‘God Squad’ Species Case Filed in the Wrong Court, DOJ Argues

Washington’s federal district court has no jurisdiction to hear an environmental group’s challenge to the Trump administration’s “God Squad” decision exempting Gulf of Mexico oil production from the Endangered Species Act, the Justice Department said Monday.

Judicial review of the decision under the ESA is available only in courts of appeals—not at the district level, the Justice Department said in its motion to dismiss the Center for Biological Diversity’s challenge.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed an amended complaint the same day the Endangered Species Committee issued its March 31 exemption decision. The Center had previously sued in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the committee from meeting.

Judge Rudolph Contreras on March 27 denied the Center’s earlier motion for a temporary restraining order to prevent the committee from meeting, saying he doubted he had jurisdiction in the case.

The Justice Department on Monday said the ESA mandates that challenges to God Squad decisions can only be heard in a federal appeals court in a circuit where the committee’s decision will be carried out.

The committee, known as the “God Squad” because it can allow an entire species to go extinct, exempted Gulf oil production from the ESA after the National Marine Fisheries Service issued an opinion in 2025 that said it would likely jeopardize the rare Rice’s whale, of which only about 51 remain. NMFS also provided a way for oil and gas companies to obtain federal permits to kill or harass endangered or threatened marine life in order to facilitate drilling.

There are seven other pending challenges to the committee’s decision, including two others in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, four pending in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and one pending in the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The appeals cases were consolidated in the Fifth Circuit, but that was paused as conservation groups challenge the consolidation decision before the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

The American Petroleum Institute on Monday filed a motion to intervene in the Center for Biological Diversity’s case. Vacatur of the God Squad’s exemption would subject API’s member companies to “recurring litigation” over ESA-related decisions that “threaten to shut down the domestic oil and gas industry.”

The plaintiff is represented by in-house counsel.

The case is Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Burgum, D.D.C., No. 1:26-cv-00940, 5/18/26.