Donald Trump may hold hostage financial aid to California based on misinformation | Opinion
Donald Trump returned to Los Angeles Friday hinting that he may only help the fire-ravaged community if the state quickly changes management of its water system to create more supply. But this is a form of ransom that California legally is not able to pay.
To pump any more on Friday from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, as an example, Trump would have to change federal regulations for the state’s two largest water projects located in the estuary, typically a years-long process. Even as some modest pumping restrictions were in place on Friday due to a lesser-known fish, the longfin smelt, the pumps were still diverting roughly 2.7 billion gallons of water.
Now Southern California braces for rain atop fire scars, as the region has more water in storage than at any time in its history.
Water is not the immediate problem and you don’t change statewide water regulation and management simply because Los Angeles caught fire. Trump so far isn’t backing down. He is backing himself into a political corner with no graceful, fact-based exit.
“I want the water to be released, and they’re going to get a lot of help from the U.S.,” Trump said earlier in the day in North Carolina
Should Trump refuse to back down from an unreasonable demand to quickly change state water management, California faces an impossible predicament. Updating how these systems operate takes time. And the decisions aren’t supposed to be based on partisan politics, but the staid neutrality of science.
The longfin smelt, which happens to be controlling water operations at the moment, is a good example. It is the biological cousin to the Delta smelt, long the butt of Trump complaints about California water management. Unlike Delta smelt, which spends their entire life in the estuary, longfin smelt are found throughout San Francisco Bay and even the Pacific Ocean.
Fortunately, humans monitoring catchment devices at these pumping plants are not finding longfin smelt yet among the fish that are “salvaged,” the crass industry term. But baby longfin, still larvae, are being detected nearby in the estuary.
Because system pumping in the southern Delta can reverse the natural flow patterns in that region, the need to protect species can trigger lower pumping to allow fish to swim away from the pumps, or for larvae not to be pulled toward a near certain death.
Earlier this month, it was the Delta smelt that temporarily reduced pumping with a minimal loss of supply. Now it is the longfin that is controlling the operations. If last year was any indication, within weeks it could be Central Valley steelhead or Winter-run salmon needing protection from the influence of pumping.
All this reality and complexity is utterly lost in California’s unfolding water war with Trump.
The president by Friday afternoon was not hinting of adding water reforms or any other conditions in order for California to receive the federal disaster aid, although he talked repeatedly about water after visiting the fire damage in Pacific Palisades.
“I don’t know what is controversial about sending millions and millions gallons of beautiful water from the Pacific Northwest into an area that is bone dry,” Trump said. “They talk about the Delta smelt. Does it have to be protected?”
Republican Congressman Kevin Kiley of Roseville, on hand for Friday afternoon’s Los Angeles press event, couldn’t agree more.
“I just want to thank you for bringing sanity to California —water and fire policy,” Kiley said.
Yet why hasn’t Trump as our president, under the federal Endangered Species Act, changed a drop of pumping at his federal Central Valley Project? Why is he only talking and not walking the walk?
Because he can’t. At least legally.
It took Joe Biden nearly his entire presidency to change the day-to-day water operations in the Delta via the federal Endangered Species Act. The State Water Project, which serves Los Angeles and six counties in Southern California, also must operate under the state’s sister law, the California Endangered Species Act, with its recently updated permit.
A court would undoubtedly strike down any attempt to quickly change the rules by some executive order under the guise of an emergency. That leaves many months of work to change these permits. And for which species? And why? And is California to be denied disaster aid in the meantime?
I don’t see any room, legally, for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to play along with Trump’s water demands, should he even try. Which frankly, he shouldn’t.
A tremendous amount of thought has gone into how the Delta runs on any given day. Undoubtedly, the pumping rules are imperfect. But not even the president can easily and quickly change them. We fought a revolution a long time ago to become a nation of laws for a reason.
This story was originally published January 24, 2025 at 5:40 PM with the headline "Donald Trump may hold hostage financial aid to California based on misinformation | Opinion."