“Putting People over Fish”: Trump Issues Memorandum To Redirect Northern California Water To Central Valley and Southern California

As part of a blitz of first-week executive actions, on Monday, January 20, 2025, President Trump issued a brief memorandum titled “Putting People over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California.” The Trump administration’s initiative directs the Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of the Interior to “restart the work from [Trump’s] first Administration” to increase the amount of water sent to the Central Valley and Southern California by reducing the amount of water that is allowed to flow to the Pacific Ocean through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Eastern District of California enjoined the implementation of a similar initiative by the prior Trump administration in a challenge brought by California’s then-Attorney General, Xavier Becerra in 2020. Becerra’s lawsuit challenged the legality of biological opinions issued in 2019 by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as well as an Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation adopting those opinions. The biological opinions at issue were prepared in response to President Trump's 2018 version of the “Putting People over Fish” memorandum, entitled "Presidential Memorandum on Promoting the Reliable Supply and Delivery of Water in the West.”

The new memorandum, in text and title, refers to the ongoing controversy regarding the Delta smelt, a small fish that scientists say is important in the Delta’s food chain. In 1993, the Delta smelt was listed as a threatened species under the ESA and California Endangered Species Act. In 2008, the FWS issued a set of reasonable and prudent alternatives (RPAs) for operation of the Central Valley Project (CVP) and State Water Project (SWP) that would significantly reduce water flow from the Delta to the Central Valley to protect the Delta smelt. Local water authorities and agricultural interests filed suit challenging the RPAs and their implementation. The Ninth Circuit upheld the actions by FWS and other agencies to protect the small fish under the ESA.

California has a complex water system and a history of conflict over water rights and distribution. Most of the state’s agriculture takes place in the relatively dry but extremely productive Central Valley, and most of its people live in relatively dry Southern California. Most of California’s precipitation, however, falls in northern California. The CVP, a federal project administered by the Bureau of Reclamation, and the SWP, administered by the California Department of Water Resources, are two of the largest water projects in the country, responsible for distributing water from Northern California to the Central Valley. Over the years, California has enacted numerous laws to manage these rights and the distribution of water. These include the 1933 Central Valley Project Act, the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act, and the 2009 California Water Conservation Act. These laws interact with state and federal environmental laws, including the ESA. Where water rights and distribution conflict with the ESA, courts have repeatedly found that the ESA must prevail.

President Trump’s memorandum requires the Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of the Interior to report to him on their progress implementing the “Putting People over Fish” directive within 90 days of its issuance. Any actions taken down the road to implement President Trump’s directive would likely face challenges similar to those encountered in 2020.

The California water wars will undoubtedly continue to shape western water law and environmental protection law for years to come. Stay tuned for future updates as the administration develops its plan to implement this memorandum.

© Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP 2025 All Rights Reserved. This Blog post is intended to be a general summary of the law and does not constitute legal advice. You should consult with counsel to determine applicable legal requirements in a specific fact situation.