Daily Caller
Like Administrative Arson, California’s Bad Ideas Spread Like Wildfires
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Frank Ricci
California’s wildfire crisis is a result of a mix of poor public policy, excuses and administrative overreach. This crisis is not solely due to natural phenomena but is exacerbated by years of misguided priorities and policy mismanagement.
In California, regulation has often been elevated to a near-religious status, where compliance with progressive ideals sometimes comes at the expense of public safety. This regulatory environment turns practical solutions into bureaucratic nightmares, where even simple tasks require navigating an endless maze of permissions and paperwork.
The result is a state where water resources are mismanaged, from inadequate retention to failing to have sound contingency plans for pumping when power is out or ensuring the system is designed to handle the fire load.
There is an overemphasis on environmentally friendly policies without adequately balancing the needs of the population or accurately measuring their impact and effectiveness.
When your home is on fire, you need a quick, competent response, properly supported by staffing, resources and clear lines of authority.
The prioritization of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) over merit-based hiring is evident in places like the Los Angeles Fire Department under Chief Kristin Crowley. Her commitment to DEI is often highlighted, leading one to question if this has potentially compromised operational readiness.
The primary focus of fire departments should be on the priority of life safety, incident stabilization and property conservation. When diversity overshadows meritocracy, there’s a shift from equal opportunity to equal outcomes.
Across blue states, there is a trend where HR managers focus more on diversity and soft quotas than ensuring applicants have the necessary physical strength, mechanical aptitude and cognitive ability for the job, regardless of immutable characteristics.
LAFD Assistant Chief Kristine Larson, in a recorded statement, responded to a query about her ability to rescue someone from a fire by saying, “Am I able to carry your husband out of a fire? Well, my response is he got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.”
In the same clip, she focused on the racial composition of firefighters rather than their competence.
Merit should be blind to race or sex; it is about ensuring that firefighters or officers can master the skills, knowledge and ability needed to do the job.
Victor Davis Hanson has commented: “It was a total systems collapse from the idea of not spending money on irrigation, storage, water, fire prevention, force management, a viable insurance industry, a DEI hierarchy. You put it all together and it’s something like a DEI-Green New Deal hydrogen bomb.”
Moreover, fire departments in cities like Los Angeles, Seattle and New York are still dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic. There is a call for the reinstatement of firefighters who were dismissed for not being vaccinated, suggesting this was an opportunity to purge viewpoint diversity.
Elected officials should not socially engineer fire departments. True diversity comes from educational opportunities like school choice, opportunity scholarships and breaking the stranglehold of teachers’ unions while holding superintendents accountable.
Qualified personnel and proper water management alone won’t mitigate fires. Congress and California need to untangle the web of conflicting government agencies in wildland fire and forest management, ensuring clear lines of authority for public safety.
Environmentally friendly logging and cooperation with fire services for forest management could provide jobs, create fire lines, and ensure quicker response times.
Advanced technology for early detection, such as sensing fire towers, drones and satellites, should be utilized to direct air assets, allowing for a rapid response with helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft to stop or slow the spread of fire from the onset.
America does not have enough staffed air assets stationed, properly geographically deployed and on alert to respond at a moment’s notice. This means deploying air assets throughout the West Coast and in some cases changing policy to allow flying at night and ensuring availability seven days a week. The same applies to bulldozers and other heavy equipment; they must be pre-approved and ready to respond before any incident occurs, cutting through the red tape.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) and the federal government have not met expectations, offering excuses rather than solutions. The public demands accountability not just promises. It is time for California to adopt common-sense wildfire management, focus on merit, manage natural resources wisely and reduce the bureaucratic hurdles that hinder effective action.
Only then can we address this crisis with the urgency and efficiency it demands.
Frank Ricci is a Fellow at Yankee Institute and was the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Ricci v Destefano. He retired as a Battalion Chief in New Haven CT. He has testified before Congress and is the author of the book, Command Presence.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By
Ahead of the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, developers are carving a four-lane highway through protected tracts of the Amazon rainforest to ease travel for attendees.
