President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday, bypassing California’s state and local permitting processes to fast-track rebuilding for structures destroyed or damaged in last year’s brush fires.
The order aims to allow residents who are using federal emergency funds to rebuild their properties to bypass local permitting process, according to the White House. It adds that the reconstruction process should not “be frustrated by unnecessary, duplicative, or obstructive permitting requirements that prevent families and businesses from rebuilding.”
Trump blames California and Los Angeles leaders for the brush fire response in the executive order, saying they failed to responsibly manage its forests, maintain its water and reservoir systems and give timely evacuation orders as the quick-moving fires ravaged Altadena and Pacific Palisades.
“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,” the executive order read.
Local leaders criticized the executive order, with some suggesting that additional FEMA relief would be more beneficial to the rebuilding effort than dismissing local permitting laws.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said via his press office that more than 1,600 permits have been issued to rebuild properties affected by the fires.
“Donald Trump has signed a useless Executive Order rather than deliver the $34 BILLION California’s tax payers DESERVE in wildfire disaster aid to actually rebuild,” the governor wrote on his X account.
In a statement, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass echoed those sentiments, saying funds would be more helpful to wildfire victims.
“The President has no authority over the local permitting process, but where he could actually be helpful is by providing the critical FEMA funding we have been asking for, by speeding up FEMA reimbursements, and by regulating the industries that he alone can impact,” Bass’ statement read. “In fact, I’m calling on the President to issue a new Executive Order to demand the insurance industry pay people for their losses so that survivors can afford to rebuild, push the banking industry to extend mortgage forbearance by three years, tacking them on to the end of a 30-year mortgage, and bring the banks together to create a special fund to provide no-interest loans to fire survivors.”