President Donald Trump’s second administration has brought with it an uncertain geopolitical future, and as far as the environment is concerned, the cards aren’t looking promising. Trump’s track record to date is clear, from weakening environmental protections to pulling the United States out of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
A measure of comfort may be found in the market forces underlying the energy transition, but for water, which lies at the heart of the climate crisis, the silver lining is harder to find.
Trump’s first term was marked by deregulation and underfunding of water resources and systems. His administration was quick to roll back the Obama-era Clean Water Rule, which extended federal protections to smaller bodies of water such as wetlands and streams. This reduced the government’s jurisdiction over many water bodies, leaving them vulnerable to pollution and degradation.
Concurrently, Trump’s first administration allowed water-intensive resource, manufacturing and agricultural sectors to operate with fewer restrictions on water use and pollution.
Less direct but perhaps more consequential was Trump’s stance on climate change – particularly his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. Climate change is having an outsized impact on water already, disrupting the water cycle and amplifying water-related issues and disasters such as drought, flooding and extreme weather. It’s worsening water scarcity across parched swaths of the globe, including much of the western United States, and contributing to record-breaking wildfires like those tearing through California now.
Trump’s second term will likely see continued efforts to reduce federal oversight of water resources, weakening environmental regulations and reducing funding for water infrastructure. While Trump has expressed support for large-scale infrastructure projects, such as reservoirs, pipelines and desalination plants, these types of projects come with significant environmental costs and are vulnerable to climate-related risks such as flood-related damages and changes in precipitation patterns.
A jarring transition back to Trump
Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. government prioritized the supply and quality of water, which makes the transition to a second Trump administration all the more jarring.
Through the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) committed more than $50 billion to improve drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure – the largest investment in water in U.S. history. Under the Biden administration, the EPA also implemented the first national drinking water standards for “forever chemicals” (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS), launched a plan to replace all lead service lines in the United States and prioritized environmental justice for vulnerable communities disproportionately affected by water quality issues.
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Meanwhile, Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, has drawn criticism for his frequent opposition to environmental legislation, including voting against the Inflation Reduction Act, voting to block carbon pollution limits for power plants and voting against extending the national flood insurance program. On January 29, the U.S. Senate confirmed Zeldin to head the agency, where he is expected to follow Trump's orders to dismantle major environmental regulations.
A looming security issue for Canada
Looking north to Canada, water also faces a precarious future.
At a press conference last fall (hosted at a golf course he owns near Los Angeles), Trump angered many Canadians by promising to solve California’s water shortages by tapping into British Columbia’s water resources. “You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down and they essentially have a very large faucet . . . You turn that, and all of that water aimlessly goes into the Pacific, and if you turned that back, all of that water would come right down here and into Los Angeles.”
That particular solution falls flat on both geography and economics. The Columbia River – and its Rocky Mountain headwaters, which Trump was referencing – flows from British Columbia to Oregon and is governed by a treaty between the two countries. A project to bring this water to Los Angeles would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
But U.S. actions on trade, climate change, environmental deregulation and resource extraction do pose very real threats to shared water bodies such as the Great Lakes, the Columbia River and the St. Lawrence River.
Canadians have long been united in their opposition to exporting water. This is codified in the Transboundary Waters Protection Act, which bans large-scale removal of water from waterways shared with the United States. While the current Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) does not apply to water in its natural state, it is possible that water may become a bargaining chip in future trade negotiations. Canadians need to be prepared for that eventuality.
If there is room for stubborn optimism, it lies in community- and Indigenous-led watershed governance initiatives. A shift in jurisdiction from federal to state and local authorities offers an opportunity to advance watershed-scale management and stewardship approaches that promote collective action across public- and private-sector actors within each watershed.
The fires currently burning in and around Los Angeles serve as a stark reminder that climate change doesn’t care what we think. The impacts of drought, flooding, fires and extreme weather events will continue to be felt across the United States and Canada. Governments can choose to embrace policies and investments that address these rising human and economic costs – or be left holding the bill and the blame.
Alan Shapiro is principal at environmental consultancy Shapiro & Company and an instructor in the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s Sustainable Business program.
