Trump’s Executive Order Puts Feds in Charge of California Wildfire Rebuild
The order strikes out all state permitting obstacles.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order placing the federal government in charge of the rebuild in Los Angeles, CA, following the January 2025 Pacific Palisades wildfires.
“I want to see if we can take over the city and state and just give the people their permits they want to build,” Trump told The California Post.
Trump pointed out the failures of Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, as well as the Biden administration’s slow response.
“The State and local governments failed to engage in responsible forest management systems out of a misguided commitment to naturalist and climate policies, which increased the severity of the fires,” according to the order. “They failed to maintain water distribution and reservoir systems so that these systems would be available and fully functional in case of emergency.
In fact, nothing happened until Trump took office when he signed EO 14181 (Emergency Measures to Provide Water Resources in California and Improve Disaster Response in Certain Areas), which delivered “the fastest debris-removal operation in United States history.”
“But since then, American families and small businesses affected by the wildfires have been forced to continue living in a nightmare of delay, uncertainty, and bureaucratic malaise as they remain displaced from their homes, often without a source of income, while State and local governments delay or prevent reconstruction by approving only a fraction of the permits needed to rebuild,” Trump noted.
The California Post reported that the wildfires destroyed approximately 16,000 structures.
Well, Los Angeles officials have issued only 2,600 permits to rebuild.
The Federal Government has approved numerous individual relief claims to provide financial support directly to owners of homes and businesses and help survivors repair, rebuild, return home, reopen their businesses, and restore their communities. But many homeowners and businesses have been unable to use these funds as they navigate overly burdensome, confusing, and inconsistent permitting requirements, duplicative permitting reviews, procedural bottlenecks, and administrative delays at the city, county, and State levels. Elected leaders have refused to take even the minimum action necessary to allow many of these survivors to move forward and rebuild their lives — the ultimate tragic failure of the State of California and City of Los Angeles to live up to their moral and legal obligations to their citizens. As a result, despite the Federal Government expeditiously clearing debris and doing its part to support survivors, the actions of State and local authorities have ensured that the vast majority of the tens of thousands of homes and businesses destroyed in the wildfires have not yet been rebuilt a year later.
The order strikes out all state permitting obstacles.
In other words, cut the red tape! It’s ridiculous that it’s taken so long.
In November, Leslie wrote that 75% of the Pacific Palisades fire victims remained in temporary housing.
Trump signed the order in the company of reporters from The California Post, which launched on Monday.
Trump reminisced about touring the wildfire damage and couldn’t believe no one was building anything.
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wrong!
it lets CA act mad and saves their horrible socialist budget to spend money on other things so dems can then brag how great they are with free meds and healthcare etc
They will be using California’s money to do this. They just need to kick the jams out in the permits/building process to do it. I have friends who live in the fire areas and they are working class and just want to rebuild. He was told another year before approvals will go through. Everyone assumes it was rich people who lost. No it was thousands of working class hero’s whose homes they did not protect like that museum they saved while watching the home next door burn. This is brilliant in trying to change California voters minds too, many of which were turning towards Trump.
I don’t want to pay a dime for rich CA residents to rebuild their houses.
1000%
If the rich leftists don’t care that they can’t rebuild their mansions, I simply don’t care.
Why are we going to save them from their voting.
I did read somewhere that much of the area burnt out tended GOP, but I don’t know if that’s true.
But it really doesn’t matter. It is simply the RIGHT THING TO DO to help people rebuild after such a disaster, regardless of whom they vote for! Trump hasn’t offered to pay for the houses to be rebuilt, you know; just to stop the government obstruction to it happening
I’ve read that as well. Doesn’t matter to me frankly who they are. I don’t mind if the goal is only to force building permits but past that they have their insurance money,
Trump is a megalomaniac. He is also inconsistent, irrational, and perhaps worse than any other flaw, wants to be loved by all. Helping California on this front is insane. Citizens of California, who hate Trump root and branch, voted for this. They would vote for it again tomorrow. Here Trump puts himself on the firing line. If it all blows up, California residents can now blame him. Also: why should the rest of America subsidize California madness at any level? Elections have consequences, to quote a jug-eared wag.
Trump is either crazy or brilliant, perhaps both, this could work in his favor. Normal response from leftist California politicians is to sue, so are Newsom, Bass, et al going to sue Trump to STOP rebuilding? That’s not a good look.
I find it brilliant. Sue or don’t sue, Trump wins because those home owners are going to remember who helped them and it wasn’t Democrats.
“those home owners are going to remember”
Balderdash. They have the memory span of a goldfish.
They’ve forgotten (or never knew) that Democrats incinerated kids at Waco and deported Elian Gonzales at “fully-semiautomatic” gunpoint.
Never, ever expect gratitude from the entitled. Altruism is a mug’s game.
It’s not the homeowners Trump is concerned about. It’s the public-at-large. If there’s major visual progress, the midterms are his.
If there’s demonstrable progress, it makes him look gold
I think Trump knows that this won’t happen, and his base doesn’t wat it, but I also think he’s just baiting the left.
They are so predictable in their nonsense.
Bass and Newsom are going to sue to stop Trump from letting people rebuild and all the leftist politicians are going to start making speeches about his ‘overreach’.
Then he’ll just shrug and say, ‘see? Leftists don’t want you to rebuild’. And then walk away.
could be but they already can see how the red tape loving socialist economy shuts down growth
the leftists want that land and want it bad
But they clearly don’t yet see it hard enough, because they’re still voting for the same “usual gang of idiots.”
This is just a bailout, wearing a different kind of hat. A political bailout.
Trolling would be great, but an EO is a commitment.
they just choose the lesser of 2 evils:
back djt and get the sh burned down by antifa/blmplo or wait out the next wildfires
Great reasons not to piss away OUR money on either outcome.
I said this elsewhere, but I’ll say it here again: Why should President Trump help out here? The residents who got burned out for the most part voted for the political leaders who imposed these burdensome rules and regs. Let them stew in a mess of their own making.
It’s cute that you believe any of California’s elections legitimate in any way.
If we still had a coherent legal system with universal and consistent applicability of the laws, I think this would be shaky as far as appropriate spheres of power. But today . . . ?
Subotai Bahadur
What is the legal basis for this “takeover”? Which law authorizes him to do this?
the lefts fluidity
The I have a pen and a phone law (and later a brain dead president with an autopen) that the sainted one used to sneer about.
‘Scuse me, Millhouse, you dropped your mask.
Say, weren’t you headed out the door?
Or did that stint as Mamdani’s fluffer fall through?
Unless its fed property, zoning and permits are typically local control. This hasn’t been fully explained. Trump appears to be trying novel approach.
Couldn’t you frame not being allowed to rebuild your home as a Civil Rights violation, especially when the Government has no good reason to delay or deny permits?
CA is structurally broken from one party rule. It can’t or won’t fix itself from within. The traditional way of getting permits fast tracked in CA is to hire permit “expediter” at great out of pocket expense, who gets your permits advanced to the front of the waiting line. Its corrupt system. It requires outside pressure to reform CA.