Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) need to “get off their asses,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said during a policy event with Breitbart News on Monday, discussing the aftermath of the devastating fire in the Palisades.
Describing the aftermath in the Palisades as “apocalyptic,” with over 13,000 buildings destroyed, Zeldin said his agency quickly jumped in to do their part.
“In record time this happened, the middle of January. [The] President was sworn in. A few days later, he signed an executive order. He wanted EPA to finish our Phase One hazardous material removal in 30 days, so that Army Corps can come in and do their Phase Two debris removal. The initial response was that was going to be impossible. You’ll be lucky if you could get this done by the summer, and we got it done in Trump speed, and got it done in less than 30 days,” Zeldin said, giving a big thank you to the EPA team and their staffers who were “busting their tails to help the good people of Los Angeles who lost everything.”
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Ultimately, he said their work was completed in that timeline, and the Army Corps has since completed Phase Two debris removal.
“So, as far as the federal government goes, we completed all of our work. Now this might be a little bit less politically correct,” he said before tearing into local leaders.
“Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom need to get off of their asses and allow all of the people in Los Angeles to rebuild their freaking homes and their businesses,” Zeldin said. “You have people who are suffering extreme amount of frustration, anger, and pain because of whatever type of bureaucratic red tape delays. And incompetency is resulting in the local and state leadership preventing people from building what is theirs.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass tour the downtown business district of Pacific Palisades as the Palisades Fire continues to burn on January 8, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
Zeldin emphasized that these people “lost everything” — including their homes and their businesses — and now they are stuck waiting and have no idea when it ends.
“It is incompetency, and for these people who live there who lost everything, the most important thing that you can give them is to instantly allow them to rebuild their lives, and you’re denying them right now,” he said, emphasizing that Bass and Newsom are “denying the residents of Los Angeles the most basic need.”
Many people are “still sitting there with contractors waiting for approvals from an incompetent mayor and an incompetent governor, and the rhetoric that we hear from Governor Newsom, where he’s saying that President Trump is somehow the reason, the federal government, we have completed everything — there is nothing left waiting for EPA sign off,” the former congressman pointed out, making it clear that no one is waiting on the EPA.
“We stand with all the residents of Los Angeles who want to be able to rebuild, and they’re just waiting for permission from their incompetent leadership, who are denying them the right to rebuild,” he added.
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