<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"><head><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml><o:OfficeDocumentSettings><o:AllowPNG/><o:PixelsPerInch>96</o:PixelsPerInch></o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--></head><body><div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px;"><div id="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml><o:OfficeDocumentSettings><o:AllowPNG/><o:PixelsPerInch>96</o:PixelsPerInch></o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><div><div style="font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px;" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpdc5a4191yahoo-style-wrap"><div dir="ltr"> <div><div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__row ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__row--story ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-layout--fixed-fluid">
<div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column--story"></div>
<div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column--story">
<div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1media-item__summary ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1size--medium" dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Can anyone verify that it's the Carr PowerHouse and Clear Creek Tunnel repairs that this article mentions as being shut down by DOGE?<div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1category" dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1category" dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1category" dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/28/trump-california-water-doge-00206796" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/28/trump-california-water-doge-00206796</a>
</div><div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1category"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/california" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1js-tealium-tracking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">California</a>
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<h1 class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1headline">
DOGE is hobbling Trump’s plan to unleash California’s water
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<p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1dek">Sharp staffing cuts at the Bureau of Reclamation are causing panic among the farm districts that Trump says he wants to help.</p>
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<img alt="Shasta Dam near Shasta, California, is pictured." title="Shasta Dam near Shasta, California, is pictured." src="https://www.politico.com/dims4/default/b18c34f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3107x1904+0+0/resize/630x386!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2Fa4%2F89%2F905ad58a4267b07c961c1a942e14%2Fcalifornia-river-deaths-66850.jpg" style="width:100%;max-width:630px;" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1Image">
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Among those fired are employees who were working on a power
plant upgrade near Shasta Dam in Northern California. | Rich
Pedroncelli/AP
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<p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-meta__authors">By <span class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1vcard"><a href="https://www.politico.com/staff/annie-snider" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Annie Snider</a></span> and <span class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1vcard"><a href="https://www.politico.com/staff/camille-von-kaenel" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Camille von Kaenel</a></span></p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-meta__timestamp">
02/28/2025 04:49 PM EST
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<p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">SACRAMENTO, California —
DOGE-ordered firings at the federal agency responsible for delivering
water to farms and cities across California are getting in the way of
President Donald Trump’s <span>order to maximize</span> the state’s water supplies.</p>
<p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">The Bureau of Reclamation’s
California office has lost 10 percent of its staff due to buyouts and
orders by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to
fire short-tenured employees, according to three people close to the
office who were granted anonymity because they feared retaliation.</p>
<p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">DOGE’s cuts are already hurting
Reclamation’s ability to move water through a sprawling system of pumps,
canals and reservoirs to roughly a third of the state’s farmland — and
impeding the agency’s ability to ratchet up deliveries in line with
Trump’s demand, the people said.</p>
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<p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">The sharp cuts being leveled on Reclamation mirror those being imposed by the Trump administration <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/26/trump-administration-federal-agencies-mass-layoffs-00206222" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1js-tealium-tracking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">across the federal government</a>
as Musk’s team of aides and other agencies have sought to slash
spending. But their impact on a dusty corner of the federal bureaucracy
that has taken outsized importance in the president’s mind offers a case
study in how DOGE’s bulldozer approach stands to upend one of the
president’s dearest policy goals.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Trump’s long-running feud with state Democrats over water restrictions escalated in January when the president <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/09/trump-los-angeles-fires-00197449" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1js-tealium-tracking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">falsely linked</a>
hydrants that had run dry during the Los Angeles wildfires to those
restrictions. His first month in office was marked by an obsessive focus
on the state’s water issues, with the White House issuing not one, but
two executive orders on the topic and ordering an abrupt water dump from
a pair of dams.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Reclamation’s
terminated employees — some 100 of the agency’s 1,000-odd staff in
California — include civil and mechanical engineers, plant mechanics and
resource managers responsible for land acquisition and permitting,
according to documents obtained by POLITICO.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Among
those fired are employees who were working on a power plant upgrade
near Shasta Dam in Northern California, according to one of the people, a
Reclamation employee. That facility, which helps move water through the
federal system, has been sitting disassembled for weeks after the Trump
administration froze funding for it under an order halting <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/bil/docs/infrastructure/FY-2025-Aging-Infrastucture-Projects.pdf" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1js-tealium-tracking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">spending tied to the bipartisan infrastructure law</a>. That funding may soon be released, but now key staffers hired to do the work have been fired, the Reclamation employee said.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Agency
staff say the impacts were avoidable. “We could have made the 10
percent cuts, if we’d been allowed to, much more easily, with far less
impact to the mission,” the agency employee said. “Instead, it’s been
this baseball bat that’s been taken to it, and the targets that they’ve
