Donald Trump on Sunday issued an executive order directing the federal government to override the state of California’s water management practices if they are found to be ineffective.
The order comes two days after the president visited the Los Angeles region, which has been devastated by a series of wildfires that have killed at least 28 people and burned more than 35,000 acres.
Trump has falsely claimed that Democratic governor Gavin Newsom and other officials refused to provide water from the northern part of the state to fight the fires.
His order directs federal agencies to “immediately take actions to override existing activities that unduly burden efforts to maximize water deliveries”.
It orders the US Bureau of Reclamation to deliver more water and hydropower through the Central Valley Project, a network of dams, canals and other infrastructure, even if that conflicts with state or local laws.
It also orders the White House budget office to see whether it can attach conditions on federal aid to the state to ensure cooperation.
It is not clear whether those changes would bolster California’s firefighting abilities. Water shortages during the height of the disaster caused hydrants to run dry in some parts of Los Angeles, but local officials say that is because they were not designed to deal with such an enormous disaster.
Newsom has previously pointed out that the reservoirs in southern California were full when the fires erupted and that no amount of water could have contained brush fires whipped by 100mph winds.
He has accused Trump of spreading “hurricane-force winds of mis- and disinformation” and urged him not to politicize the fires when both parties should be working together.
“We will protect California against the flood of disinformation and assaults on our shared values, and work cooperatively with President Trump wherever possible,” Robert Salladay, Newsom’s senior aide, said. “It’s not hard to do both – the governor and President Trump did exactly that in 2019 and 2020, particularly during the pandemic.”
Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During Trump’s visit to Los Angeles on Friday, Newsom said: “We’re going to need your support. We’re going to need your help. You were there for us during Covid – I don’t forget that – and I have all the expectations that we’ll be able to work together to get this speedy recovery.”
At a fire briefing with state and local officials, including the Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, Trump said he was shocked by the scale of the devastation. He and the first lady, Melania Trump, received an aerial tour and then visited a charred neighborhood in the Pacific Palisades, where he greeted firefighters and spoke to residents who had lost their homes.
“It’s incredible. It’s really an incineration,” Trump said of the firestorms in the hills around Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Estimates of the total damage and economic loss from the fires could soar past $250bn, according to a new estimate by AccuWeather.
“We have to work together to get this really worked out,” Trump said.