Because the Eaton and Palisades fires raged in Los Angeles, quite a lot of Democrats and at the least one Occasions columnist claimed President Trump would punish California slightly than assist it get better from the devastation. If the record-breaking cleanup of properties — led by the administration’s Environmental Safety Company — is any indication, these fears had been drastically overblown.
On Jan. 24, Trump signed Executive Order 14181 calling for the EPA to “expedite the majority removing of contaminated and common particles” from the zones affected by the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, with a purpose to speed up efforts to assist the survivors get better and rebuild their lives.
On the time, the EPA interpreted the order to imply that the preliminary cleanup of hazardous materials needed to be accomplished by Feb. 25. CBS Information, reporting on the president’s formidable one-month deadline, quoted nameless authorities officers as extremely skeptical that cleanup might be carried out that quick. In reality, most estimates had been that particles removing would take at the least three months and greater than a yr for some properties.
“An EPA official on the bottom described the expedited cleanup deadline to CBS Information as ‘bananas,’ whereas one other former EPA official stated it might be almost inconceivable to satisfy this deadline,” the CBS News report said.
White Home nationwide safety advisor Mike Waltz oversees interagency coordination associated to catastrophe response efforts. “Simply three days after his inauguration,” Waltz instructed me, “President Trump was on the bottom in Los Angeles, noticed first-hand the devastation from the wildfires and vowed a historic sense of urgency from federal companies. Because of the president’s decisive motion, the Trump administration led a cleanup of hazardous supplies at a tempo by no means seen earlier than.”
It was and nonetheless is a Herculean cleanup effort: For the Section 1 cleanup, crews cleared properties by hand, looking for such substances as bleach, paint, weed killer and pesticides, in addition to batteries, propane tanks and asbestos. Greater than 9,000 properties had been searched and cleared (4,852 houses in Altadena; 4,349 within the Palisades) and greater than 1,000 lithium-ion batteries had been disposed of in simply 28 days.
EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Jan. 29, 5 days after Trump signed the Los Angeles cleanup order, instructed me he’s “immensely happy with the devoted women and men from the EPA who’ve labored tirelessly to finish the biggest wildfire cleanup within the historical past of our company.”
For a body of reference on how shortly the Trump administration moved in Los Angeles, think about what occurred following the 2023 hearth that destroyed Maui, a spot with far fewer properties. Section 1 cleanup there took 112 days.
An official with the EPA instructed me the Trump administration, working with the California Division of Poisonous Substances Management, primarily threw all the pieces however the kitchen sink on the president’s cleanup directive. The hassle required greater than 1,500 folks — EPA workers, state employees, some members of the navy — in almost 50 groups “doing reconnaissance, hazardous supplies removing and lithium ion battery work.”
State officers have praised Trump’s L.A. effort as effectively. In a letter dated Feb. 26, Yana Garcia, California secretary for environmental safety, thanked Zeldin profusely for the EPA’s “historic collaboration with the California Division of Poisonous Substances Management (DTSC) to attain this important milestone.”
“Once we met in early February, prior experiences advised that Section 1 might take months. But the work was accomplished in a matter of weeks,” Garcia wrote.
The Military Corps of Engineers was in a position to start Section 2 of the cleanup — requiring extra sophisticated efforts at 4,400 properties — as Section 1 was in progress, which once more ought to assist velocity the work required to let residents rebuild.
The purpose is straightforward: The Trump administration is displaying excessive governing competence in serving to Los Angeles get better from the wildfires, and no indicators in any respect of punishing a deeply blue state.
There’s widespread, bipartisan settlement that federal and native officers are working effectively collectively. And regardless of some clear political variations the president has with sure California insurance policies, it has clearly not affected the important work of the federal authorities serving to native residents get again on their ft.
This was an enormous take a look at for Trump, and he handed it with flying colours. The pearl-clutching and political fear-mongering from Democrats was clearly overblown.
Scott Jennings is a CNN senior political commentator and a former particular assistant to President George W. Bush.
