The Trump administration has some advice for local governments awaiting federal dollars to help them recover from last year’s devastating wildfires in Los Angeles: Stop relying on Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and go it alone.
“The governor goes campaigning to be president in 2028, trying to lob insults at the president all day, every day,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said at a news conference in the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades on Wednesday. “Like in between insult four and five of the day, he’s like, ‘Oh by the way, where’s my tens of billions of dollars’?”
Zeldin’s critique of Newsom, one of President Donald Trump’s chief foes, came on the heels of an executive order Trump issued last week that aims to take control of permitting to rebuild homes destroyed in the fires. Newsom and others have countered that instead of trying to muscle in on the permitting process that’s always been under the control of local governments, Trump should be assisting recovery by acting on the governor’s long-standing $33-billion request for long-term aid.
But Zeldin landed Wednesday ready for political fisticuffs, saying that the amount of money requested by the governor was inflated. That, along with the constant attacks on Trump, meant that the ask was falling on deaf ears in Washington. The city and county of Los Angeles, he said, should pursue their own plans for accessing federal money.
