Federal wildfire aid to California will come with conditions, Trump administration envoy Ric Grenell said.
“The reality is that the federal response is mostly money, and so we are going to have strings on the money that we give to California,” Grenell, President Donald Trump‘s envoy for special missions, said at CPAC on Friday, Feb. 21.
Grenell, who has ties to Southern California, said the conditions are still being discussed in the Trump administration but criticized how the state manages water and forestry.
“As a Californian, I’m all for it because I don’t have faith that if we went back and we just gave California hundreds of millions of dollars, they are going to go back to their same old ways of not giving us enough water, having dangerous situations on the ground when it comes to forestry,” he said.
Historically, presidents have been reluctant to attach conditions to disaster relief. And most Southern California House members on either side of the aisle have said they outright oppose attaching conditions to federal aid.
Grenell didn’t specify what the conditions would be, but he suggested cutting funding from the California Coastal Commission.
The state agency, created in 1972, regulates land use and public access along the coast, overseeing development and protecting habitats. While supporters see it as a key environmental watchdog, critics say its strict rules block development and allege it is politically biased.
“Everyone who’s involved knows that the California Coastal Commission is a disaster, and it needs to absolutely be defunded,” said Grenell. “It’s an unelected group of people who are crazy, woke left … and they’ve made California less safe.”
“I think squeezing their federal funds, making sure they don’t get funds, putting strings on them to get rid of the California Coastal Commission is going to make California better,” he added.
This isn’t the first time the administration has said strings would be attached to aid. Trump has previously said that federal wildfire aid will be given only if California establishes a voter ID law and changes its water management strategies.
CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, is an annual gathering of Republican politicians and conservative activists. It’s held this week at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Maryland, about 10 miles from the U.S. Capitol. Speakers so far have included Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk.
Grenell has been a close advisor to the president, serving as his acting director of national intelligence during the first Trump administration.
Along with Trump, Grenell toured Southern California in late January to survey the damage left by the Palisades fire. (Trump and his delegation notably did not tour the Altadena area, where the Eaton fire left 17 people dead and more than 9,000 structures destroyed, including businesses, churches, homes and schools.)
Grenell has floated a bid for California’s governor in 2026, and on Friday, he said he doesn’t have plans to make a run for the state’s chief executive spot unless former Vice President Kamala Harris enters the race.
“We already know who she is. We spent hundreds of millions of dollars to define who Kamala Harris is. If she thinks she’s going to run for governor of California, a Republican is going to win, and I may not be able to resist trying to run against her,” he said to applause.
Grenell been critical of the state’s Democratic leadership, particularly Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, for their handling of the wildfires, saying on social media earlier this month that aid should have strings, otherwise, California would “have another catastrophic fire without water available to fight it.”
Wendy Broley, the executive director of California Urban Water Agencies, the nonprofit corporation that serves drinking water to most of the state, has said it wasn’t the water supply that was the issue during the fires but rather there were issues with the distribution system and strong winds hampered efforts to fight the fires from the air.
Also on Friday, Bass fired Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, saying it was “in the best interests” of L.A.’s public safety and the operations of the L.A. Fire Department.
Bass and Crawley have engaged in a tense relationship since the fires broke out in early January.
The fire chief recently lashed out against city officials, saying the city “failed” her and her department. Crowley also cast blame on the city for water running out when many of the hydrants tapped to fight the deadly Palisades fire went dry.
But on Friday, Bass said more firefighters could have been on duty the morning the fires broke out but “were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch.” The Palisades fire gutted 23,448 acres, leveled nearly 7,000 structures and damaged 1,017 more. At least 12 people were killed.
Staff writers Linh Tat and Teresa Liu contributed to this report.
