Summary

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) threatened to withhold federal disaster relief from California during ongoing Los Angeles wildfires that have killed at least 16 people and destroyed over 12,000 structures.

Davidson criticized California’s forest management policies, echoing misleading right-wing claims that poor management, not climate change, is to blame.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom refuted these claims, noting that the state’s forest management budget has increased tenfold since 2019.

Davidson’s comments follow a pattern of GOP blaming state policies for disasters, similar to rhetoric from Trump.

  • Nougat
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    193 days ago

    I thought it was well established that decades of forest management that included extinguishing every single fire is what has produced an excess of fuel for today’s fires.

    Edit: In case I am misunderstood, I’m pretty sure that kind of forest management was changed a long time ago, but the consequences are still evident. I am not saying that denying funding is in any way correct or justified. There is nothing about California’s forest management that would demand that.

    • @[email protected]
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      333 days ago

      Yes, so what’s “misleading” is that they’re using these talking points to blame current forest management policies on the problem. Also they’re doing this so they can ignore/deny that the climate is changing and making the area more susceptible to fires, no matter what your fire management policies are.

          • @RubberElectrons
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            22 days ago

            Yeah, it’s a big place. Lots of farms vs the very high density cities.

          • @[email protected]
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            13 days ago

            California has more 2024 Trump votes than the smallest 30 states have citizens of every age.

            It’s very close to matching the Trump votes of Texas and Florida, but they were a bit ahead.

            I’m on the other side of the continent, but California is a big place!

    • @SupraMario
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      93 days ago

      They stopped doing controlled burns. Climate change is just more fuel on the fire so to speak. Fire is natural, not allowing shit to burn away ungrowth has %100 not helped, but this is just repubs denying climate change like the fucking dipshits…as usual.

      • @[email protected]
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        33 days ago

        They stopped doing controlled burns

        For a while, yes. They’ve been doing them again for a while now, though, so we’re not even as bad at it as we were

        • @SupraMario
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          13 days ago

          That’s scary to think this could be worse.