“Dancing Like a Butterfly and Stinging like a Bee” — Against the Executive Orders
Shasta Dam looms in the foreground, with visibly low water conditions shown in the reservoir (32% of capacity). October 2022. Credit: Andrew Innerarity, CA DWR.
As one might have expected, President Trump and his team were better prepared for their crusade to bend the federal and other governments to his will for his second term at playing President of the United States. That included a blizzard of executive actions in his first week. And yes, California drew some of his wrath.
It was these words in his January 24 executive order(1) that drew my attention:
2(c) The Secretary of the Interior, including through the Bureau of Reclamation, shall utilize his discretion to operate the CVP to deliver more water and produce additional hydropower, including by increasing storage and conveyance, and jointly operating federal and state facilities, to high-need communities, notwithstanding any contrary State or local laws…
Short and not so sweet. But there was more of course more.
2(f) The Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce shall identify all ongoing or potential major water-supply and storage projects within the State of California…
Followed by blunt, imperious words:
2(g) For each such project identified under subsection (f), the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce shall each designate one federal official to coordinate each agency’s respective NEPA and ESA compliance responsibilities. Within 30 days from the date of this order, each designated official shall identify any regulatory hurdles that unduly burden each respective water project, identify any recent changes in state or Federal law that may impact such projects from a regulatory perspective (including Public Law 118-5), and shall develop a proposed plan, for review by the Secretaries, to appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind any regulations or procedures that unduly burden such projects and are not necessary to protect the public interest or otherwise comply with the law.
Hmm…I don’t have to wonder long about the dam projects that need a royal boost to get around state law. Foremost among them would the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s proposed Shasta Reservoir expansion to cover a portion of the McCloud River protected the California Wild & Scenic Rivers Act (2).
Middle Falls of the McCloud River. FOR Archives.
At the end of the first Trump presidency, Reclamation or the Secretary of the Interior had been poised to sign the “Record of Decision” (ROD) for their 2020 final supplemental environmental impact statement (supplemental FEIS) to expand Shasta Reservoir. The supplemental FEIS had gone to great lengths to assert that California’s protection of the McCloud River was of no concern to the Trump (45) Administration— and erase any traces of their initial, more candid and humble 2014 FEIS completed during the Obama Administration. But Reclamation ran out of time when Trump was not re-elected and left the final touch undone.
Now the Trump (47) team is back. A signed ROD could pop out within days, weeks, or a month or two.
But breaking the law could come with consequences. In 2019, Friends of the River (represented by Earthjustice) led a team of environmental groups that sued Reclamation’s Shasta Dam-raise partner, the giant and powerful Westlands Water District. We were joined by then California Attorney General Becerra. Together, we blocked Westlands — at least for a while.
The times may be perilous, but we aren’t without tools to stop the madness. We have done it before, and the help of or supporters we can do it again.
We need not be alone. California’s current Attorney General, Rob Bonta, has expressed his intention to sue the federal government when it breaks the law, and indeed just filed a lawsuit over the DOGE issue(3).
If state and federal courts and legislators stand up for the rule of law, today’s McCloud River will continue on into the future.
But it’s going to take some work.
