Before his reelection, Donald Trump suggested that if he were president again, he’d withhold federal disaster aid to California in the event of future wildfires if Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom won’t agree to divert more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farmers in the Central Valley — a move that some say would harm the delta smelt, an endangered fish.
Time will tell whether Trump was serious. In the meantime, local and state officials are concerned about what might happen if the president-elect were to carry through on his threat.
The governor’s office, when reached for comment on Friday, Nov. 22, referred back to comments Newsom recently made during an interview in which the governor said that if federal dollars are withheld or delayed in an emergency, it could lead to cash flow issues for the state. Newsom said he’s already thinking about next year’s budget, including a flexible account to deal with cash flow issues if they arise.
“You have massive fires that cost billions and billions of dollars just for the debris removal, let alone the recovery,” Newsom told Politico.
And if there are back-to-back disasters such as two storms, “you’re going to have serious cash flow issues even in a state as large as California, even with budget reserves that are significant,” the governor said.
In Southern California, local officials are all too familiar with the devastation a massive wildfire can wreak.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee and represents foothill communities in northeast San Fernando Valley – an area at higher risk of fires. She called Trump’s comments “unfortunate and reckless.”
“We rely on federal resources in times of need and emergency just like every other part of the country. That’s not a red or blue issue. That is an American issue,” she said, referencing widely held views that Trump is seeking to punish California, a heavily Democratic state.
In 2018, after California experienced its most destructive wildfire season on record at that time, Trump, who was then in his first term as president, almost denied federal aid to the state because of California’s political makeup, according to Mark Harvey, a former national security official who was serving as a special assistant to Trump at the time.
That year, Southern California was hit with the Holy Fire, which burned more than 23,000 acres in Orange and Riverside counties and destroyed homes and cabins.
Harvey told a reporter that Trump changed his mind about withholding aid in response to the 2018 fires after being shown voter registration data from Orange County where Republicans then had an edge over Democrats.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a message seeking comment for this story.
In San Bernardino County, Ellen Clarke, executive director of the Big Bear Chamber of Commerce, said anytime a president-elect makes statements like Trump did, it is cause for concern. City officials and firefighters in Big Bear do a great job in responding to fire events, but, Clarke said, dedication alone isn’t enough.
“You need money to fight these fires. They don’t call them wildfires for nothing. They are wild,” she said.
And being a mountain community, Clarke said businesses suffer each time there’s a major fire. Road closures keep tourists away – a big hit to communities like Big Bear where tourism is the economic driver.
“Here in California – and we live in the mountains – anything about fire danger is of top concern. I’m hoping that (Trump) does not make good on” his threat to withhold aid, Clarke said.
Adam Rose, a professor at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy who studies the economics of disasters, said it’s critical for the government to provide aid in situations like a devastating wildfire. After the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif., destroyed the town and killed 85 residents, the vast majority of its former residents did not return.
“It’s difficult for these people,” Rose said of the victims of major fires. “Disaster assistance is really important because a lot of people who live in places like this are retirees living on fixed incomes.”
“Withholding disaster assistance for a wildfire is really cruel,” he added. “Any individual homeowner in these areas are unlikely to be the cause of these fires and shouldn’t bear the cost of it.”
Rodriguez said she doesn’t know if Trump would make good on his recent threats to withhold disaster aid from California. But she’s concerned his comments will make it more difficult for homeowners to find affordable fire coverage from insurance companies.
The looming threat from Trump makes it all the more critical that Californians recently passed Proposition 4, which authorizes $10 billion in bonds to fund projects related to climate change, including combating wildfires, Rodriguez said.
The councilmember said she’ll continue to advocate for proactive measures in her communities to mitigate the risk of fires, such as restoring native plants that act as a fire barrier and “hardening” homes by installing fire-resistant materials.
Not just homes or businesses destroyed in fires would be impacted if recovery efforts were delayed due to the withholding of federal aid.
In a 2020 report in the science journal Nature Sustainability, researchers wrote that “disasters may also have large indirect impacts on economic activities that extend much beyond the location of physical destruction or smoke.” Interruptions to transportation systems or the workforce could impact the supply chain, for example.
The researchers estimated that the national economic impact of California’s wildfires in 2018 was about $148.5 billion, which included about $27.7 billion in capital losses, $32.2 billion in health-related costs due to exposure to air pollution and $88.6 billion – nearly 60% of the total impact – to “indirect losses.” More than half of the indirect losses affected places outside of California “via production and consumption supply chains connected to California,” the report stated.
Rose, the USC professor who was not involved in the analysis, agrees that the 2018 fires impacted more than just California. But in his view, the economic impacts to other parts of the country weren’t nearly as great as they were in the state.
That aside, Rose said a decision by Trump to withhold disaster aid could be costly.
“Any delay in recovery has a significant economic cost,” he said.
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