Gov. Gavin Newsom Vetoed Wildfire Mitigation Bill in 2020 Over ‘Housing Needs’

As Pacific Palisades and Altadena begin recovery from the January wildfires which burned thousands of homes and businesses to the ground, remember that California Governor Gavin Newsom defensively said it was not the time to assign blame.

Also remember that while the fires were still burning, Gov. Newsom said Jan 13th, on rebuilding Pacific Palisades, he has a team “looking at reimagining L.A. 2.0. We’re just starting to lay out. I mean, we’re still fighting these fires, so we’re already talking to city leaders. We’re already talking to civic leaders. We’re already talking to business leaders, with nonprofits. We’re talking to labor leaders.”

Today, Gov. Newsom held another press gaggle in Pacific Palisades talking again and reimagining the region, as opposed to the “Mayberry RFD” Palisades neighborhoods I mentioned in my tweet:

(what is with the gray Mao blazer?)

And when asked the same day on Meet the Press back in January, “does the buck stop with you?” Newsom did not say “yes” as he should have. “We’re all in this together” he claimed.

Except Gavin Newsom had his thumb on the scale.

In 2020, Gov. Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 182, a fire mitigation bill for local governments, passed by both houses of the California Legislature. The governor said, “Wildfire resilience must become a more consistent part of land use and development decisions…” “HOWEVER it must be done while meeting our housing needs.” (Governor’s veto message embedded below)

The bottom line is that the bill would have hamstrung his plans to facilitate developers to build his mandated high density housing “in vulnerable communities.” Pacific Palisades in now considered a “vulnerable community.”

SB 182 Bill analysis explained:

Requires landowners in the State Responsibility Area (SRA) and VHFHSZs to follow specified fire prevention practices and meet standards developed by theState Board of Forestry and Fire Protection (Board) (AB 337, Bates, 1992).These practices and standards include maintaining defensible space of 100 feet around structures, performing certain activities to reduce the amount of flammable material near and on structures, and meeting specific building standards developed by CALFIRE and the Department of Housing andCommunity Development (HCD) that help a structure withstand ignition and reduce fire risk.

In his veto message, Gov. Newsom said in no-uncertain terms that efforts to fireproof California cities would never take precedence over his plan to replace existing single family housing with “affordable housing.”

No amount of affordable housing (concrete high rise apartments with tiny windows) can offset California’s median home price of $$909,400, according to the California Association of Realtors, who said, “The California median home price is forecast to rise 4.6 percent to $909,400 in 2025, following a projected 6.8 percent increase to $869,500 in 2024 from $814,000 in 2023.”

Holy cow. Nearly $1 million to buy a home in California.

Neighboring state Nevada’s Median Sale Price is $457,800, a +5.1% increase from 2024.

Neighboring state Arizona’s Median Sale Price is $449,900, a +4.3% increase from 2024.

These increases in Nevada and Arizona are likely to Californians moving to those states and driving home costs up.

How many more California residents will flee the state to Nevada or Arizona to rebuild? Or to just escape?

Newsom has been making all kinds of wrong moves to save his flailing career, especially since the Los Angeles fires. He idiotically launched a misinformation “fact-checking” website in January to control the narrative. Should you want to contribute to the recovery, Newsom had a link which sends people to the corrupt ActBlue to contribute. He really tried to politically capitalize on these fires.

And we still don’t know why the 117 million gallon Santa Ynez reservoir empty for months before the fires, and why fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades had lost pressure and eventually run completely dry.

There is so much political history in California’s wildfire predicament.

California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bipartisan wildfire management bill in 2016, despite unanimous passage by the Legislature, 75-0 in the Assembly and 39-0 in the Senate. SB 1463 would have given local governments more say in fire-prevention efforts through the Public Utilities Commission proceeding making maps of fire hazard areas around utility lines. In a gross display of politics, this is especially pertinent given that Cal Fire and the state’s media are now blaming the largest utility in the state for the latest wildfires. While hindsight is always 20-20, California was on fire when this bill made its way through the Legislature and on to Jerry Brown’s desk. The 129 million dead trees throughout California’s state and national forests are now serving as matchsticks and kindling.

Megan Barth and I wrote in The Daily Wire, specifically addressing why forest management has been put on the back burner. We explained how Obama-Era and Clinton-Era radical eco-terrorism thrived, made possible through drastic environmental regulations, and those “ponderous, byzantine laws and regulations” Rep. Tom McClintock spoke of, which prevent any significant and important forest clearing, brush clearing, and dead tree removal, leaving all public forests vulnerable to wildfires.

Today, only privately managed forests are maintained through the traditional forest management practices: thinning, cutting, clearing, prescribed burns, and the disposal of the resulting woody waste. And notably, privately managed lands are not on fire.

As a regular Globe reader commented, “Newsom has revealed his agenda for the fires. Turn LA into a ‘smart city”’ hell hole where you have no freedom, have total surveillance and you are confined to a small area no more than a 15 minute walk away from your home.”

“I suspect ‘green’ regulations for rebuilding are part of the package. Tiny homes?”

So many questions. So much government grift, graft, malfeasance. And there is more to come with the exposure of USAID and money sent to California.

Here is Gov. Newsom’s veto message of SB 182: