California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass tour the downtown business district of Pacific Palisades as the Palisades Fire continues to burn on Jan. 8, 2025 in Los Angeles. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
Ring also pointed to "environmentalist extremists" in the state who have pushed for heavier regulations like the Endangered Species Act, which requires freshwater to flow through rivers and into the Pacific Ocean to protect the endangered delta smelt and salmon. The mandates restrict how much water can be diverted to storage, even during wet years.
"There is plenty of water," Ring argues, but the primary challenge in transporting water south to farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and cities in Southern California isn’t infrastructure capacity—it’s environmental policies. He points to a "consensus among the bureaucrats and board directors" overseeing California’s water management that prioritizes keeping more water in rivers to support the endangered fish.
"That’s true as far as it goes," he said, but despite these efforts, the salmon and smelt populations have not recovered. Additionally, there is growing concern that sturgeon may soon be classified as endangered as well.
"These endangered fish are being used as the reason to leave water in the rivers," he said.
A woman reacts as she evacuates following powerful winds fueling devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area, at the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, on Jan. 8, 2025. (David Swanson/Reuters)
California voters passed Proposition 1 in 2014, also known as the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act, which authorized $2.7 billion in bonds to increase the state's water storage capacity through building new reservoirs and groundwater storage facilities. Yet as of January 2025, no new reservoirs have been completed under Prop. 1.
"And here it's been all these years, and we haven't done a shovel full of dirt to move to make the project," Dahle said. "The project is just not funded, and we had $100 billion in surplus, and we didn't fund it. And so that's the frustrating part, I think, for most Californians, is that when we had the money, and we didn't do anything about it."
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The largest of the wildfires, the Eaton Fire near Altadena and Pasadena, has scorched more than 27,000 acres, Cal Fire reported as of midday Thursday.
When reached for comment, Newsom's spokesperson Izzy Gardon told Fox News Digital, "The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need."
Jamie Joseph is a writer who covers politics. She leads Fox News Digital coverage of the Senate.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/devastating-california-had-record-rainfall-last-year-lacked-infrastructure-store