(The Center Square) \u2013 Following a sometimes fiery debate, the California Assembly passed a resolution Thursday that asks the federal government to fund more wildfire relief in Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n
Assembly Joint Resolution 27 asks President Donald Trump to appeal to Congress to provide disaster aid. It also asks Congress to grant that monetary assistance to the county regardless of whether the president makes the request. The resolution now goes to the Senate for consideration, but will not require Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something that every president in the history of this country has done \u2013 provide federal aid for disaster victims,\u201d said Assemblymember John Harabedian, D-Pasadena, and co-author of the resolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something that should have happened a long time ago, and every Californian congressional representative, Democratic and Republican, has called on this for months,” Harabedian said on the Assembly floor in Sacramento. “If the president isn\u2019t willing to do it, Congress must step up and provide Los Angeles with its money right away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Palisades<\/a> and Eaton<\/a> fires, which killed a total of 31 people in Los Angeles County, burned a total of 37,728 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention.<\/p>\n The Palisades fire alone burned 6,833 structures and is the ninth deadliest wildfire in California\u2019s history, the department said. The Eaton fire was the fifth deadliest in the state\u2019s history, according to CalFire<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thursday’s resolution didn\u2019t stipulate how much money California lawmakers want the federal government to allocate for Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n But Republican lawmakers who pushed back on the Assembly floor said the federal government has already transferred $6 billion to wildfire response and recovery, in addition to state efforts to aid Southern California communities affected by the fires.<\/p>\n \u201cGavin Newsom put in an invoice for $40 billion,\u201d Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, said during the Assembly floor debate on the resolution. \u201cYou know why? Because he\u2019s spending money like a drunken sailor and so are you. You\u2019re using their tragedy to ask for money because you can\u2019t control your spending habits.\u201d<\/p>\n DeMaio added that only 28 of 15,000 homes had been rebuilt in Los Angeles County and that the state\u2019s lawmakers should act faster to approve rebuilding permits, among other actions to help constituents in their districts.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we need a federal investigation and audit,\u201d DeMaio said during his passionate talk.<\/p>\n The resolution follows a slew of bills introduced this year that aim to help Los Angeles County wildfire victims who lost their homes in the January 2025 fires. Those bills aim to keep predatory land speculators<\/a> from making offers for lots where burned-down homes once stood for well under market value or compel insurance companies<\/a> to pay the full monetary value of a lost home, according to previous reporting by The Center Square.<\/p>\n \u201cThe initial federal support provided by President Biden provided only a fraction of what was needed for our impacted communities,\u201d Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks and co-author of the resolution, said on the Assembly floor. \u201cWe need to restore the lives of 1982,000 displaced residents. It is time for our federal government to step up and provide relief for California without delay.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2013 Following a sometimes fiery debate, the California Assembly passed a resolution Thursday that asks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27303,7,9,8,54523,91334,5131,457,47,137,4192,69802],"class_list":{"0":"post-195675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-assemblymember","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-carl-demaio","13":"tag-federal-disaster-relief","14":"tag-federal-government","15":"tag-gavin-newsom","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-county","18":"tag-resolution","19":"tag-the-resolution"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}