As congressional leaders wrestle over whether to add conditions to federal aid in response to the Los Angeles County wildfires, a first wave of bills has been put forward by Republicans and Democrats alike in response to the devastation.
The measures come as President Biden has pledged 100% federal backing for disaster assistance for the next six months, though with President-elect Donald Trump taking office in less than a week, the future of the funding is not completely secured.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), meanwhile, has said that although he intends to help Californians in need after the fires, he is discussing with his Republican colleagues whether to link aid to the deeply political debate over increasing the debt ceiling. House Democrats, including several Southern Californians, said they would not accept a conditional deal for disaster assistance.
The measures in Congress announced so far, among the first of what could be many, address topics including forest management, disaster funding and the powers of the California Coastal Commission.
Here is a look at some of the bills:
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Forest management
The Fix Our Forests Act is a sweeping measure that would streamline environmental regulations to make forest management happen faster, prevent “frivolous” lawsuits by environmental groups and prioritize community prevention efforts.
“There’s been decades of mismanagement and and climate change that have created unnatural conditions,” said Rep. Scott Peters (D-San Diego), an environmental lawyer and co-author of the bill, adding that environmental reviews required for forest management can delay projects, sometimes for years. “We waste a lot of time on process that we don’t have — we don’t have time for this. In the meantime, the forests burn.”
The bill was introduced Thursday with bipartisan support and might be the farthest along of all the early legislation.
Its backers are hoping that Fix Our Forests Act would overhaul the national conversation about forestry and fires, said Matt Weiner, chief executive and founder of the advocacy organization Megafire Action, which pushed for the bill.
“We keep getting overwhelmed. And then our solution set is to look back to the exact systems that keep failing us,” Weiner said. “When I think it’s really clear that those systems have failed us and we need to create new ones.”
The bill proposes forming a center to help federal, tribal, state and local agencies coordinating fire prevention, and track the areas where wildfires are more likely to ignite. The legislation empowers leaders to use new scientific methods to assess those wildfire-prone areas, and employ various forest management tools, including tree thinning, prescribed burning, timber harvest, fire breaks and dead brush removal.
“What we’re trying to do is use proven scientific methods and use common sense to go in and reduce fuel loads to make communities safer,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources and a forester. “I always say that forestry management is like the old adage: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
The legislation offers a refresh of a measure that passed the House last year with support from almost all Republicans and 55 Democrats — including prominent Californians such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands). The Senate did not vote on the bill.
Although it enjoyed bipartisan support last year, the bill drew the ire of several environmental groups, which said it would undermine key environmental laws and could have devastating effects on forests, endangered species and community oversight of federal land management.
“Our organizations recognize the challenge in addressing threats posed by climate change, including increased risks from fire. Unfortunately, the majority of this bill would harm forests, communities, the climate, water, and biodiversity,” read a letter signed by more than 85 groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club.
The Fix Our Forests Act captures political lightning rods for both parties. Overhauling “forest management,” especially in California, is a frequent battle cry for Trump and his allies. Meanwhile, progressives have long called for returning to ancient Indigenous practices of prescribed preventative burns, and the proposed bill would codify cultural burns.
“Everybody’s saying the same thing, just maybe different ways of saying it,” Westerman said.
Peters and Westerman are hoping that national attention surrounding the Los Angeles-area fires will help their bill garner enough support this time. Although the Palisades and Eaton fires were mostly concentrated in densely populated areas and not forests, Weiner said the bill could prevent future such disasters.
Pacific Palisades, for example, is considered a “very high fire hazard severity zone,” Weiner said — a region that he said would be prioritized for funding and preparedness under the Fix Our Forests Act.
“Around Los Angeles, it’s a different ecosystem than the large timber stands of Northern California or Canada, but the principle of treatment and reducing fuel load is the same,” said Rep. George Whitesides (D-Agua Dulce), co-sponsor of the bill and a co-founder of Megafire Action.
Firefighter hiring
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) on Wednesday introduced legislation he called Direct Hire to Fight Fire to streamline the hiring of federal firefighters, citing the L.A. County fires as impetus for the measure.
“Today’s unacceptably slow hiring process means critical positions used to defeat fires go unfilled and blazes burn that much longer,” Issa said in a statement. “We need this common-sense federal hiring process to bring every available resource where it is needed most.”
FEMA funding
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) introduced a measure Tuesday to increase funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The Preventing Our Next Natural Disaster Act calls for changes to how FEMA prepares for disasters, by increasing funding and giving priority to applicants in hardest-hit communities. It would also require a central database to consolidate information collected from all levels of government during disaster responses.
“From coastal floods to catastrophic wildfires, California is among numerous states seeing an increasing number of natural disasters due to climate change,” Swalwell said in a statement. “This bill would provide funding to communities that are most vulnerable to natural disasters to help them better prepare for these increasing threats.”
Coastal Commission changes
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) said Tuesday that he plans to introduce legislation to rein in California’s Coastal Commission. Kiley tied his legislation to a recent decision by the regulatory agency to deny SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, permission to increase rocket launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Musk’s company had requested increasing the limit to 50 rocket launches from 36 per year, but the commission turned down the request. The board cited Musk’s political influence — he is a close ally of Trump, as well as the owner of social media site X — as part of its reasoning.
Kiley said the commission’s decision showed “how the politicization of the state agency decisions can delay projects critical to national security.”
“Its history of irrational decision-making could threaten rebuilding efforts in the Los Angeles area,” Kiley said in a statement. “My legislation will ensure that critical projects are not held hostage by unnecessary red tape or political bias.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Sunday to lift certain environmental requirements to speed up the rebuilding process in areas affected by the wildfires.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
