Trump OKs California fire relief request

SACRAMENTO: President Donald Trump’s administration abruptly reversed course and approved California’s application for disaster relief funds to clean up damage from six recent deadly and destructive blazes that have scorched the state, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Friday (Saturday in Manila).

“Just got off the phone with President Trump who has approved our Major Disaster Declaration request. Grateful for his quick response,” Newsom said in a brief statement.

Neither he nor the White House gave details on why the administration shifted positions less than two days after it initially denied the state’s request for a declaration that officials said could provide the state with hundreds of millions of dollars.

The reversal came the same week the Pacific Gas and Electric utility cut off service to more than 40,000 Northern California customers to prevent powerful winds from damaging equipment and sparking wildfires amid a fall heat wave. Electricity was restored to most customers by Friday evening, PG&E said.

The utility better targeted outages this time after it was criticized in 2019 for cutting power to about 800,000 customers and leaving about 2 million people in the dark for days.

White House spokesman Judd Deere previously said California’s disaster declaration request “was not supported by the relevant data” needed for approval.

He initially said Trump agreed with Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Pete Gaynor, who said in a three-paragraph rejection letter that the damage “was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the [state’s] capabilities.”