With Eaton and Palisade fired in Los Angeles, most of the Democrats, at least once Columnist Claims that President Trump will punish California rather than help it recover from the destruction. if Recorded property cleaning – Leaded by the Government’s Environmental Protection Agency – There are any signs that these concerns are exaggerated sharply.
On January 24, Trump Signature executive Order 14181 Calls on the EPA to “accelerate the massive removal of contaminated and widespread debris in areas affected by devastating Los Angeles wildfires” to speed up efforts to help survivors recover and rebuild their lives.
At the time, the EPA explained what the order meant was that the initial cleaning of hazardous materials must be completed by February 25. CBS News, which reported the president’s ambitious one-month deadline, quoted anonymous government officials as highly suspicious that the cleanup could be completed quickly. In fact, most estimates are that it will take at least three months to remove debris, while some properties will have debris for more than a year.
“One EPA official on the ground described the expedited cleanup deadline as CBS News as ‘Bananas’, while another former EPA official said it was nearly impossible to meet this deadline,” he said. CBS News reported.
White House National Security Advisor Mike Walz oversees inter-agency coordination related to disaster response efforts. “Just three days after his inauguration, President Trump was on the ground in Los Angeles, witnessing the destruction of wildfires and vowing to the historic urgency of federal agencies. Thanks to the president’s decisive action, the Trump administration has led the cleanup of dangerous materials at an unprecedented rate.”
Past and still Hard cleaning work: For the first stage of cleaning work, staff clean up the characteristics with their hands, looking for substances such as bleach, paint, herbicides and pesticides as well as batteries, propane tanks and asbestos. More than 9,000 properties were searched and cleaned (4,852 homes in Altadena; 4,349 in Palisades), and more than 1,000 lithium-ion batteries were processed in just 28 days.
EPA Chief Executive Lee Zeldin, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate five days after Trump signed the Los Angeles cleanup order on January 29, told me that he was “very proud of the dedicated men and women of the EPA, who worked tirelessly to complete the largest wildfire cleaning in our agency’s history.”
For a frame of reference for the speed at which the Trump administration relocates in Los Angeles, consider the occurrence of the 2023 fires that destroyed Maui, which has become less and less property. The 1st Stage Cleaning there took 112 days.
An EPA official told me that the Trump administration, which works with the California Department of Toxic Substance Control, essentially put everything in the president’s cleanup directive. The effort requires more than 1,500 people — EPA employees, state workers, some military personnel — to “do the job of reconnaissance, hazardous material removal and lithium-ion batteries” in nearly 50 teams.
State officials also praised Trump’s Los Angeles efforts. In a letter dated February 26, California Secretary of Environmental Protection Yana Garcia thanked Zeldin for his great thanks to EPA for “historical collaboration with the Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC)” for achieving this important milestone.
“When we met in early February, previous experience showed that the first phase could take several months. However, this work was completed within a few weeks,” Garcia wrote.
The Army Corps of Engineers was able to begin the phase 2 of the cleanup – more complex efforts were required in the case of 4,400 properties, as Phase 1 was in progress, which would once again help speed up the work needed to rebuild residents.
It’s simple: The Trump administration’s extreme dominance in helping Los Angeles recover from wildfires shows no sign of punishing a deep blue state.
There are bipartisan agreements that are common, with federal and local officials working together. Despite the obvious political divisions of the president on certain California policies, it clearly has not affected the important work of the federal government to help local citizens get back on their feet.
It was a massive test of Trump, who passed it in bright colors. The Democrats’ pearls of grip and political fear are clearly exaggerated.
Scott Jennings is a senior political commentator at CNN and a special assistant to President George W. Bush.
