While a task force assesses the need for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, President Donald Trump signed an executive order giving FEMA and other federal agencies authority to override California state laws and federal statutes in providing relief amid the Los Angeles wildfires.
First and foremost, the order refers to California’s complex water management operations.
The order, dated Friday, came after Trump traveled to Los Angeles to see the devastation from wildfires that have been raging for weeks, The New York Times reported.
One section of the order is titled “Overriding Disastrous California Policies.” It tasks more than half a dozen agencies with finding ways to circumvent federal and state laws that control various aspects of water management in California.
The order also directs the Interior Department to decide how to supply water around the state, “notwithstanding any contrary state or local laws.”
Trump ordered the attorney general, and the secretaries of the departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Commerce, Interior, and Agriculture to address the authority they have over the state’s water supply, the Washington Examiner reported.
The agencies have 15 days to report back to the White House.
One law professor told the Times that existing federal laws, state laws, and nature will constrain Trump’s order.
“I don’t think it changes things very much,” said Karrigan Bork, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, and the interim director of its Center for Watershed Sciences.
“And it certainly doesn’t change California’s hydrology, which imposes the most significant limits on the amount of water that can flow to the Central Valley and Southern California.”
While visiting North Carolina, which was ravaged by Hurricane Helene, and California on Friday, Trump said, “We’re looking at the whole concept of FEMA.”
On Sunday, he signed an executive order creating a 20-person task force to assess FEMA’s response to natural disasters.
Last week, Trump threatened to withhold federal disaster aid for wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles unless California leaders change the state’s approach on its management of water.
In the days leading up to his trip to LA, Trump said Democrat policies were preventing water from getting to the areas affected by the wildfires.
