The Republican Party is betraying a devastated Los Angeles

Try to imagine how Americans would have reacted last fall — after Hurricane Helene slammed Florida’s Big Bend region, killing dozens of people — if then-President Biden had threatened to withhold federal aid for purely political reasons.

What if Biden had blamed the destruction on the climate denial of Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, saying taxpayers in other states shouldn’t have to bail out Floridians for storms intensified by their elected leader’s fossil-fuel-friendly policies?

What if Democrats had said they’d help rebuild Florida only in exchange for the state’s red-leaning congressional delegation agreeing to make concessions on gun control, LGBTQ+ rights or some other partisan issue?

It’s hard to imagine. A president could never be so heartless. A political party could never be so cruel.

Yeah, not quite.

Even before he took office Monday, President Trump said he would approve disaster relief funds for fire-ravaged Los Angeles only if Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed to policy changes that would allow more water to flow from California’s northern rivers to southern farms and cities — a boon to Trump-friendly farmers in the San Joaquin Valley.

Trump’s allies sang a similar tune. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, suggested Democrats would need to make political concessions to secure aid for California, such as raising the nation’s debt ceiling, because Newsom and other officials may have made the fires “exponentially worse.”

“If Gavin Newsom and local leaders made decisions that made this disaster exponentially worse, which it appears there were, should there be some consequence of that?” Johnson asked. “Why should people in other states and other governors and other mayors — who manage their water resources and they manage their forests so much better — why should they have to take care and compensate for bad decisions in California?”

Fact check: Johnson’s claims about water and forest management are absurd. California has plenty of water in its reservoirs. The Eaton fire is burning on forest lands managed by the federal government, not the state. The Palisades fire is burning in a chaparral ecosystem, not a forest; better forest management would have made no difference.

Then in his inaugural address, Trump claimed the fires were being met “without even a token of defense” — an unfounded attack on Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats. Whatever you think of Newsom’s and Bass’ efforts to handle the fires — a nuanced topic — of course they’ve put forward a defense.

Even if Newsom and Bass could have done more to control the flames: Does that make it OK for the president to shrug off millions of suffering Americans as little more than bargaining chips? Does that make it OK for the Republican Party to treat the most devastating fires in L.A.’s history as a political gold mine?

No. None of this is acceptable. None of this is normal. And none of it should overshadow the fact that Trump and his administration are working to exacerbate a climate crisis that has fueled bigger, more destructive fires.

On his first day back in office, Trump signed more than a dozen orders rolling back climate progress. He ordered an end to a federal waiver allowing California to ban the sale of new gas-only passenger cars starting in 2035. He paused new wind energy development on federal lands and waters. He once again began the process of exiting the Paris climate agreement, which seeks to limit global warming to less-than-catastrophic levels.

Trump also declared a “national energy emergency.” Although it’s not yet clear what that will mean in practice, he said in his inaugural address that it would help fulfill his campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill,” for oil and gas.

“We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it,” he said.

No mention of the fact that the U.S. is already producing record amounts of oil and gas — or that the heat waves, storms and fires exacerbated by fossil fuels are terrible for the economy, as Los Angeles is learning.

Mass reports of illegal rent gouging as thousands of Angelenos scramble for housing. An already-brewing home insurance crisis that has only gotten worse, possibly leading to higher rates across the state. A turbulent time for one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, Southern California Edison, which faces lawsuits over its potential role in igniting the Eaton fire. Likely hits to tourism, film production, music recording and outdoor recreation.

And when it comes to rebuilding? Los Angeles may face a shortage of construction workers because of Trump’s pledge to deport undocumented immigrants, experts say. Trump has also claimed, falsely, that L.A. doesn’t have enough money to fight fires because city officials have diverted resources to undocumented immigrants.

On a related note, society’s most vulnerable members face an especially difficult road ahead.

In the Pacific Palisades, housekeepers and nannies whose employers paid their mortgages need new jobs. Same goes for restaurant workers whose restaurants burned down. Many Angelenos without permanent housing were forced to evacuate shelters, leaving them in more precarious situations. Kids with asthma and L.A. residents of all ages with preexisting health conditions may be especially at risk of health complications from wildfire smoke.

That’s climate change in a nutshell.

So what did former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), Trump’s choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency, say when asked at a Senate confirmation hearing last week about the effects of heat-trapping fossil fuel emissions?

“I don’t sit before you as a scientist,” Zeldin responded.

Then there was oil executive Chris Wright, Trump’s nominee for Energy secretary.

Asked at a confirmation hearing about his past suggestion that climate advocates have overhyped the extremely well-documented link between fossil fuels, rising temperatures and worsening wildfires, Wright held firm.

“I stand by my past comments,” he said.

So here we are. L.A. is burning, and Trump loyalists say the city’s elected officials are to blame, and they’ll help us only if the Democratic Party accedes to their demands. I would borrow a well-worn political quote from the 1950s and ask, “Have you left no sense of decency?” But the national Republican Party is beyond decency. Its leaders are totally disconnected from scientific reality, from rational debate, from basic empathy.