hit are mission-critical.”</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">The
firing of probationary employees hit Reclamation’s California office
particularly hard because it had staffed up over the past year to fill
what had been a 30 percent vacancy rate. Now, Reclamation as a whole is
drawing up plans for a 40 percent reduction in staffing on orders from
DOGE, the three people said.</p></div></div><div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column--story ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1center-vertically ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1right-zone ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1hide-under-small"><div id="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1aside-0" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-enhancement"><div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1ad">
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<div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__row ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__row--story ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-layout--fluid-fixed">The
cuts have alarmed the agricultural water districts that Trump has long
aligned himself with, spurring more than a dozen of them to <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000195-4964-d76e-a597-4ffc46750000" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1js-tealium-tracking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">write Interior Secretary Doug Burgum</a>
this week to defend the staff and call for a “strategic and thoughtful”
approach to any additional cuts at Reclamation, which his department
oversees.<div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column--story ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1center-horizontally"><div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text"><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">“The
elimination of Reclamation’s staff would merely compromise its ability
to fulfill its mission of delivering water and power without
significantly promoting the goal of increasing the federal coffers,” the
letter says.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Interior
spokesperson J. Elizabeth Peace said by email that short-term impacts
to operations at the Shasta power station are being “mitigated” and
“immediate mission fulfillment is not expected to be affected.”</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">“We
will always prioritize our resources to ensure we are delivering
reliable and safe operations of these facilities,” she said.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Spokespeople for the White House and DOGE did not reply to requests for comment.</p><h3 class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__heading-medium ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1has-bottom-margin">The backstory</h3><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Trump has been infatuated with California water issues for nearly a decade, frequently lambasting the <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook/2025/01/24/whoever-smelt-it-00200544" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1js-tealium-tracking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tiny endangered fish</a>
at the heart of the state’s fish-versus-farmers water wars and mocking
Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state Democrats over water policy.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Within
his first week in office, Trump issued two executive orders directing
agencies to maximize California water supplies, and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/28/trump-said-military-turned-on-the-water-in-california-not-quite-00200907" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1js-tealium-tracking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">dispatched DOGE employees</a> to a Bureau of Reclamation pumping plant in the state’s water hub.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">DOGE
claimed victory on social media after that visit, when Reclamation
restarted a pump that had been offline for maintenance. Many employees
at the federal agency saw that announcement as a meaningless publicity
stunt. So they were shocked when the White House shortly thereafter
ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to hastily <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/31/trump-california-water-00201909" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1js-tealium-tracking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">release water from two Central Valley dams</a> — a move that wasted the water and nearly flooded downstream farms, according to local officials.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Now,
DOGE’s staffing moves are having very real repercussions on
Reclamation’s ability to carry out Trump’s stated goal of delivering
more water.</p><h3 class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__heading-medium ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1has-bottom-margin">The fallout </h3><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">The
impact of the staffing shortage on water deliveries to farms could soon
be even more severe due to planned staffing cuts related to the pumping
facility DOGE employees visited last month.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Near
the Jones Pumping Plant is a facility that catches endangered salmon
before they can enter the pumps that export water to Central Valley
farmers. Its operations are essential to carrying out Trump’s order to
maximize water deliveries, since federal environmental rules — including
those crafted by the first Trump administration — only allow the pumps
to run if the fish collection facility is active.</p></div>
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<p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Seven
staff there are within their first year of employment. Agency leaders
intervened to shield them from the first wave of firings, but some of
them are on the list to be fired soon in a second wave of terminations,
the Reclamation employee said. Four of the employees physically operate
the facility, while three are fish biologists.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">“The
kinds of things that we’re being directed to try to maximize supplies
is critically dependent on the optimal functioning of that facility,”
the employee said.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Morale
at the regional office has hit rock bottom, the three people close to
the office said, with further firings and retirements expected. The
region’s director, Karl Stock, is among the employees who took a
deferred retirement, they said. Stock, an agency veteran who joined
Reclamation in 2001, declined to comment.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">The cuts are putting the California water suppliers that have celebrated Trump’s water promises <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/06/trump-california-water-policy-farmers-00202751" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1js-tealium-tracking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in a difficult position</a> as they ask for policy changes to get more water while reckoning with the risks to basic functions.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">The
fourteen local water officials who sent the letter to Burgum this week
primarily manage small water agricultural districts in the northern part
of the Central Valley — not the powerful water districts in the
southern San Joaquin Valley whose lobbyists include Trump’s former
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who remains close to his new
administration.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">In
their letter, they endorsed the goal of overall efficiency and said
