petition to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals two days later.
On his first day in office, as part of a "National Energy Emergency" declaration, Trump ordered the God Squad to convene once per quarter. If an agency, a state governor, or a permit applicant has applied for review of an ESA regulation, the committee must determine whether to grant an exemption. If no requests are pending, the committee is still supposed to meet to "identify obstacles to domestic energy infrastructure specifically deriving from implementation of the ESA or the Marine Mammal Protection Act."
Although Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum was ordered to convene the committee on a regular basis, I have not found public evidence that he has made any moves toward doing so. The March meeting was triggered not by Burgum, but by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. It remains to be seen whether Burgum will abide by that portion of Trump's 2025 order; either way, the idea of a standing God Squad process is a terrifying one.
A final thing to keep an eye on: the House Appropriations Committee has passed an Interior-Environment spending bill that includes steep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Fish and Wildlife Service. It also "contains a total of at least 21 anti-wildlife poison pill riders—the largest number of policy riders that has ever been included in the base bill in the history of the Endangered Species Act," according to a letter sent to lawmakers by a coalition of 80 environmental groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity. If passed as-is, it would "remove protections for dozens of imperiled animals including gray wolves, grizzly bears, wolverines, and freshwater mussels."
Whew. It's a lot to take in. I'll track these and other developments and keep you posted.
Talk to you soon,
Owl
Sources:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5908560-iran-war-resolution-house/
https://www.eenews.net/articles/house-to-vote-on-wildfire-drilling-conservation-bills/
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr7831
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr3922/text
https://naturalresources.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=418824
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/s1462
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr7695
https://hageman.house.gov/media/op-eds/make-forests-manageable-again
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II10/20260521/119263/BILLS-119HR7695ih.pdf
https://www.eenews.net/articles/house-dems-look-to-unwind-god-squad-ruling/
https://beyer.house.gov/uploadedfiles/the_protect_gulf_life_act.pdf
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/declaring-a-national-energy-emergency/
https://www.eenews.net/articles/panel-weighs-bills-to-ramp-up-forest-management/
https://www.eenews.net/articles/house-dems-look-to-unwind-god-squad-ruling/
https://beyer.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=9120
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/30/nx-s1-5745926/endangered-species-committee-hegseth-security
*Inspired by historian heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American
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