Trump blames state environmental laws for wildfires

President Trump took to Twitter on Sunday and again Monday to announce he knew what was to blame for California’s string of summer wildfires: the state’s environmental laws.

“California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”

Fire officials in California, however, said they did not have a lack of water for firefighting.

In fact, several of the largest fires are burning right next to large reservoirs and lakes that are full. The Mendocino Complex Fire is burning on the north and west sides of Clear Lake in Lake County. And the Carr fire is burning near Lake Shasta, the state’s largest reservoir, and has burned around Whiskeytown Lake.

“We have plenty of water to fight these wildfires, but let’s be clear: It’s our changing climate that is leading to more severe and destructive fires,” said Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director of Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency.

On Monday, U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Davis, whose district runs from Concord to Ukiah and includes several of the major fires, also disagreed with Trump’s assessment.

“It’s one more display of his ignorance, his gross ignorance,” Garamendi, a former deputy secretary of the U.S. Interior Department, said on CNN. “Water flowing down the rivers, out to sea, has nothing to do with these fires.”

Trump may have been referring to a controversy that began last month when the State Water Resources Control Board issued a proposal to leave more water in the San Joaquin River as a way to boost the health of salmon, smelt and other endangered species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

Republican leaders in the San Joaquin Valley oppose the plan, saying it would reduce the amount of water that farmers divert. Last month, Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke toured the Central Valley and met with Rep. Jeff Denham, RModesto, who has urged the state to drop the plan.

In his tweet Sunday night, Trump also added that the state “Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!”

Many have noted that dense forests and years of drought have contributed to the fury of some of California’s wildfires. Large sections of the fires burning now, however, such as the Ferguson Fire near Yosemite, are burning on federal land, such as Sequoia National Forest, which are controlled by the U.S. Forest Service.