President Donald Trump’s administration is holding up money for wildfire mitigation projects funded through legislation championed by his Democratic predecessor.

The decision undermines Trump’s repeated insistence that communities need to clear combustible materials like fallen branches and undergrowth — “it’s called management of the floor,” he said while visiting Los Angeles last month — to guard against wildfires.

Elizabeth Peace, a spokesperson for the Interior Department, said via email that mitigation work is “currently undergoing review to ensure consistency” with Trump’s executive orders.

The scrutiny is being applied only to projects using money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, two centerpieces of former President Joe Biden’s administration. They included roughly $3 billion for wildfire mitigation efforts, often known as hazardous fuels reduction programs.

  • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
    11·
    6 days ago

    But confusion has caused delays. Ben McLane, a fire crew captain for the U.S. Forest Service in Washington state, said uncertainty over whether firefighters are exempt from the freeze stalled the hiring process for seasonal wildland firefighter positions.

    …

    “We’re very confused, and we’re not being told anything,” he said. “I don’t know whose job it is to say that firefighters are an essential aspect for public safety and are exempt from the hiring freeze. But whoever’s job it is, they need to say it, because if they don’t, then there will be situations where people call 911 and there aren’t enough firefighters to go around.”

    This is what happens when reality is repeatedly contested, when so-called “leaders” lie and obfuscate what’s really going on. All the rapid-fire news sent out since this election was called, deliberately overdone to confuse us, has led to this consequence.

    Now, due to a lack of clarity about changes in government hiring, we’re got people with both the skill and the desire to be firefighters, who are not signing up to fight fires. Even with Trump leaving a loophole, its effectiveness is zero because everything Trump says appears to be liable to change. Cult-members may hold firm to his ever-changing whims, but people who live in reality have to make realistic calls. The most realistic call is to go by his history, and Trump’s history shows him lying, backpedaling, and flip-flopping more than a fish on a pier.

    I can’t blame anyone for being confused about what’s going on, nor can I blame anyone for seeing what is happening and choosing to get out of the way before the wrecking ball hits.

    The only reliable thing about this administration is its unreliability, and having fewer firefighters is only one consequence of that.