WASHINGTON— Conservation groups including the Center for Biological Diversity will rally Tuesday morning outside the Department of the Interior to oppose the Trump administration’s sudden convening of the Endangered Species Committee, or the Extinction Committee.

The committee, which hasn’t met in more than 30 years, is holding a closed-door meeting March 31. It will consider Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s request to exempt all oil industry activities in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act, supposedly for national security.

“Trump and his cronies want to sacrifice the Gulf of Mexico and the amazing wildlife who live there just to pad the profits of Big Oil,” said Stephanie Kurose, deputy director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This meeting is a sham. While Hegseth and the Extinction Committee hide behind closed doors, whales, sea turtles and the entire Gulf ecosystem are left in the line of fire. We won’t stand by while they try to fast-track America’s most endangered whales to extinction.”

The Gulf exemption could drive the extremely endangered Rice’s whale to extinction: The whale’s population collapsed after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and is today only at about 51 animals.

The Extinction Committee is a rarely used federal panel of high-ranking government officials that can override the Act and allow projects to move forward even if they push endangered species like the Gulf of Mexico Rice’s whale toward extinction. This meeting marks the first time in the Act’s 53-year history that a defense secretary has tried to invoke national security to seek such an exemption.

Advocates will call on the administration to halt this illegal end-run around Endangered Species Act protections and reject any exemption that would sacrifice imperiled animals and plants for oil industry interests.

What: Rally and news conference opposing Trump’s Extinction Committee.

When: 9 a.m., Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Where: Outside the U.S. Department of the Interior, C Street Entrance, 1849 C St. NW, Washington, D.C., 20240.

Who: Members of Congress, Center for Biological Diversity, Endangered Species Coalition, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Oceana, Ocean Defense Initiative, Animal Welfare Institute, and others.