President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to expedite rebuilding in the Pacific Palisades and Eaton Canyon after wildfires ravaged the Los Angeles communities in January 2025.
According to a White House fact sheet, the order directs the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Karen Evans and the Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Kelly Loeffler to establish regulations preempting procedural permitting requirements at the state and local levels.
They are also directed to “enable builders to self-certify to a Federal agency designee that they have complied with State and local substantive health, safety, and building standards.”
According to the White House, just 2,500 rebuild permits have been issued out of tens of thousands of homes and businesses more than a year after the devastating fires.
The order directs federal agencies to fast-track federal waivers, permits, and approvals and calls for the development of congressional proposals to allow “FEMA and the SBA to address situations in which State or local governments are not enabling timely recovery after disasters,” according to the White House.
Moreover, FEMA is directed “to conduct a full audit” of how California has awarded its nearly $3 billion in unspent funds from the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.
The official order blasts failures in California at the state and local levels to enable rebuilds of homes and businesses in Eaton Canyon and the Palisades, singling out the state and Los Angeles governments for failing “to live up to their moral and legal obligations to their citizens.” It reads in part:
The Federal Government completed hazardous-materials sweeps and cleared over 9,500 properties of over 2.6 million tons of debris in just 6 months.
But since then, American families and small businesses affected by the wildfires have been forced to continue living in a nightmare of delay, uncertainty, and bureaucratic malaise as they remain displaced from their homes, often without a source of income, while State and local governments delay or prevent reconstruction by approving only a fraction of the permits needed to rebuild.
The Federal Government has approved numerous individual relief claims to provide financial support directly to owners of homes and businesses and help survivors repair, rebuild, return home, reopen their businesses, and restore their communities. But many homeowners and businesses have been unable to use these funds as they navigate overly burdensome, confusing, and inconsistent permitting requirements, duplicative permitting reviews, procedural bottlenecks, and administrative delays at the city, county, and State levels. Elected leaders have refused to take even the minimum action necessary to allow many of these survivors to move forward and rebuild their lives — the ultimate tragic failure of the State of California and City of Los Angeles to live up to their moral and legal obligations to their citizens. As a result, despite the Federal Government expeditiously clearing debris and doing its part to support survivors, the actions of State and local authorities have ensured that the vast majority of the tens of thousands of homes and businesses destroyed in the wildfires have not yet been rebuilt a year later.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) had seemingly agreed to waive local permitting requirements back in January 2025 during a roundtable with Trump.
“[Developers] just want to start,” Trump said. “And they were very concerned with the 18 months. So I’m sure you can get it down to, I would say, not even 18 days.”
“They are ready, Mayor, they are ready to start,” Trump added.
“We’re ready,” Bass responded.
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