President Donald Trump issued an executive order giving the federal government more control over California’s water management after sparring with Democrats, who he said have slow-walked Los Angeles’s recovery efforts.
The order gives the Federal Emergency Management Agency and half a dozen agencies authority to override California state laws and federal statutes to provide relief amid the Los Angeles wildfires.
In the latest escalation of Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) water wars, Trump threatened to withhold federal disaster aid in an effort to pressure the state to adopt an unrelated voter ID policy.
Under a section of the executive order titled “Overriding Disastrous California Policies,” Trump ordered the secretary of defense, the attorney general, the secretary of Homeland Security, the secretary of commerce, the secretary of the interior, and the secretary of agriculture to address the authority they have over the state’s water supply. These agencies have 15 days to report back to the White House.
Under the direction of FEMA, these federal agencies are charged with expediting housing relief for survivors, expediting bulk debris removal, creating a plan to distribute federal preparedness grants for Los Angeles, which can’t be used to assist illegal immigrants, investigating misuse of funding, and also expediting rebuilding and road clearance in North Carolina following the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene.
Trump also gave the federal agencies 30 days to address any “regulatory hurdles that unduly burden each respective water project” and to identify state and federal laws that would stand in the way of or would burden efforts to combat the wildfires.
The executive order referenced the Endangered Species Act and gave federal agencies the authority to “review, revise, or rescind any regulations” under the act.
Prior to the outbreak of the wildfires, Trump and Newsom butted heads over increasing water supply from Northern California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Southern California, as Newsom was seeking to protect the endangered species of fish known as smelt.
The executive order follows a Friday evening press conference in which Trump sparred with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other state leaders by blasting the permitting process in the state that has held up efforts to begin cleaning up debris and rebuilding the thousands of homes that burned down.
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Besides giving the federal government more control over state management, the order also carves out a significant role for FEMA despite Trump’s attacks on the agency during the same roundtable event.
On Sunday, Trump signed an executive order creating a 20-person task force to assess FEMA’s response to natural disasters.