they want to see the “badly outdated” water infrastructure system
improved, especially by loosening the environmental rules limiting how
much water can be pumped out of Northern California rivers.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">But, they wrote, it is mostly their local water agencies — funded by water sales to individual farmers — who <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF10042.pdf" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1js-tealium-tracking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pay for the Bureau of Reclamation</a>’s
services through contracts for water deliveries — not federal
taxpayers. Power production at the dams also generates significant
revenue for the federal Treasury Department.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">“It
is important to note that elimination of Reclamation staff will not
further the goal of achieving significant cost savings to the American
people,” they wrote.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Not
only do the job cuts imperil Trump’s agenda to increase water supplies,
they wrote, but also the agency’s basic contracts to deliver water to
its paying customers. The Central Valley Project operated by the Bureau
of Reclamation moves water through a 450-mile series of dams, aqueducts,
pumps and pipes from the wetter, far northern part of California to
some of the state’s driest regions in the heart of the agriculturally
rich southern San Joaquin Valley, irrigating roughly a third of the
state’s farmland, or three million acres.</p><h3 class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__heading-medium ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1has-bottom-margin">The future</h3><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">Reclamation
earlier this week forecast it would be able to provide 75 percent of
the summer water under contract with agricultural water districts in the
northern part of the Central Valley and 35 percent in the southern part
of the Central Valley.</p><p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">But
delivering on that promise requires careful modeling to determine when
runoff is expected to flow down rivers and into reservoirs as well as
the ability to physically maintain and operate the pumps that move water
around the state.</p></div></div></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container--story ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-layout--fixed-fluid">
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<div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text">
<p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">“It is critical that Reclamation
retains experienced staff to continue fulfilling its mission (and its
contractual obligations) of delivering reliable water and power supplies
to its paying contractors,” the letter says.</p>
<p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">The authority managing water for cities in the Sacramento region, meanwhile, echoed some of the same language <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000195-4966-d057-af9f-f9e672570000" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1js-tealium-tracking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in its own letter</a>
and raised an additional alarm bell about the risk to downstream
communities, like Sacramento, that depend on the Bureau of Reclamation’s
dams to prevent flooding.</p>
<p class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-text__paragraph">“It is my assessment that the
organization is already extremely lean on staffing, and further
workforce cuts would jeopardize its mission and place the American
people, who live in or near key federal water facilities such as dams,
in danger,” wrote Jim Peifer, the executive director of the Sacramento
Regional Water Authority.</p>
</div>
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<div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column--story ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1center-vertically ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1right-zone ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1hide-under-small"></div>
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<div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1container__column--story ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1center-horizontally">
<div>
<div class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-tags">
<ul class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-tags__list ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1is-expanded"><li class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-tags__list-item ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1title-tag">Filed under: </li><li class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-tags__list-item"><a href="https://www.politico.com/tag/california" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">California</a>, </li><li class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-tags__list-item"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Donald Trump</a>, </li><li class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-tags__list-item"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/water" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Water</a>, </li><li class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-tags__list-item"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Elon Musk</a>, </li><li class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1story-tags__list-item"><a href="https://www.politico.com/tag/doge" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DOGE</a></li></ul>
</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
<a href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://politi.co/4hYUmdp&text=DOGE+is+hobbling+Trump%E2%80%99s+plan+to+unleash+California%E2%80%99s+water&via=politico" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><span class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1social-tools__svg ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1social-tools__svg--x">
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<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/28/trump-california-water-doge-00206796#" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpedb70b1social-tools__link--more ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667enhancr_card_1554322318" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">
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</span></a><div><br></div><div id="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpe5a4dd14enhancr_card_1554322318" style="max-width:400px;font-family:YahooSans VF, YahooSans, OpenSans VF, OpenSans, Helvetica Neue, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" data-url="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/28/trump-california-water-doge-00206796#" data-type="YENHANCER" data-size="MEDIUM" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpe5a4dd14yahoo-link-enhancr-card ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpe5a4dd14ymail-preserve-class ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpe5a4dd14ymail-preserve-style" contenteditable="false"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/28/trump-california-water-doge-00206796#" style="text-decoration-color:currentcolor !important;text-decoration-line:none !important;text-decoration-style:solid !important;color:rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;" class="ydpd6a8aaf7yiv7815971667ydpe5a4dd14yahoo-enhancr-cardlink" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DOGE is hobbling Trump’s plan to unleash California’s waterSharp staffing cuts at the Bureau of Reclamation are causing panic among the farm districts that Trump says he w...</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>