President Donald Trump took environmentally focused executive action on June 12, issuing memoranda concerning wildfires and the Columbia River.
“The devastation of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires shocked the American people and highlighted the catastrophic consequences when State and local governments are unable to quickly respond to such disasters,” the president wrote in the memorandum. “In too many cases, including in California, a slow and inadequate response to wildfires is a direct result of reckless mismanagement and lack of preparedness.”
“The Federal Government can empower State and local leaders by streamlining Federal wildfire capabilities to improve their effectiveness and promoting commonsense, technology-enabled local strategies for land management and wildfire response and mitigation,” he added.
The president ordered the secretaries of agriculture and the interior, as well as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, to figure out ways in which the federal government can foster efficiencies and empower a localized common-sense approach to wildland fire mitigation and response.
This includes a directive to “identify rules that impede wildfire prevention, detection, or response and consider eliminating or revising those rules, as consistent with applicable law. This consideration and any resulting rulemaking proceedings shall be reflected in the Fall 2025 Unified Regulatory Agenda.”
Trump’s memo revoked one that President Joe Biden issued regarding the Basin in 2023. Biden had expressed concern about the federal government’s operation of dams on the Columbia River Basin, stating that it had “severely depleted fish populations.”
Biden went on to say his administration’s priority was to operate the Columbia River System “in a manner that provides equitable treatment for fish and wildlife with the other purposes for which the Federal dams are managed and operated.” The policy directed his administration to pursue restoration of native fish populations and “secure a clean and resilient energy future for the region,” among other things.
According to Trump, Biden’s policy led the government to consider breaching four dams and “eliminating over 3,000 megawatts of secure, reliable, and affordable hydroelectric generating capacity.”
“The negative impacts from these reckless acts, if completed, would be devastating for the region, and there would be no viable approach to replace the low-cost, baseload energy supplied; the critical shipping channels lost; the vital water supply for local farmers reduced; or the recreational opportunities that would no longer be possible as a result of these acts,” Trump’s memo read.
In both that order and the one on June 12, Trump criticized what he described as a “radical green agenda.”
“My Administration is committed to protecting the American people from radical green agenda policies that make their lives more expensive, and to maximizing the beneficial uses of our existing energy infrastructure and natural resources to generate energy and lower the cost of living,” he said.
