PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) – President Donald Trump’s administration has recently destroyed Southern California by embracing money for a wildfire mitigation project funded through legislation defended by his democratic predecessor It threatens efforts to prevent such catastrophic flames.
The decision undermines Trump’s repeated claims that while visiting Los Angeles last month, the area needs to clear flammable materials such as fallen branches and undergrowth.
Home Affairs spokesman Elizabeth Peace said in an email that the mitigation work is “currently under review to ensure consistency” with Trump’s executive order.
Scrutiny only applies to projects that use money from the bipartisan infrastructure and inflation reduction laws, two centerpieces of the former President Joe Biden administration. They included around $3 billion for wildfire mitigation efforts, often known as dangerous fuel reduction programs.
Peace said those programs continue if funded by other congressional budgets.
The Repair Project of Romakatsu, a forest management nonprofit that develops and implements programs to reduce the threat of dangerous fuels and wildfires in Oregon, Northern California and Idaho, has 65% of its $17 million budget. Work has been suspended on projects funded by Biden’s laws that it provides.
Executive Director Marcoy said he fired 15 full-time employees after federal employees told him that funds were frozen for when they would be released were frozen. .
“To continue operating doesn’t mean business without knowing whether we’ll get paid or if the administration will withdraw some of this at some point,” Bey said. He called it “a truly challenging situation.”
Mitigation work, including removing small or dead trees through felling equipment or controlled burns, can prevent forests from becoming craters. Fires often take place in winter and spring in preparation for more serious warm months. The wildfire season traditionally starts in May and ends in November, but flames can occur all year round due to warm dry conditions that have been exacerbated by climate change.
The most recent example occurred last month in the Los Angeles area. There, the fire killed at least 29 people and destroyed nearly 17,000 structures in what is projected to be one of the most expensive natural disasters in US history.
Trump has been talking about forest management since his first term in California after a camp fire killed 85 people in 2018.
“You have to take care of the floor,” he said. “You know, forest floors are very important,” he said in Finland, “They spend a lot of time raking things together, cleaning them and doing them.”
He issued an executive order aimed at improving federal land management, complaining about California officials in 2020.
“I said, you have to clean your floors, you have to clean your forests,” he said. “There are a lot of long-standing leaves and broken trees. They are so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.”
“Maybe we just have to make them pay for it,” he added, “Because they haven’t heard us.”
Democrats are calling for federal funding to resume.
“Stoping these payments is not only illegal, but it puts rural communities at risk by eliminating key elements of the economy and delaying important tasks to mitigate the threat of wildfires “Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar said in a letter to the administration on Tuesday.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields defended the administration’s approach.
“Just because there’s a review doesn’t mean that this job doesn’t have a desire to accomplish,” he said. “A proper surveillance of the dollar is just as important as ensuring California recovers.”
Fields also said, “There were no greater advocates to restore California to natural beauty than President Trump, so he made the point to visit the region in his first week of office, and he was at a loss for the nation. It continues to put pressure on the region as well, as it reduces barriers to rehabilitation.”
The review ordered by Trump disrupts a $1 billion grant program that helps local jurisdictions prepare for fires through neighborhood risk assessments and community outreach programs.
Kimiko Barrett, a source economics in Bozeman, Montana, worked with state counties to secure community wildfire defense grants, with Grant recipients saying payments suspended for at least 10 days. He said it was told.
“We’ve come out of Los Angeles and learned this is a crisis that includes very specific risk reduction efforts,” Barrett said. “Without this program, the community doesn’t have the tools to continue the very important mitigation work that it needs.”
There are also concerns about how Trump’s recent executive order on downsizing federal workers will affect seasonal wildland firefighters.
Personnel Management spokesman McLaurine Pinover said firefighters are exempt from orders as public security workers.
But the confusion caused delays. Ben McClain, captain of the U.S. Forest Service firefighters in Washington, said uncertainty about whether firefighters are exempt from freezes has stalled the hiring process for seasonal wildlife firefighters jobs. I stated.
Applicants that McLain selected for the crew received some of the information they needed to complete, including medical and drug testing and fingerprints, to be officially hired. However, the process has not been completed because HR does not have permission from the agency to advance, he said.
“We’re very confused and nothing has been said,” he said. “I don’t know who’s job is to say that firefighters are an essential aspect of public safety and are exempt from employment freezes. But whoever it is, they say it. It needs to be because if they don’t, there’s a situation where people don’t call 911 and don’t have enough firefighters to go around.”
The bipartisan infrastructure law allowed a slight increase to 18,700 federal firefighters in 2022, but the workforce shortages and retention issues remain. A group of Democrats said that the U.S. Forest Service firefighters’ attrition rate was 45% over the past four years.
“Therefore, we need to focus on recruiting and retaining this very important workforce, rather than placing more uncertainty through arbitrary voluntary freeze,” the lawmaker wrote. .
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana and Washington Megalians. Washington Associated Press Writer Matthew Daly contributed.
