California Wildfires Ignite Political Firestorm

LOS ANGELES, CA — As catastrophic wildfires ravage California, dozens of legislators are calling for a federal investigation into allegations that the Trump administration improperly denied or delayed aid to California wildfire victims out of spite.

Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, ignited a political firestorm last week when he claimed that President Donald Trump once ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cut off aid to California wildfire victims because the Golden State is “not part of his political base.” A letter signed by 26 of California’s members of Congress Friday called for a federal investigation into the allegations. Taylor's charge comes as California grapples with hundreds of brush fires, including the second and third largest wildfires in state history. The unprecedented number of wildfires is stretching state resources beyond capacity, forcing California firefighters to ask other states and nations for firefighting help. Cal Fire crews are battling the second largest fire in state history with less than a third of the firefighters they had to battle the state’s worst wildfire two years ago. At least six people have died in the wildfires currently burning across the state, and nearly 1 million acres have burned in California since July.

With so much at stake, the politics surrounding wildfires is heating up. At the Democratic National Convention last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom mocked Trump’s comprehension of the problem. The next day at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump, again, blamed California for the wildfires and threatened to withhold federal money — something he has done during the previous two years.

"I see again the forest fires are starting," he said. "They're starting again in California. I said, 'You gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests — there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they're like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.'"

He added, "Maybe we're just going to have to make them pay for it because they don't listen to us."

Newsom addressed the Democratic National Convention Thursday live from a California forest a short distance from the fires. The fires, he said, are proof of the devastation caused by climate change. He denounced inaction surrounding the problem, and criticized the president’s politicization of the crisis.

“Just today, the president of the United States threatened the state of California — 40 million Americans happen to live here in the state of California — to defund our efforts in wildfire suppression because he said we hadn’t raked enough leaves,” said Newsom. “You can’t make that up.”

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, followed up on Friday by calling for the investigation into allegations that the federal government improperly denied or delayed aid to California wildfire victims.
Lieu's letter to DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari states that, "It is imperative that decisions related to disaster assistance be free from improper political interference. Our constituents have suffered gravely from these fires and deserve to know whether any improper or illegal behavior has occurred...the notion that the President made decisions about disaster assistance based on the political preferences of disaster victims is alarming and carries with it possible legal implications. As such, we request an investigation into whether any inappropriate or illegal behavior has occurred with regards to California wildfire assistance."

If Trump has withheld aid to California for political reasons, he’s probably not the first president to do so.

“People have done studies and found that federal government disaster declarations tend to be biased toward states that have supported the person in office,” said Adam Rose, a research professor at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy.

When it comes to the politics of wildfires, it’s really about global warming, he said.

There are three factors they play a role in California’s wildfires, said Rose. There is the problem of sprawl and encroachment on forest areas, and there’s the failure of utility companies to maintain or monitor equipment. But the main factor is climate change, he said.

“It’s scrambling the weather, he said. “There are going to be more extremes of rainfall.”

A year of extreme rainfall will lead to a great deal of new growth only to be followed by drought -years, which leaves the state with great deal of dead new growth.

“If you don’t want to admit climate change is a major cause then you divert attention to somewhere else,” said Rose. “You shift the blame to the states for the failure at the federal level.”

The strategy is unlikely to serve Republicans well in California, but it may work for on the national level, said Rose.

It helps in those other states that love to hate California, he said.

City News Service contributed to this report.