Deplorable:
Leading congressional Republicans say they want to place conditions on aid for California’s wildfire victims, trying to force the state to fix what one lawmaker called “bad behavior” on policies ranging from taxes to land management in exchange for billions of dollars in federal help to recover from a natural disaster.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said Monday that “there should probably be conditions on that aid” and pointed to disagreements about California’s “resource management” and “forest management mistakes.”
Sen. John Barrasso (Wyoming), the No. 2 Republican in the upper chamber, also blamed the fires’ devastating outcome on “policies of the liberal administration out there,” during a Sunday interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“I expect that there will be strings attached to money that is ultimately approved, and it has to do with being ready the next time because this was a gross failure this time,” Barrasso said.
Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) said California and other Democratic-controlled states would need to atone for “bad behavior” if they wanted federal assistance.
“We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who’ve been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior,” Nunn said Monday on Fox Business. “We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy. We want to be able to help our colleagues in New York, California and New Jersey, but those governors need to change their tune now.”
It is too early, policymakers say, to determine how much help California residents and businesses could need after four wildfires ravaged the greater Los Angeles area. It could be more than $50 billion,
by some estimates, and a full assessment probably will not be complete for weeks. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-California), whose district has suffered some of the worst damage, told The Washington Post that rebuilding could cost more than $150 billion.
The death toll from the fires is up to 24, and thousands of homes have been destroyed. More than 100,000 residents have had to evacuate to flee the blazes.
Lawmakers typically approve federal aid after natural disasters without requiring states to change policies first.
President-elect
Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) for the fires. Water policy experts, however, have disputed Trump’s claims of water shortage in Southern California. They say the fires are due to a combination of lack of rain and severe wind.
During last year’s campaign, Trump threatened to withhold federal aid from California unless the state changed how it approached water management.
“The question is, what are they linking it to? And we’ll see. But if the aid is not provided because Republicans are linking it — the country is with the [Pacific] Palisades right now. The country expects that the federal government will come in and help people,” Sherman said. “Look, I voted for aid for Hurricane Sandy and Maui and Hurricane Laura in the delta in Louisiana, and the idea that something my party wanted would be part of that, it didn’t occur to me. No, we just provided the aid.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has sought to emphasize a robust response to the fires, pledging enduring support to communities that have been devastated.
Biden approved a major disaster declaration for California on Wednesday, allowing local officials and residents to tap federal resources. Biden pledged to cover 100 percent of the response cost for 180 days, with Washington paying for things like debris removal.
Both Biden and Vice President
Kamala Harris canceled planned travel out of the country to focus on the fires, and White House officials have highlighted some of the positive comments elected officials in California have made about Washington’s support.
“I asked for 90 percent, and he said, ‘No, I’m going to do 100 percent.’ It was a big deal,” Newsom said in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Other federal support includes a fire management assistance grant to help cover firefighting costs, additional firefighters and equipment from the U.S. Forest Service, and troops from the Defense Department, officials said.
“At my direction, hundreds of federal personnel and unique federal aerial and ground support has been sent to California to support the firefighting efforts and help communities in need,” Biden said Monday in a statement. “My administration remains laser-focused on helping survivors and we will continue to use every tool available to support the urgent firefight as the winds are projected to increase.”
Conditioning federal natural disaster aid on state-level policy changes as some in Congress have proposed is highly unusual, especially if those policies have little to do with the underlying event.
In a wide bipartisan vote, Congress recently approved billions of dollars in new disaster funding for Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia after those states were struck by hurricanes Helene and Milton. All but one of those states is led by a Republican governor. Congress did not place conditions on that federal assistance.
“Am I to understand that Californians, American citizens who are in the state of California, some 40 million of us, somehow are below the status of a citizen from a Southern state?” Rep. Lou Correa (D-California), who represents a district near the fires, said in an interview. “California is a donor state to the federal government. We give more than we get back. Maybe, should we suspend the tax revenue we give to the federal government until we’re able to fix the damage from the fires? I think that would be an interesting twist.”
