Southern California lawmakers on both sides of the aisle largely agree: No conditions on wildfire aid.
The nearly 30 House members who represent communities in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties are far and away against imposing any conditions on federal aid for California to help in the aftermath of the devastating wildfires that have destroyed thousands of homes and businesses in the Los Angeles area.
Of those lawmakers, three — two Republicans and one Democrat — said they’d be open to entertaining conditions for aid.
“Under no circumstances should there be conditions on disaster aid,” said Rep. Judy Chu, who represents Altadena, where the Eaton fire has burned at least 14,000 acres so far, destroying some 4,600 houses, businesses and other structures, as of the latest Cal Fire estimate on Wednesday, Jan. 15.
“Wildfires don’t have a political affiliation or a political party, and that’s why there has never been conditions on disaster aid for desperate and devastated Americans,” she said.
Still, not every local lawmaker is so steadfast in their opposition to aid, including Rep. Brad Sherman whose district includes Pacific Palisades, left utterly devastated by the Palisades fire.
“Certainly, the tradition in this country is you just provide the aid,” Sherman, a Democrat, said. “It should be a clean bill. That being said … I think the rest of the country wants to be confident that California’s doing what it can to avoid fires in the future.”
“I hope that we get a clean bill or maybe a clean a bill that makes it clear that California will evaluate not only its fire suppression capacity but also its resiliency and fire avoidance,” he added. “I would entertain reasonable things (conditions) such as anything to do with avoiding fires in the future and being in a better position to suppress them.”
The question about imposing some strings on wildfire aid is percolating in Washington, D.C., where House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has floated tying the aid to debt ceiling negotiations or otherwise imposing some type of requirement for the aid.
“Obviously, there’s been water resources management, forest management mistakes, all sorts of problems, and it does come down to leadership, and it appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty in many respects,” Johnson told reporters earlier this week.
“I think there should probably be conditions on that aid,” he said. “That’s my personal view.”
Johnson’s comments — and the debate over conditions — come as Donald Trump is set to begin his second term in the White House in less than a week.
The Republican president-elect has pushed his party to tie disaster relief to debt ceiling negotiations before, and he threatened to withhold wildfire aid to California the last time he was in office. Trump has been openly critical of California’s Democratic leadership in recent days amid the fires, often posting misinformation on his Truth Social platform.
But Johnson’s suggestion that future aid be tied to conditions has been met with a resounding no from those who represent Southern California.
Rep. Young Kim is a Republican whose district last year saw the Airport fire, which spread across more than 23,500 acres for 26 days in Orange and Riverside counties, destroying 160 structures and damaging another 34, according to Cal Fire’s estimate. She said setting conditions now would set a “bad precedent” for future disaster relief requests.
Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, is also a no on conditions for aid, said his spokesperson, Jason Gagnon.
“It is wholly inappropriate for Speaker Johnson to even suggest that he would condition aid to California, given these disasters have happened due to climate change, something no one can control,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Los Angeles. “At the end of the day, it sounds like the speaker is trying to penalize California for having strong winds and a dry climate.”
Rep. Mike Levin, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee that handles spending, said California is “being used as a punching bag in a time of emergency and tragedy for our state.”
“We can have good-faith debates about policy, about water policy, about wildfire preparedness, but that’s not what this is,” Levin said.
“People’s lives and safety must come first — there is no room for playing politics when it comes to disaster relief,” said Rep. Norma Torres, D-Pomona.
But two Republicans who said they would be open to considering conditions steered clear of offering any concrete details of what those might entail.
Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Hesperia, believes conditions “should be considered and looked at but has not committed to anything specifically,” spokesperson Connor Chapinski said.
Jonathan Wilcox, a spokesperson for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Escondido, also didn’t offer any specifics, choosing instead to lambast Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats. Issa, he said, “believes California and the Congress will benefit from a deeper dialogue about creative next steps.”
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Hawthorne, did not respond to requests for comment, but in a recent interview with NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo, she emphasized that now is not the time for “petty politics.”
“I don’t care who you talk about but don’t use up this precious time to do petty politics,” she said. “Use the time to educate and to share information and to let people know where they can get some food, where they can get a place to stay, where they can get some clothing on and on and on.”
The longtime Los Angeles-area legislator, who also serves as the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has, however, introduced legislation requiring the Government Accountability Office to study wildfire and insurance threats and responses.
“What can we do to prevent what we can with construction? What can we do with the materials that are used? Some materials are more prone to ignite quicker,” she told HousingWire, adding lawmakers should figure out “what can we do in terms of helping people to fireproof their homes in ways that we’ve never had to do before.”
Have conditions been placed on aid before?
After Hurricane Katrina, considered one of the most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history, made landfall in August 2005 near the Louisiana-Mississippi border, some lawmakers, while in support of providing aid, were cautious about giving it outright without considering the long-term financial impact.
Then-Rep. Mike Pence, a Republican from Indiana, in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, said, “As we tend to the wounded, as we begin to rebuild, let us also do what every other American family would do in like circumstances and expects this Congress to do.”
Pence, who ultimately supported the relief efforts, emphasized the need for Congress to figure out how to pay for the aid. Although the aid was not tied to conditions for Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, many Republican lawmakers, including Pence, called for budget cuts to offset the spending.
“Congress must ensure that a catastrophe of nature does not become a catastrophe of debt for our children and grandchildren,” Pence said.
Pence also suggested delaying Medicare spending. “That alone would put $40 billion back on the books that we could apply to Katrina next year,” he said at the time.
Some seven years later, when Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, many Republican lawmakers again opposed relief for similar reasons to those who did in the aftermath of Katrina. Then-Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina said Sandy relief should be offset by cutting government spending.
An amendment to offset a $17 billion relief bill by cutting from the 2013 budget was voted down, but 157 Republicans and five Democrats supported it.