Trump order skirts permit rules

Bass, Newsom decry ‘stunt’ and call for expedited funding for fire survivors

- BY NOAH GOLDBERG

COMMUNITIES trying to rebuild after the Jan. 7 fires lack money, not permits, Gov. Gavin Newsom said. Above, the Palisades this month.

(ALLEN J. SCHABEN Los Angeles Times)

President Trump has announced an executive order to allow victims of the Los Angeles wildfires to rebuild without dealing with “unnecessary, duplicative, or obstructive” permitting requirements.

The order, which is likely to be challenged by the city and state, claimed that local governments have failed to adequately process permits and were slowing down residents who are desperate to rebuild in Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

“American families and small businesses affected by the wildfires have been forced to continue living in a nightmare of delay, uncertainty, and bureaucratic malaise as they remain displaced from their homes, often without a source of income, while state and local governments delay or prevent reconstruction by approving only a fraction of the permits needed to rebuild,” Trump wrote in the executive order, which he signed Friday.

The action drew a sharp response from Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who dismissed the order as a “meaningless political stunt” intended to divert attention from recent killings of citizens by federal immigration agents.

“The President has no authority over the local permitting process, but where he could actually be helpful is by providing the critical FEMA funding we have been asking for, by speeding up FEMA reimbursements, and by regulating the industries that he alone can impact,” Bass said in a prepared statement Tuesday.

The order calls on the Homeland Security secretary and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to “preempt” state and local permitting authorities.