Not every Republican official is a lost cause. There’s still room for bipartisan solutions — maybe including the Fix Our Forests Act, which would streamline environmental reviews for forest management to reduce fire risk. It’s a controversial tactic among some environmentalists due to the potential for ecosystem damage. If Democrats can overcome environmental opposition, they might lay the groundwork for future bipartisan cooperation on fires.

But as many columns as I’ve written castigating Newsom and other Democrats for not doing enough on climate, there’s no comparison here, no equivalency. The Republican Party is betraying a devastated Los Angeles.

The betrayal will continue until Trump offers federal aid with no strings attached and Republican leaders start working to confront the climate crisis.

Twenty-eight people are dead. More than 16,000 buildings are destroyed. This is only the beginning.

On that note, here’s what else is happening around the West:

PODCAST: DRILL, BABY, DRILL

Episode 2 of the Boiling Point podcast, which launched last week, is now available! You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and pretty much anywhere else you might want to listen.

This week’s topic is — you guessed it — President Trump and “drill, baby, drill.” My guest is Ann Carlson, a UCLA environmental law professor and former Biden administration official. We talk about Trump’s inaugural address, his first executive orders and his planned exit from the Paris climate agreement. It’s not all doom and gloom. We also discuss what California and other states can do to keep making progress on climate. I hope you’ll listen.

Even for me, it’s been hard keeping up with the fire hose of climate, energy and environment actions pouring out of the Trump administration this week. Here are some helpful stories:

• Trump began the process of blocking California’s clean car rules. (Tony Briscoe and Karen Kaplan, L.A. Times)
• Trump ordered his administration to rewrite federal regulations to pump more water from northern rivers to southern farmlands and cities, potentially endangering at-risk fish species. (Alastair Bland, CalMatters)
• Trump instructed federal agencies to immediately stop distributing all clean energy funding from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. (Jeff St. John, Canary Media)
• Trump will once again try to roll back water and energy efficiency rules for household appliances, potentially leading to higher utility bills and more waste. (Alexa St. John and Seth Borenstein, Associated Press)

The president also set his sights on Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve, making it a Day 1 priority to rename North America’s highest peak from Denali to Mt. McKinley. More details here from The Times’ Lila Seidman. In Congress, meanwhile, Republicans from Utah and Nevada introduced a bill that would eliminate the presidential power to establish national monuments. The Salt Lake Tribune’s Mark Eddington has the story.

FALLOUT FROM THE FIRES

Los Angeles needs to rebuild in the wake of the fires. But what should that look like?

Some urban planning experts see the fires as an opportunity to add denser, more affordable housing — at least in some spots. Those kinds of changes would make L.A. more affordable and also reduce climate pollution (more density means shorter commutes and easier access to transit). But some folks, understandably, don’t want to be told their neighborhood must change — especially in the wake of tragedy, The Times’ Doug Smith writes.

An even harder question: Should we rebuild in every place that burned? Especially as rising temperatures make it ever more likely that these places will burn again? My colleague Rebecca Ellis tackled that thorny conundrum.

Wherever homes are rebuilt, fire hardening should be a priority — although in an era of climate crisis, it’s certainly no panacea. The Times’ Alex Wigglesworth and Joseph Serna examined why some homes survived the fires while neighboring properties burned down.

Leaders of the region’s Indigenous Tongva people, meanwhile, say traditional land stewardship practices limited the Eaton fire’s damage to their property in Altadena. Here’s the story from my colleague Rebecca Plevin.

Limiting ignitions is also crucial. Though it’s still unclear what caused the Eaton fire, speculation is swirling that it was a Southern California Edison transmission line. The Times’ Noah Goldberg talked with Edison Chief Executive Steven Powell, who said wind speeds in Eaton Canyon weren’t high enough to warrant shutting off the line in question.

In related news, state officials approved Edison’s latest wildfire mitigation plan. They acknowledged that Edison’s efforts to limit fire ignitions could lead to higher utility bills, as my colleague Melody Petersen reports.

Alas, we’ll never prevent every fire. Maybe artificial intelligence can limit the damage? The Times’ Queenie Wong and Wendy Lee have an intriguing rundown of AI tools that could help keep fires from getting out of control.

Bigger picture, we need to keep cutting climate pollution, or fires will keep getting worse. Furious over the fossil fuel industry’s role in slowing the clean energy transition, dozens of activists rallied at a Phillips 66 oil facility in L.A. County last week, with 16 protesters storming an office building, my colleague Noah Haggerty reports.

“Fossil fuel CEOs are responsible for the destruction that is happening right now in Los Angeles,” one activist said.

ONE MORE THING

Let’s end with some hope.

As sad as many Angelenos are feeling, we might take solace in knowing that it’s possible to rebuild after a fire — and find community in doing so, as Santa Rosa residents have learned. So writes The Times’ Jessica Garrison.

The Times’ Colleen Shalby, meanwhile, has a beautiful story about a long-lost, deeply symbolic mural uncovered by the Eaton fire in a destroyed Pasadena synagogue. And in a reminder of the resilience of the natural world, my colleague Jaclyn Cosgrove writes that Eaton Canyon’s native oak and sycamore trees largely survived the blaze.

When the fires are under control, I can’t wait to hit the trail.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

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