President Trump slammed California’s forest management practices again this week, threatening to withhold FEMA money for survivors of wildfires.
Trump tweeted that “unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money.”
While Trump is suggesting that wildfires are caused by the state’s mismanagement of its forests, well over half of the forests in California are managed by the federal government — which has slashed the U.S. Forest Service budget by $2 billion in recent years.
The state plans to spend over $1 billion managing forests over the next five years.
In announcing his first budget proposal on Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom dedicated hundreds of millions of additional dollars to emergency response and wildfire preparedness.