President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday signed a memorandum exempting federal firefighting, including aerial fire retardant, from Clean Water Act permits.
The White House said the step is meant to protect communities facing wildfire risk and to prompt action before fires grow into disasters that destroy timber and threaten water supplies and watersheds. It said firefighters need tools to protect rural communities and natural resources during the 2027 fire season.
According to the fact sheet, the memorandum finds that the exemption is in the paramount interest of the United States. It applies to federal firefighting, including using, deploying and releasing fire retardant from aircraft. The White House said the move follows an adverse district court decision that now requires a Clean Water Act permit for aerial retardant in federal wildland firefighting.
The White House said the U.S. Forest Service has tried repeatedly to obtain a permit and has not succeeded because of significant regulatory hurdles. The memorandum meets those permit requirements for one year, the White House said. It said careful use of aerial retardant will safeguard people, jobs, towns, infrastructure and natural resources.
The White House said long-running lawsuits created legal uncertainty and rules that constrained firefighters working in difficult conditions. It described wildfire as a serious national threat to forests and rangelands and said the Forest Service must be equipped to respond.
The fact sheet presented the memorandum as part of a longer set of actions. In Trump’s first term, he signed legislation that changed funding for suppression work by the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior, the White House said. Before that change, it said, agencies had to shift money out of prevention programs to cover rising firefighting costs.
In March 2025, Trump signed an order to raise domestic timber production and streamline forest policies, and a separate order on how states, localities and residents prepare for wildfire and other incidents, the White House said. In June 2026 the White House issued a National Resilience Strategy. In January 2026 he signed an order to speed rebuilding in the Pacific Palisades and Eaton Canyon areas after fires destroyed nearly 40,000 acres of homes and businesses, according to the fact sheet.
A separate White House fact sheet dated June 12, 2025 said an executive order Trump signed that day directed the interior and agriculture secretaries to combine wildland fire programs. That fact sheet said the order also told agencies to change rules so preventive prescribed fires and suitable retardant use could proceed, and told the defense secretary to give priority to selling surplus aircraft and parts for wildfire work.
The Tuesday fact sheet did not name the district court or the case. It did not say which waterways are covered or what will happen when the one-year period ends.