President Biden has promised that the federal government will “give anything and everything” to help California. But recovery could take years.

And with President-elect Donald Trump due to take office next Monday, and Republicans in control of the House and Senate, the GOP will soon be in full control of spending, including disaster relief.

Many Republicans say that aid to California should come with some conditions. Among them is Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who said California’s leadership made “stupid decisions in mismanagement” of wildfire mitigation.

“We have to get people to assess and take on the risks themselves,” Johnson told NPR’s Steve Inskeep. “I think what has happened over the decades here with federal disaster relief is that more and more individuals, more and more states are just relying on the federal government.”

In an interview with Morning Edition, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif. said “California’s always been there for other regions of the country in their time of crisis. And now it’s time for the country to be there for California, no strings attached.”

As of Wednesday morning, the fires in California have burned 40,644 acres, destroyed over 12,300 structures and led to 24 fatalities, according to The Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“They haven’t taken the mitigation steps,” Johnson said. “People build very expensive structures that aren’t properly protected.”

Johnson spoke with Morning Edition about what conditions for aid he wants to see.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Steve Inskeep: I guess there are two parts to this. One is what policy changes you would want? But before that, it seems to me there’s the question of whether you want to use people in distress as leverage, whether you want to say, ‘I’m not going to help you unless you agree to my policy change.’ What do you think about that?

Sen. Ron Johnson: I think you first have to consider the economic concept of moral hazard. And I think what has happened over the decades here with federal disaster relief is that more and more individuals, more and more states are just relying on the federal government when something happens, whether it’s a hurricane, whether it’s fire, you know, some other natural disaster that the federal government should come in and bail them out. And the result of this is they passed laws where they made it very unattractive for private insurers to come in and actually insure their properties and assess the risk properly. They’ve encouraged people to build multimillion, billion dollar homes and complexes in very vulnerable areas. And they haven’t taken the mitigation steps. According to this article in The Wall Street Journal, California used to have four and a half million acres per year burn. This is back in the early 1900s. They took mitigation efforts. They allowed sheep and cattle to graze, to keep down the brush. They got rid of firebreaks. They auctioned off the forests, and that dropped down to 250,000 acres a year on average and now it’s back up to four and a half million because of very bad policy. So, you can’t be bailing people out and let them assume more and more risk.

Inskeep: There is a ton to talk about here in policy, which I want to get to. But just to get politics off the table, Senator, you mentioned hurricanes. Would your opinion be exactly the same if we were talking about a hurricane in Florida, which is becoming a red state as opposed to California, which is a blue state?

Johnson: No. Again, I generally vote against these disaster relief packages.

Inskeep: Wait, your opinion would be the same regardless of the state. Is that what you’re saying?

Johnson: Right. Again, we have to stop creating moral hazard. We have to get people to assess and take on the risks themselves, as opposed to just transferring it to the federal government all the time. Again, people build in flood zones. People build very expensive structures that aren’t properly protected or that are vulnerable to some of these dangers as well. So, again, we are creating moral hazard after moral hazard and the problem is increasing rather than decreasing.

Inskeep: It raises a big question, Senator, because we’re talking about climate change, climate related disasters, fires, hurricanes and so forth. And we’re discovering that not just Florida, but North Carolina is in a hurricane zone and that the fire season in California is not a few months, it’s almost the entire year and almost the whole state. In fact, there are wildfires in other parts of the country. So this is everywhere. And if that is our starting point, and then we focus back in on California and the danger of wildfires, what is it that you want California to do to make themselves more resilient in future disasters or future fires?

Johnson: Take a look at what they did when they reduced the number, the average number of acres burned every year from four and a half million to 250,000. Again, they allowed sheep and cattle to graze. They auctioned off forests to be logged so they could clean it out and create firebreaks. Then the environmentalists took over, and then they stopped doing all those very common sense mitigation efforts. And now politicians are blaming climate change, like mankind can actually change climate. We can’t. The climate is always changing, always will. We can adapt to it and we can mitigate it. They stopped mitigating it, which is why they’re back up to four and a half million acres burning every year in California. It’s just stupid policy and they won’t admit it.

Inskeep: We’ll, just note, I mean, there’s all the science on climate change and human caused climate change. I think you’re saying that you don’t accept that or don’t accept that as the main thing happening.

Johnson: No it’s been corrupted. It’s corrupted science.

Inskeep: OK, understood. If we talk about this particular situation, it seems to me that there are some specific things that can be done that aren’t even that expensive. You can fireproof houses. You can move vegetation even a few feet away from houses makes a difference. But you have a situation where people build homes in areas that are also forested, that also have grasslands, that also are nature. And it’s going to be dry. And it’s getting drier and drier. Are there specific things, then, that you would call for Californians to do in terms of building codes, in terms of the way that they put communities together? Or is it simply a matter, as you say, of sending out sheep to graze?

Johnson: Well, listen I do think that tile roofs are probably better than cedar shakes roofs. That’s been pretty obvious for decades. Those homes are probably less likely to start on fire when these sparks and timbers fly literally in 100 mph winds. Take a look at what actually caused this and soberly assess what you need to do. But again, go back to what they did when they dramatically reduced the number of acres of uncontrolled fires. They know how to do this. They just refuse to do it.

Inskeep: Do you think that it is Congress’s place to instruct them as to what to do on a state and local level with forest management, with building codes, with whatever it might be?

Johnson: Yes. They’re asking for American taxpayer dollars to fund their mismanagement. Absolutely, we should have the role of telling them what they need to do if they want the dollars. That makes common sense. Otherwise, California, they made them say they’re the ones that have seen the risks. They’re the ones that made the stupid decisions in mismanagement. They got a lot of revenue. They just misspend it all the time.

Inskeep: And if you do not get the changes that you would like, you would say, “Californians, you’re on your own. The federal government, the United States of America is not going to help you. You’re out”?

Johnson: That’s what I would do.

Inskeep: And you would do that regardless of the state, even if it was a disaster in Wisconsin, which is not impossible to imagine.

Johnson: We’re not really subject to these types of dangers. And we actually do conduct forestry and we try and manage our forests as best as possible. Particularly state and county owned is opposed to federal because we have stupid federal laws.

Arezou Rezvani edited the broadcast version of this story. This article was edited by Obed Manuel.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/01/15/republican-sen-ron-johnson-says-fire-aid-to-california-should-come-with-conditions/