FEDERAL WATCH

The Delta Smelt, perhaps one of the most controversial species listed under the Federal Endangered Species Act. Credit: K. Grow, CA Dept. of Water Resources.

Harming endangered species is about to become federal policy

President Trump has long singled out endangered species protections for the Delta smelt – which he has called “an essentially worthless fish” – as the reason for water shortages on California(1), ignoring the facts of how little water is actually allocated for environmental purposes and how many different river and estuary species (including salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon) are also protected by environmental water requirements. Now his administration is proposing to undo core elements of the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) that address critical habitat needs of listed species. Instead, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service would be prohibited from taking action to prevent “harm” from critical habitat loss or degradation and instead restricted to regulations that only control direct “take” of these species (2)(3). Loss and/or degradation of habitat, which includes physical destruction or conversion and hydrologic alteration, has long been established as the primary driver of species extinctions and population declines throughout the world. The State of California should be racing to provide a safety net for federally listed species, but the Newsom Administration’s recently adopted California ESA requirements for State Water Project operation and proposed Voluntary Agreements (which would substitute for strong new water quality standards) do not bode well for the future of our state’s aquatic ecosystems.

Thanks for your service, and don’t slam the door on your way out

As has been widely reported, the Trump Administration’s ersatz “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) has been driving the firing and resignations of tens of thousands of government workers across a number of federal agencies and departments. Less well known are the effects on California, with hundreds and possibly thousands of employees at the Departments of Agriculture, Interior and Commerce and the US Environmental Protection Agency already gone or facing the axe, based on reports from our sources in the federal government. It’s not just healthy rivers and fish and wildlife that are in the crosshairs. Dam safety, flood protection, water supply, and wildfire response could all be at risk as a result of DOGE’s efforts.

Move along, there’s nothing to see here

Amid all the excitement, a little-noticed Executive Memorandum dropped this week (4). It spoke of doing more business electronically and swiftly, among other reasons in order to “eliminate friction in coordination between agencies in the environmental review and permitting processes” (in other words, override the independent views of federal natural resource agencies) and “[to] ensure agency legal departments have the support, funding, and technology to provide the most expeditious and best defense of challenged environmental documents and permit decisions … ” (anticipating the flood of litigation that will be filed against the Trump Administration’s agenda to roll back or fail to implement environmental protections). Something further may follow of this masquerade…

“Tiny” fish and “giant faucets”

We know that it’s hard to believe that this year President Trump extemporized that Californians really don’t need reservoirs with all the water available to us, but he did (1) (and we chuckled a bit here at FOR watching Trump stray from his party’s line). That Presidential pronouncement, however, did not stand alone. Indeed, it was related to a remarkable series of his statements on “tiny” fish and “giant faucets” traced by the Washington Post (4) on how, “under Trump, a falsehood with a kernel of truth becomes ever grander — and eventually becomes ineffective policy.”

Resources

(1) Headwaters: Trump Declares War on CA Water

(2) Federal register: rescinding “harm”

(3) Maven’s Notebook: Interior department proposal could end habitat protections for endangered species

(4) Presidential memo: updating permitting technology for the 21st-century

(5) Washington Post: Trump’s tiny fish, a giant faucet, and beautiful water flow