On Sunday, the White House issued President Trump’s executive order, which set a plan to apply the role of the Federal Government in complex operations of the California water management and declared its authority to overturn civil servants.
OrderDated Friday, after Mr. Trump traveled to the state to see devastation from fires that raged in Los Angeles weeks. For Mr. Trump it gave a formal guideline Permanent criticism of California leaders and their reactions to fires.
In the section entitled “The prevailing catastrophic California policy”, the order has included more than half a dozen agencies to find ways to circumvent federal and state laws that control different aspects of water management in California. He also ordered the internal ward to decide how to supply water throughout the state, “regardless of any opposite state or local law”.
More confrontational language ordered federal officials to deposit their authority without necessarily cooperating with civil servants who manage state reservoirs and plan drought and fires.
Officials of the Ministry of the Interior “will take all available measures to ensure that state agencies – including the California Ministry of Water Resources – do not interfere with the Bureau of Recovation project,” said the order with reference to the federally operated network of dams, reservoirs, channels and other facilities.
Many actions listed in the order are limited by the limited law on endangered species, because the region is home to several endangered fish. One of them is trying to convene a committee known as God’s group that can suppress the law, which eventually leads to the extinction of the species. The protective groups fired an order and threatened to sue depending on how it was implemented.
Despite the language of the Executive Order, the White House is limited by existing federal laws, state laws and nature, said Karrigan Bork, Professor of the Law at the University of California, Davis and the Provisional Director of its Center for the County Center.
“I don’t think it is changing things,” Mr. Bork said about the order. “And it certainly does not change California hydrology, which stores the most important limits of the amount of water that can flow into the central valley and southern California.”
Water wars in California have long built the agricultural industry, which relies on diverted water, against fishing and conservationist.
“This is a crisis and water for the agricultural sector,” said Regina Chichizola, Executive Director of Save California Salmon, tribal non -profit organization.
Mr. Trump has long accused Delta Smelt, a small and undemanding fish on the verge of extinction, for causing too much California water to the Pacific Ocean. The species lives in northern California Sacramento-San Joaquin DeltaWhere the water, which was once mountain snow or rain, meets the salt water of the sea. It is one of the seven endangered or endangered fish that can be damaged when too much water is diverted from the delta. However, fish are not the only ones that need running water. If too much water is diverted, it can be too salty for agriculture and drinking, both in the delta and south, experts say.
The order also delegated a number of obligations – from the settlement of debris to the provision of emergency housing for people displaced fires – to the federal agency for emergency management.
However, this aspect was, unlike Mr. Trump’s recent comments on the reaction to disasters. Insisted that civil servants take management in the effort to recover and even thought about removing fema.
Upon arrival in California On Friday, Mr. Trump met Governor Gavin Newsom and mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, briefly suspended criticism and undertook to give up the federal permission to accelerate the reconstruction process.
“We’re trying to finish something,” Mr. Trump said at the meeting. “The way you finish something is to work together.”
After the text of the Order was published on Sunday, Mr. Newsom accused the President of the President that he had issued a crisis on the basis of a dishonest assessment of the situation on Earth.
While Mr. Trump insisted that Fires in Los Angeles It could completely avoid pumping more water from northern California to the south, many tanks in the region are on or higher historical averages. When firefighters fought with flames in Los Angeles fought dry hydrants, It had nothing to do With a lot of water available in the north.
“There is no imaginary pin that magically causes water to appear in a fire, despite what Trump claims,” said Tara Gallegos, a spokesman for Mr. Newsom.
“Water operations that move water to the south through the delta have nothing to do with the local fire reaction in Los Angeles,” she said. “Trump either does not know how water is stored in California, or intentionally introduces the public.”
Mr. Trump’s spokesman did not respond immediately to the request for comment.
The executive order gave the agencies involved for 15 days to report back to the White House about what authorities they have to carry out more control over the California water infrastructure. It came almost a week after the first day of Mr. Trump in the office when he issued another order that directed federal officials to come up with ways to direct more water to other parts of the state.