Washington In an attempt to give the southern portion of California the water resources it needs to combat wildfires, President Donald Trump signed an executive order attempting to get around federal and state rules pertaining to the state’s water system.
“Firefighters were unable to fight the blaze due to dry hydrants, empty reservoirs, and inadequate water infrastructure,” the executive order stated, shortly after the start of the recent wave of wildfires in Los Angeles.
According to Trump’s directive, the country as a whole has been impacted by the wildfire tragedy, and it is in the country’s “interest to ensure that California has what it needs to prevent and fight these fires and others in the future.”
“Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to provide Southern California with necessary water resources, notwithstanding actively harmful State or local policies,” the decree stated.
The directive instructs the heads of the departments of Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Commerce, Interior, and Agriculture to take action to guarantee that Southern California has sufficient water resources and calls for “overriding disastrous California policies.”
Additionally, it expressly demands that the secretaries of commerce and the interior act right away “to override existing activities that unduly burden efforts to maximize water deliveries.”
The directive directs the Trump administration to assume control of California’s Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the federal Central Valley Project. The water system “provides valley industrial and domestic water and lowers flood risk for the Central Valley.” Additionally, it “provides water to restore and protect fish and wildlife, and to enhance water quality,” according to the bureau, and “supplies water to major urban centers in the Greater Sacramento and San Francisco Bay areas.”
Along with threatening to stop federal funds to the state, the presidential action states that it wants the Trump administration to stop “the subsidization of California’s mismanagement.” The directive directs the Office of Management and Budget’s director to examine all funding for disaster response and land and water management programs in California.
A request for comment from NBC News on Monday was not immediately answered by the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Newsom claimed that Trump’s criticism of California’s water management was false ahead of his Friday visit to the state.
“Maybe the president doesn t know that there s not a spigot that can be turned that can solve all the water problems that he alleges exist, that don t exist when it comes to the state water project here in California,” he stated.
Trump repeatedly threatened to withhold federal money from California during his trip to Los Angeles over attempts to conserve endangered species known as the delta smelt. He implied that water was being prioritized for these fish, a problem that Newsom has claimed has nothing to do with firefighting efforts.
In a statement, Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the leading Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee in Congress, denounced Trump’s executive order, saying, “With the stroke of a pen, Trump has chosen to undermine critically important safeguards and a whole host of community needs regarding the largest and most complex water operations in the world.”
The executive order’s measures “will move even a single drop of extra water to communities devastated by these wildfires,” Huffman continued. The president should concentrate on persuading his congressional supporters to give Los Angeles the urgently needed aid as quickly as possible and without any restrictions. Rather, he is intensifying his efforts to condition funding for California with demands that are unrelated.