WASHINGTON, Nov 4, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump threatened
once again Sunday to withhold federal aid from California after its
Democratic governor criticized his environmental policies.
Over the past two weeks, fires have ravaged nearly 100,000 acres (40,000
hectares) in the sprawling western state, where firefighters on Sunday were
battling the Maria Fire, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Los
Angeles.
Taking a line of attack he first used last year when fires killed 86
people in northern California, Trump blamed Governor Gavin Newsom, saying he
had done “a terrible job of forest management.”
“Every year, as the fire’s (sic) rage & California burns, it is the same
thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more. Get
your act together Governor,” he said on Twitter.
Newsom, responding on Twitter, brushed off Trump’s criticism in a terse 12
words: “You don’t believe in climate change. You are excused from this
conversation.”
Newsom had offered a fuller critique in a recent interview with The New
York Times, pointing to Trump’s roll-back of environmental protections.
“We’re waging war against the most destructive fires in our state’s
history,” he said, “and Trump is conducting a full-on assault against the
antidote.”
The president has on several occasions openly questioned the scientific
consensus that human activity causes changes in the climate, and notably the
drought that has contributed to the California fires.
His administration decided on September 18 to revoke California’s
authority to set its own standards for automobile pollution.
Newsom criticized the Republican government’s ambivalence in dealing with
the disasters.
“Last night they approved seven additional emergency grants in record
time,” Newsom told the Times. “But what’s so insidious, and what’s so
remarkable is that he’s doing everything right to respond to these disasters
and everything wrong to address what’s happening to cause them.”
Far from the political struggles, firefighters were continuing to press
their fight against the Maria Fire, which they said Sunday is now 50 percent
contained, and the Kincade Fire north of San Francisco, now 76 percent
contained.
Other fires, including some that threatened multi-million-dollar homes and
iconic institutions in the Los Angeles area, have subsided, and residents who
had evacuated are beginning to return home.