Trump Moves To Take Over Los Angeles Wildfire Recovery From Local And State Authorities

LOS ANGELES — President Trump is pushing to take over wildfire recovery in Los Angeles.

Trump signed an executive order Friday, clearing the way for the federal government to strip authority from the state and local governments to permit the rebuilding of homes and other structures destroyed in the January 2025 fires.

“I want to see if we can take over the city and state and just give the people their permits they want to build,” Trump told the California Post when he signed the order.

The president’s move is an unprecedented incursion by the federal government into disaster recovery. Issuing permits for home rebuilding have long been under the control of individual cities and counties, and it’s unclear how the order would affect the ongoing process.

The order also is the latest salvo in the fight between Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of the chief antagonists of the administration.

About 16,000 homes, businesses and other structures were wiped out in the Palisades and Eaton fires, which leveled the coastal Pacific Palisades neighborhood, the foothill community of Altadena and areas surrounding both of them. According to data from the affected jurisdictions, there have been about 4,700 applications to rebuild with 2,000 approved. So far, the pace of construction is in line with recovery from other recent major wildfires in California where it’s taken years to rebuild communities.

The president’s order calls on the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration to consider new regulations to preempt local and state permitting rules and allow builders to certify to a federal agency that they’re in compliance with health and safety regulations to receive approval to build.

Some survivors have complained about red tape in the permitting process, but local governments are approving projects in fire zones faster than normal. More prominent challenges to rebuilding are about money. Survivors are fighting with their insurance companies over payouts and, for those affected by the Eaton fire, are awaiting resolution to litigation with Southern California Edison, a private utility whose transmission lines were a likely cause of the blaze.