Militarizing Misery: LA Enlists NeverTrumper in Fire Recovery Effort

Los Angeles County has selected the McChrystal Group to “conduct an independent review of the evacuation policies and emergency alert notification systems utilized by the County and its partners in responding to the Palisades and Eaton Fires.”

The group “is led by retired four-star General Stanley McChrystal, former leader of the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command, and has extensive experience with disaster response reviews, including an ongoing review concerning the North Carolina hurricane.” Sounds good, but the county supervisors left out a few details.

In 2010, President Barack Obama fired Gen. McChrystal for making critical comments about administration officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, whom the general pretended not to know. The general was the commander of multinational forces in Afghanistan — a place Americans rightly believe the United States should not have been engaged in the first place.

Katy Grimes of the California Globe wonders what the general’s organization is doing in Los Angeles County. At taxpayer expense, McChrystal will review evacuation policies and emergency alert systems, and conduct a “listening tour” of people in the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fire areas.

“Are the supervisors incapable of doing the listening themselves, or are they trying to distance themselves from responsibility of the horrific fires by adding an unaccountable layer of bureaucracy?” Grimes wonders. “The reservoirs were empty, and there was no water in the fire hydrants for firefighters. Let’s remember who is responsible for that. No consultant brought in from Virginia will be able to spin that.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, missing in action when the fires started, is doing some spinning of her own. 

The mayor’s March 21 executive order cites the risk of “similar climate crisis-fueled disasters” and warns of future “climate threats” and so forth. Mayor Bass provides no evidence that climate change caused the fires, and shows no sign of familiarity with books such as Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What it Doesn’t and Why it Matters, by Steven Koonin, and The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell You About Global Warming by Roger Pielke. 

For all but the willfully blind, Mayor Bass is simply shifting the blame. Wildfires are common in southern California, and the ensuing disaster was caused by neglect and weak leadership, now extended to the response. 

The mayor orders the city to “provide recommendations on a streamlined permitting pathway for homeowners who choose to rebuild with all-electric systems and appliances for an eligible like-for-like project (e.g., heat pump HVAC and water heating, induction stoves, electric clothes washers and dryers, solar PV, and battery storage.” As Grimes explains, “those who want to rebuild with gas appliances are getting their permits slow-walked,” which helps explain the dearth of rebuilding permits by late March. 

In effect, the fire victims are being punished for choosing gas appliances, which climate alarmists claim can cause premature death. Those claims have been challenged by Dr. James Enstrom, formerly of the UCLA School of Public Health. That has not stopped governments from waging war on gas appliances, which hold distinct advantages.

Gas stoves, water heaters and so forth tend to last longer than their electric counterparts, because they contain fewer electronic parts that malfunction. Gas appliances also function during electrical blackouts, also common in California in summer and winter alike. The climate alarmists, oblivious to tradeoffs, would leave people groping helplessly in the dark. Fire victims have cause to believe the “climate goals” are primarily political.

Given their staggering losses, the fire victims deserve full suspension of permits to rebuild their homes, and at the very least, there should be a single standard for rebuilding permits. Instead of fair treatment, the fire victims are experiencing the dynamic that Robert Higgs outlined in Crisis and Leviathan. 

Mayor Karen Bass and the Los Angeles county supervisors are exploiting a disaster to expand government and impose more onerous regulations. That foreshadows the kind of society where the people get only what the government wants them to have. The fire victims can be forgiven for preferring a society based on accountable government, sound science, and above all free choice.