(* Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, 2017 – WIIN Act)

“There is no drought….If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that your farmers can survive” – Candidate Donald J. Trump, May 27, 2016, Fresno, California

“If we don’t move now, we run the real risk of legislation that opens up the Endangered Species Act in the future, when Congress will again be under Republican control, this time backed by a Trump administration.”  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), “Latest Compromise Drought Relief Bill Receives Praise, Opposition”, Capital Press, December 7, 2016.

President-Elect Donald J. Trump is poised to score a win-WIIN deal in the California water war as Congress has passed the bi-partisan Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act (WIIN Act – Senate Bill 612). …

“[Climate change is] a very complex subject. I’m not sure anybody is ever going to really know…. they say they have science on one side but then they also have those horrible emails that were sent between the [Climategate] scientists…. Terrible. Where they got caught, you know, so you see that and you say, what’s this all about. I absolutely have an open mind.”

– President-elect Donald Trump, “Donald Trump’s New York Times Interview: Full Transcript,” November 23, 2016. Quoted in Joe Romm, “Trump Fools the New York Times on Climate Change, ThinkProgress, November 23, 2016.

It has been seven years this month since the intellectual scandal erupted called Climategate. With President-elect Trump’s recent reference to the scandal, it is timely to recall some of the more salient quotations.…

“Science is science and facts are facts. My administration will ensure that there will be total transparency and accountability without political bias. The American people deserve this and I will make sure this is the culture of my administration.”

– Donald Trump, quoted in  “What Do the Presidential Candidates Know about Science?” Scientific American, September 13, 2016.

In the “Presidential Science Debate 2016,” a science literacy project with media partner Scientific American, candidate Donald Trump gave answers that continue to elucidate his views on energy and the environment. (Answers were also provided by Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson did not choose to participate in the questionnaire.)

Trump’s energy/climate policy views have been previously chronicled here:

• Trump on Energy: Promising Free Market Directions (March 31, 2016)
• Trump’s Energy Speech: Strong Free Market Directions (June 1, 2016);
• Trump on Climate in 2009 (crony aside now corrected) (June 13, 2016)
• GOP Energy Platform: Free Market Directions (July 20, 2016)

Trump’s energy views, below, are not quite free-market or libertarian with a seeming role for nuclear power despite its non-competitiveness and a possible continuation of renewable-energy subsidies.…

“A ‘crisis is a terrible thing to waste.’ So is a non-crisis.”  – —author

“’There is no drought’… You have a water problem that is so insane. It is so ridiculous where they’re taking the water and shoving it out to the sea in order to protect a certain kind of three-inch fish.”

— Donald Trump, Fresno, California, May 27, 2016

“We have been assured that once the winter rains and snow returned so would California’s water supply. Despite storage levels near or above 100% in California’s major reservoirs, we understand … FWS (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) is “now proposing… actions that will significantly reduce the water available to Californians”.… FWS has requested up to 300,000 acre-feet of water be purchased to further increase (Sacramento) Delta outflow this summer for Delta Smelt – something not required by the Delta Smelt biological opinion…the cost could approach $500 million.”