Operations of dams and canals that make up the Central Valley Project will still have to comply with endangered species laws or be subject to court challenges like the dozens environmental groups have waged in the past. | AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster Energy & Environment Trump jumps into Western water wars ahead of midterms

President Donald Trump is jumping into Western water wars on the side of agricultural interests just weeks before the midterm elections — a major political gift for GOP incumbents in some of the most competitive House races in the country where water supply is a top campaign topic.

The effort appears aimed at helping endangered Republicans including California Reps. David Valadao, Devin Nunes, Tom McClintock and Jeff Denham, as well as Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the sole woman in House leadership who is facing an unexpectedly competitive race.


Denham, McClintock, Nunes, Valadao and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy joined Trump in Arizona this afternoon for theclosed-press signing of a presidential memorandum. The memo sets a swift new timeline for reviewing the environmental impact of the dams and canals that pump water to central and southern California farms and communities and seeks to streamline all such reviews. It also addresses water supply and hydroelectric projects in Oregon and Washington.

“This will move things along at a record clip. And you’ll have a lot of water. I hope you’ll enjoy the water you’ll have,” Trump told them, according to a White House pool report.

It is Trump's latest foray into California’s long-running water wars and comes as the region has become ground zero for Democrats’ bid to take back control of the House. With his immigration, trade and health care policies deeply unpopular in agriculture-heavy regions like the Central Valley, the water move may let GOP incumbents boast about their influence with an administration that supports farmers over environmentalists and city-dwellers.

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"From my perspective, today’s action might be the most significant action taken by a president on Western water issues in my lifetime," Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said on a call with reporters ahead of the signing.

Environmentalists and fishermen blasted the move, which comes just weeks after the Commerce Department declared a federal fishery disaster for the 2016 and 2017 seasons.

"Western water mismanagement has been horrendous for commercial, recreational, and guide fisheries in California. Water users have sucked our rivers dry for far too long, and the fish have been paying the price,” Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations Executive Director Noah Oppenheim said in a statement.

Denham, whose Central Valley district is rated a “toss up” by the Cook Political Report, has touted his efforts to secure the region’s water supply in campaign ads and during visits from Trump administration officials including Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. He held a meeting in his district Friday morning with the political official who oversees the Army Corps of Engineers, an event he left early to hop on a plane to meet the president in Arizona.

“The future of the Valley is at stake,” Denham wrote to Trump in a September letter urging his administration to fight the state’s plan.

Denham has tried to block the federal government from operating its canals and reservoirs in coordination of the state plan, and has urged the EPA to review the state’s science supporting the plan. Valadao and Nunes — who also are facing tough re-election contests — also have pushed for greater water deliveries to the Central Valley.

Trump's memo would set swift new deadlines on environmental reviews for key projects in the region, administration officials said. A copy of the document was not immediately available Friday. Initial biological opinions relating to California's Central Valley Project, which delivers water to the state's agricultural hub, will be due by Jan. 31, 2019, with a final joint opinion due 135 days later. That's far faster than parties on the ground have anticipated.

But aside from offering a political win to California Republicans, it’s unclear how much more the Trump administration can do to affect the amount of water delivered to their constituents.

Operations of dams and canals that make up the Central Valley Project will still have to comply with endangered species laws or be subject to court challenges like the dozens environmental groups have waged in the past. And even if federal changes stand, the state of California could determine that it needs to change the operation of its separate water delivery system to make up for the lost environmental protections — resulting in smaller water deliveries on its end.

In an August memo, Zinke directed his staff to develop a plan for maximizing water flows to the Central Valley. He tasked his deputy, Bernhardt, with spearheading the plan. Before coming to Interior, Bernhardt was the long-time lobbyist for the powerful Westlands Water District that serves many of the biggest Central Valley agricultural operations.

The Trump administration's Interior Department has already threatened to sue the state over its controversial water plan. It has also told California it wants to renegotiate the 1986 pact governing how the state and the federal government pump water through the ecologically fragile estuary that serves as the state's main water hub — a move that could alter the balance of power between farmers and cities.

Beyond California, the memo also aims to stymie efforts to remove hydropower dams in McMorris Rodgers’ district, or alter their operations — a contentious issue she has made a key part of her re-election bid in Washington state.

A system of federal dams along the Columbia River and its tributary, the Snake River, produce nearly half of the nation’s hydropower but also serve as major impediments for fish, including endangered salmon. Environmental groups have long sought the removal of the four Snake River dams in Rogers’ district, and in 2016 they won a court ruling requiring the government to reconsider the dams’ environmental impact. Rodgers pushed legislation this year to overturn that court ruling and ban dam removal, but the provisions didn’t make it into the final government funding deal last month.

The memo formalizes the current 2020 deadline for completing a pair of key environmental reviews by 2020, according to administration officials.

And across the border in Oregon, the memo moves up the timeline for federal agencies to complete a new biological opinion looking at the effect of federal water infrastructure on endangered fish species in the Klamath River basin. The drought-riddled basin is home to some of the country’s fiercest water wars, where farmers once took up chainsaws and blow torches to defend their water access.

Farmers, tribes and environmentalists in the basin spent decades crafting a water-sharing agreement, but it fell apart in 2016 after Congress failed to approve it, despite a push from Rep. Greg Walden, the member of Republican leadership whose district includes many of the affected parties.

The provisions in the new order are based on months’ worth of new negotiations orchestrated by a top adviser to Zinke. But tribes, who felt particularly burned by the collapse of the previous deal, have not fully committed to the new negotiations. They have a lawsuit pending that seeks strict new dam operations to protect fish species that are on the brink of collapse, and have had an upper hand in court thanks to their treaty fishing rights.

Nancy Cook contributed to this report.