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| Dear Friend, |
| As the country prepares for a second Trump administration, oil companies are moving forward to construct the SPOT and GulfLink crude oil export terminals — the two largest oil export terminals in U.S. history. |
| Combined, the projects would export up to 3 million barrels of climate-killing crude oil per day. An oil spill from either one could poison and kill thousands of endangered and threatened sea turtles and devastate marine wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. |
| The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is supposed to ensure imperiled species don’t go extinct — but in this case, it's not. |
| So, Earthjustice is suing the NMFS to stop these projects from pushing sea turtles and other imperiled species closer to extinction. |
| I’m an Earthjustice attorney, and I am grateful that I can represent my clients for free in every case, because people like you donate to support our work. |
| Our $2:$1 match ends on December 31. Please triple your impact with a donation and help us defend the wild spaces we love, the imperiled species that need protection, and the future of life itself. |
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| This is our second lawsuit related to crude oil export projects in the Gulf of Mexico. |
| We first sued to challenge the Department of Transportation’s approval of the SPOT export terminal. But in April, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that challenge, greenlighting the largest ever crude oil export project in the United States despite insufficient review of the harms the projects would cause. |
| In September, we sued to challenge the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Biological Opinion (BiOp) — a government document that analyzes impacts on endangered and threatened species and habitats — for both the SPOT and GulfLink terminals. |
| It is the government’s job to make sure that the SPOT and GulfLink terminals will not jeopardize the existence of endangered and threatened sea turtles or adversely modify their critical habitat. But the BiOp for these projects fails to properly assess the risks of oil spills — a distinct possibility that would kill thousands of sea turtles. |
| And, instead of taking action now to protect sea turtles, NMFS is choosing to adopt what is effectively a “wait and see” approach to potential oil spills, a dangerous strategy that would allow many endangered and threatened sea turtles to be killed and seriously injured before the agency would step in to do anything. We will not sit on our hands and wait for catastrophe. |
| As the second Trump administration comes into power, there will be even more threats to endangered species by an administration bent on enriching corporations at the expense of our environment. We need your support to fight back. |
| Every dollar you give will be matched $2:$1 to triple your impact — but only until December 31. |
| Please donate today to help me, my team, and rest of the 200+ attorneys at Earthjustice fight for endangered species, clean air and water, and a future on planet Earth. |
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| Thank you for your ongoing partnership. |
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Onward,
Rumela Roy,
Senior Associate Attorney,
Earthjustice Oceans Program |
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