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President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at boosting the rebuilding of property destroyed in the Los Angeles fires last year.
Trump criticized the slow rebuilding as a failure by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. The Small Business Administration says less than 15% of all homes destroyed by the fires have received necessary approvals to rebuild.
"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 on Friday as he signed the order.
The order directs the heads of SBA and FEMA to issue regulations that override California and LA's permitting requirements to allow builders to self-certify that they are complying with health and safety standards.
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"The wildfire recovery effort in California has been a national disgrace under the leadership of Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass," SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said earlier in January. "While the Trump Administration surged every imaginable resource to the state - including an unprecedented $3.2 billion in SBA loans - virtually zero survivors have been able to rebuild due to local permitting backlogs."
"Los Angeles will remain devastated as long as its state and local leaders continue to impose bureaucracy and stall recovery," she said.
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Trump also shouted out Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin during the signing ceremony, hailing his earlier leadership in cleaning the wildfire areas of chemicals.
"Lee is so competent. I can't imagine anybody could have done it better than him," Trump told the California Post.
Bass celebrated the first home rebuild in the Palisades Fire in November of last year, but the Trump administration pointed out that the home's demolition and construction permit had been approved before the wildfires took place.
As of early January, just seven structures had been constructed in LA County since the wildfires took place, according to the SBA.
