Jim Hartman: Conditions for California wildfire relief

Jim Hartman

Jim Hartman

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Congressional leaders wrestle over whether to add conditions to federal aid in response to the Los Angeles County wildfires, with Democrats wanting unconditional aid.

On his Jan. 24 visit to California to survey wildfire damage, President Trump demanded concessions from California Democrats on two issues unrelated to the L.A. wildfires – requiring voter I.D. at the polls and sending more water from Northern California to other parts of the state – in exchange for federal disaster aid.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson is discussing with House Republicans whether to link aid to increasing the debt ceiling.

Historically, federal aid to financially troubled cities and to Puerto Rico has come with strings attached. The California fires are both natural and man-caused disasters, resulting from policy failures.

It’s a bad idea to tie wildfire relief to unrelated GOP priorities like voter I.D., increasing the debt ceiling or dictating state water policy not relevant to the L.A. fires.

Democrats would accuse Republicans of holding suffering Californians hostage and they’d do the same to GOP states after the next disaster.

However, reforms directly related to wildfires are a good idea.

On Jan. 23, the House passed the bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act by a large majority vote, 279-141. Sixty-four Democrats joined 215 Republicans to pass it.

The lead authors are Arkansas Republican Congressman Bruce Westerman, the only forester in Congress, and California Democratic Congressman Scott Peters, an environmental attorney.

Along with Peters, the bill’s co-sponsors include California Democrats Jimmy Panetta, Jim Costa, Ami Bera, John Garamendi and George Whitesides. Their districts have been damaged by decades of fire policies and practices that have led to a buildup of combustible vegetation.

The Fix Our Forests Act is a sweeping measure that would streamline environmental regulations to make forest management happen faster, prevent “frivolous” lawsuits by environmental groups and prioritize community prevention efforts.

Delays in permitting have impeded proper management on federal lands, including in the Santa Monica Mountains and Angeles National Forest where fires have burned.

It takes the U.S. Forest Service on average 4.7 years to begin a prescribed burn – 9.4 years if an environmental statement is challenged in court – and 3.6 years for tree thinning and brush clearing projects.

The bill provides that courts would be prohibited from blocking fire mitigation projects because of technical flaws in environmental reviews. Federal agencies wouldn’t have to redo land management plans every time a new species is deemed to be threatened.

Although the Palisades and Eaton fires were mostly concentrated in densely populated areas and not forests, the bill could prevent such disasters.

Pacific Palisades, for example, is considered a “very high fire hazard severity zone,” a region that would be prioritized for funding and preparedness under the Fix Our Forests Act.

It would also let utilities remove trees within 150 feet of electric lines on federal land (the current limit is 10 feet), so they’d be less vulnerable to catching fire in heavy winds. Utility vegetation management plans would be automatically approved after four months.

The Fix Our Forests Act was reintroduced in January after it passed the House in September 2024 on a 268-151 vote. Supporters of the bill included influential Californians such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Redlands.

Although it had bipartisan support, the Biden administration opposed the bill in 2024, and then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer refused to allow it to come to a Senate vote.

Republicans in Washington can’t change the state’s policy failures. They should offer California fire aid conditioned on adoption of a bipartisan fix for at least the federal government’s mistakes that made wildfires more damaging than they should have been.

Californians should support sensible strings on aid that would make the state more resilient to fires.

E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.