Twenty-five state attorneys general sue over FEMA grant conditions
In early January 2025, the Los Angeles firestorm erupted in the parched southern California hillsides and cascaded into surrounding suburbs, reducing more than 16,000 structures to ash and toxic debris. Thirty-one people were killed directly. Homes, businesses, churches and schools were leveled, and thousands of additional structures were left uninhabitable or damaged by smoke and surrounding debris.
The funding California has requested from the federal government includes roughly $10.5 billion in Community Development Block Grants for housing and infrastructure rebuilding, $179 million in Economic Development Administration business grants, and $3 billion in public assistance funds meant to replace damaged schools, senior centers, libraries and parks, according to an updated state accounting issued in March. California has also requested support to restore damaged water systems and improve affected streets and sidewalks.
The disparity in approvals has drawn scrutiny. President Donald Trump has approved 23% of disaster aid requests from Democratic-led states, compared with 89% of requests from states largely represented by Republicans, Politico reported in March. Trump also initially threatened to attach political conditions to federal aid for Los Angeles fire victims.
Twenty-five Democratic-led state attorneys general, led by California’s Rob Bonta, sued the Trump administration in July. The lawsuit targeted the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, alleging the agencies used a “campaign of coercion” — leveraging needed disaster support to pressure states into implementing voting and immigration policies pushed by the president. The complaint characterizes the conditions placed on disaster grants as “unlawful.”
On the ground, recovery has stalled. Roughly two-thirds of survivors remained displaced as of late July, according to the Department of Angels, a nonprofit founded in the fires’ immediate aftermath. In the group’s sixth survey of more than 2,000 fire victims, all forms of financial assistance had decreased in recent months, while homeowners typically face a roughly $500,000 gap in rebuilding costs. Close to half of those affected had taken on debt to stay afloat, and 20% had delayed rebuilding or repairs due to financial constraints.
“Eighteen months after the Eaton and Palisades fires, the challenges facing impacted communities continue to grow more urgent,” the Department of Angels wrote. “Recovery has stalled while families wait for the federal resources that have long helped communities rebuild after disasters.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom has reportedly made several additional requests to Trump over the past 18 months urging immediate action to support fire victims. None of those requests had been approved as of early August, according to the governor. In June, U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both California Democrats, issued a joint statement noting that Trump’s $87.6 billion budget request — focused on military funding for the war in Iran — omitted disaster funds entirely. The senators described the omission as reflecting “Donald Trump’s desire to punish Los Angeles and the state of California for not voting for him,” leaving “thousands of Angelenos… watching this administration fight for anything but them, their businesses, and their communities.”
Newsom called on Trump to deliver on pledges of federal support during the president’s visit to Los Angeles earlier this month. That visit ended without any announced action on the long-term recovery funds.
Former Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who recently visited Altadena — one of the Los Angeles neighborhoods hardest hit by the fires — drew a parallel to the recovery underway in Spokane, Washington, where hundreds of homes were consumed by blazes this month. “Spokane has joined a rapidly growing list of our communities that have been devastated by these climate-exaggerated fires,” Inslee said. He added that Altadena “has just been absolutely ripped open and has not been able to recover yet,” and said: “Donald Trump has strangled these communities by refusing to give emergency assistance.”
“There is a major effort to put pressure on this president to do his job, which is to help these families and communities — and he hasn’t done that,” Inslee said.
Inslee pointed to a 2020 episode as precedent. Trump declined to issue a disaster declaration for the rural Washington town of Malden after a fire destroyed roughly 80% of its homes; the order came a year later, after Joe Biden took office. “We’re hoping that that does not happen again in the Spokane fires,” Inslee said. “We’re hoping that he will have an epiphany to understand what his job is, which is to help all Americans, no matter who they voted for.”