SACRAMENTO, California — President Donald Trump promised to break California’s water rules wide open. So far, he’s mostly working within them.
Five months after Trump issued a pair of directives for federal agencies to overturn state and Biden-era rules limiting water deliveries, the federal government has done no such thing. Instead, it’s quietly increasing water flows following the very rules Trump once railed against — at least for now.
It’s a sharp contrast to Trump’s otherwise confrontational posture towards California and climate policy. In just the last week, he rescinded the state’s authority to phase out gas-powered vehicles and sent the National Guard into Los Angeles over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections.
It’s also a sharp contrast to Trump’s campaign rhetoric, when he vowed to force Newsom to reverse a lawsuit blocking his first-term effort to loosen environmental protections in the state’s main water hub, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
But Trump seems mollified now, declaring victory over the state at a White House event last week. The president brought up the familiar theme of water flowing out to the Pacific Ocean instead of being used in farms and cities, called it “ridiculous” and declared of the water: “We got them to take it now.”
What’s changed? For one, California had a wet winter, which tends to smooth over political differences. And the Trump administration suffered an early headline-grabbing debacle in February when it dumped summer irrigation water from Central Valley dams in a misguided effort to send it to fires in Los Angeles.
Newsom has also aligned himself more with Trump on water, as when he jilted Delta-area Democrats last month in pushing to expedite a tunnel to move more supplies from Northern to Southern California. More substantively, some of the water districts that might be expected to agitate for Trump to overturn Biden-era water rules concede that they actually allow more deliveries than Trump’s version.
“Our goal really is to try and implement some of the adaptive management and other actions that are in the [Biden-era rules] that provide some flexibility to benefit water supply and the fishery as well,” said Thaddeus Bettner, the executive director of the Sacramento River Settlement Contractors, a group of municipal and agricultural water districts in the northern Central Valley.
So even though Trump’s January directives gave federal officials the option to redo the Biden-era rules, they haven’t done that so far — avoiding both lawsuits and negative headlines. The January orders also directed federal water agencies to write a report within 90 days on how to deliver on Trump’s promises, but the White House is keeping that quiet, as well, declining to release it publicly.
“Less than a month into his second term, President Trump turned on the water to prevent another tragedy like the recent California wildfires, and he has urged Democrats like Gavin Newsom to adopt policies that better maintain our nation’s forests,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in an email. “He will continue to protect America’s abundant natural resources, and updates to our water policy will come from him.”
Environmental groups in the sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, however, aren’t buying the quiet approach. They say the Trump administration is still violating endangered species rules, pointing to examples when federal officials pumped more water out of the Delta than state officials, killing or injuring protected species of salmon and trout in the process.
“Reclamation’s behavior is cause for extreme concern for the health of the Bay-Delta and for the communities and people who care about and depend on this ecosystem,” the groups wrote in a letter last month to state water officials. (Bureau of Reclamation spokesperson Mary Lee Knecht said the agency “continues to operate the Central Valley Project to maximize water supply and hydropower in full compliance” with the Biden-era rules.)
There are a couple opportunities coming up for Trump to make more of a splash. He has yet to nominate a Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, who could sway the agency one way or the other.
And on Tuesday, state and federal lawyers are due to update a judge on whether they want to continue the lawsuit Newsom lodged against Trump in 2020.
Water agencies that have been mostly laudatory of Trump are still restive. Westlands Water District’s general manager, Allison Febbo, called the Trump administration’s latest projected increase in summer water allocations, from 50 to 55 percent, “disappointing” given that reservoirs are filled to the brim.
“The operations quagmire that has contributed to the self-inflicted water crisis we have in this state, and reconfirmed by the Biden administration before leaving office, are still wreaking havoc on the water projects,” Johnny Amaral, chief of external affairs at the Friant Water Authority, said in a text message. “Every minute that goes by is a lost opportunity to end the crisis, and the clock is ticking.”
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