President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday directing the federal government to take over home rebuilding efforts in Los Angeles County, aiming to “cut through bureaucratic red tape and speed up reconstruction” more than a year after the devastating wildfires in Southern California.
On Tuesday, the White House released a fact sheet explaining that the order requires the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) to “preempt” state and local permitting requirements. California Democrats have been accused of slowing down the rebuilding process by requiring people who lost their homes to abide by burdensome standards.
“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 New York Post.
The Palisades and Eaton fires, which erupted last January, destroyed around 13,000 homes and other residential properties in Los Angeles County. In the past year, fewer than a dozen homes in those areas have been rebuilt, NBC News reported earlier this month. Delayed insurance payouts are also slowing some rebuilding efforts, and many residents are finding that their payouts won’t be enough to cover construction costs. California building permits and regulations only add to the high costs.
“Despite billions of dollars in Federal recovery awards and the fastest Federal debris removal in American history, only about 2,500 of the tens of thousands of homes and businesses destroyed have received permits to rebuild. Now a year after the fires, less than 10 homes have been rebuilt,” Trump’s order states. “Overly burdensome, confusing, and inconsistent permitting requirements, duplicative permitting reviews, procedural bottlenecks, and administrative delays have effectively stalled recovery efforts.”
The Environmental Protection Agency moved quickly last year to clear debris after the fires, an effort Trump said impressed him. He praised EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s leadership and told The Post that he plans to put Zeldin in charge of the new push to cut California’s rebuilding red tape. Pacific Palisades resident Nina Madok, whose home was destroyed, told The Post that she was impressed by the federal government’s “ability to expedite everything” after the fires.
“Having the federal government, especially with somebody like Donald Trump who is Mr. Let’s-Get-It-Done — who moves at the speed of light — makes a huge difference,” Madok added.
Shortly after the fires, Trump traveled to Los Angeles County to survey the damage alongside California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in what was the first trip of Trump’s second term. During a press conference alongside L.A. Mayor Karen Bass last year, Trump urged California leaders to allow residents to immediately return to their properties and begin cleanup and rebuilding.
“You shouldn’t have any [permits] at this point. You should just let them build,” Trump said.
Bass replied, saying, “We are going to do everything we can, slashing regulations, expediting everything so that people can begin the process right away.”
More than a year later, however, California residents are still frustrated with the state and local government.
“We need capital. We need resources. We need a real plan to get people back home and rebuild the infrastructure,” Mike Furnari, who lost his home in the Palisades fire, told The Post. “Why haven’t we learned from past fire rebuilds? The capital is here. The infrastructure is here. Look at where we are, this is one of the most incredible places in the world. Highest value per square foot, highest land value per square foot in the country.”
Trump’s order also requires FEMA to investigate whether California complied with the law, after his administration made more than $3 billion available to people and businesses affected by the fires. The order directs FEMA “to determine whether any of California’s nearly $3 billion in unspent Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funds were awarded arbitrarily or contrary to law, and to conduct a full audit of California’s use of those funds.” Most of that $3 billion is in the form of low-interest disaster loans for homeowners and business owners.
Last year, Trump also signed executive orders to address wildfire response and mitigation, and said last January that he directed the Army Corps of Engineers to release billions of gallons of water to Southern California to support the firefighting effort. The move was criticized by local California officials, who warned that releasing that much water could flood farms and have no impact on fighting or preventing fires.
