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The Trump administration has issued permission for seismic airgun blasting off the U.S east coast in spite of the warnings it could kill or injure whales and dolphins. 5 companies are currently authorized to incidentally, but not intentionally harass marine mammals while surveying the Atlantic Ocean seabed for oil and gas reserves. The permission was issued by the fisheries office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which claims it has been assured the testing would not jeopardize endangered or threatened species.

The former requests were refused by the Obama administration in January 2017. But Donald Trump has pushed for the expansion of offshore drilling in pursuit of what he called billions of wealth. A campaign director at the Oceana environmental group, Diane Hoskins said, “President Trump is essentially giving these companies permission to harass, harm and possibly even kill marine life, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale all in the pursuit of dirty and dangerous offshore oil. He added that this is the first step toward offshore drilling in the Atlantic.

It is noteworthy that tens of thousands of whales and dolphins, and thousands of manatees, seals and sea turtles. The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management also said that it could be harmed by the seismic exploration project across 200,000 miles square miles of ocean between Delaware and Cape Canaveral in Florida. The continuous airgun blasts are so loud that they can deafen marine creatures and increase the risk of calves being separated from their mothers, according to environmental groups.