Last week, President Trump’s Department of the Interior decided to exempt itself and the California State Water Project from rules protecting threatened native fish and their critical habitat in the Bay-Delta estuary. These rules are called “Fall X2,” and they require maintaining freshwater habitat in the Delta further west in wet years like 2017, when water is abundant. Right now, a request is pending with the State of California to join with Trump in weakening these rules. In 2011, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) concluded that, “The Fall X2 action is expected to be fully implemented in future years.