The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #173787   Message #4216348
Posted By: Stilly River Sage
31-Jan-25 - 12:46 PM
Thread Name: BS: California fire danger-Los Angeles
Subject: RE: BS: California fire danger-Los Angeles
Voter ID isn't the issue here. Trump hates California, and he wants people to use other documents to register, things people don't always have.

I've been looking for information about FEMA assistance in California and don't find any recent news. During the fire, before Trump was in, they were visible and helping. No idea what is going on now. Meanwhile, he's nattering on about water.

This is dated Monday, the 27th: Trump Seeks to Assert More Control Over California’s Water

Here's a bit of it:
In a section titled “Overriding Disastrous California Policies,” the order tasked more than half a dozen agencies with finding ways to circumvent federal and state laws that control various aspects of water management in California. It also directed the Interior Department to make decisions about how to supply water around the state, “notwithstanding any contrary state or local laws.”

More confrontational language in the order directed federal officials to stake out their authority without necessarily working alongside the state officials who manage the state’s reservoirs and plan for droughts and fires.

Interior Department officials “shall take all available measures to ensure that state agencies — including the California Department of Water Resources — do not interfere with the Bureau of Reclamation’s operation of the project,” the order said, referring to a federally operated network of dams, reservoirs, canals and other facilities.

Many of the actions outlined in the order relate to restrictions governed by the Endangered Species Act, since the region is home to several imperiled fish. One of them attempts to convene a committee known as the God Squad that can override the law, ultimately leading to the extinction of a species. Conservation groups blasted the order and threatened to sue depending on how it is implemented.

Despite the language of the executive order, the White House is constrained by existing federal laws, state laws and nature, said Karrigan Bork, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, and the interim director of its Center for Watershed Sciences.