The highway, one of several infrastructure projects fast-tracked for the summit, is meant to ease congestion for the more than 50,000 attendees expected in November. The state government insists the road is a “sustainable” development with wildlife crossings, bike lanes and solar lighting, but local critics argue it contradicts the very mission of the climate conference, according to the BBC.
“Everything was destroyed,” Claudio Verequete, a local resident whose family depended on the açaí trees that once stood where the road now cuts through the forest, told the BBC. “Our harvest has already been cut down. We no longer have that income to support our family.”
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The highway, known as Avenida Liberdade, had been shelved multiple times in the past due to environmental concerns but was revived as part of a broader push to modernize Belém ahead of COP30, according to the outlet. State officials say the city’s transformation will leave a lasting legacy, including an expanded airport, new hotels and an ungraded port to accommodate cruise ships.
Adler Silveira, the Brazilian state of Pará’s infrastructure secretary, defended the highway project in a statement to the BBC, calling it an “important mobility intervention” that will benefit the local population long after the summit ends.
Satellite images of the area appear to show miles of cleared land where dense rainforest once stood. Conservationists warn that beyond immediate deforestation, the road could enable further illegal logging and land speculation, fragmenting ecosystems critical to carbon absorption, the BBC reported.
“From the moment of deforestation, there is a loss,” Silvia Sardinha, a wildlife veterinarian at a university near the site of the new highway, told the BBC. “Land animals will no longer be able to cross to the other side, reducing the areas where they can live and breed.”
The annual UN Climate Change Conference gathers world leaders, lawmakers, scientists and industry representatives to negotiate global climate policy. Discussions typically center around greenhouse gas emissions, phasing out fossil fuel, adapting industries to climate benchmarks and enforcing international agreements like the Paris Accord, as well as topics like deforestation. At previous summits, speakers have advocated for policies such as taxing meat products and naming extreme heat events to create greater awareness of temperature changes. Taliban officials from Afghanistan also attended the COP29 in 2024, as UN agencies reportedly considered unlocking funds for the nation to combat climate crises. The COP28 the year prior included a discussion on sustainable yachting.
The Amazon rainforest, previously called the “lungs of the Earth,” now reportedly emits more carbon dioxide than it absorbs due to rampant deforestation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Attendees of the 2025 climate summit are expected to include representatives from nearly every UN member state, as well as corporate leaders in the renewable energy industry such as Siemens Gamesa.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, remarked that “it’s a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon,” adding the conference will be “historic and a landmark” in a February press release. The COP30 summit is scheduled for Nov. 10 through Nov. 21.
Business
Ontario Premier Doug Ford Apologizes To Americans After Threatening Energy Price Hike For Millions
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By
Ontario Premier Doug Ford apologized to Americans Tuesday after he suspended a 25% electricity surcharge that he initially said he would be “relentless” in pursuing.
Ford implemented a 25% surcharge on electricity to New York, Michigan and Minnesota on Monday, but quickly rescinded the policy and apologized to Americans on WABC’s “Cats & Cosby” radio show the following day. The tariffs were initially a retaliatory measure against President Donald Trump’s flurry of tariffs against Canada since he assumed office.
Canada is highly dependent on U.S. exports, economists told CNN, and the planned electricity surcharge would likely hurt Canada’s energy industry much more than it would the U.S., although an estimated 1.5 million homes and businesses would have been affected.
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“I want to apologize to the American people. I spent 20 years of my life in the US, in New Jersey, in Chicago. I love the American people,” Ford said. “I absolutely love them … Secretary Lutnick and President Trump are brilliant businesspeople. They are hard negotiators. We need to put this behind us and move forward and build the two strongest countries in the world.”
Initially, Ford had a much more aggressive tone when he instituted the tariffs.
“We will not back down. We will be relentless. I apologize to the American people that President Trump decided to have an unprovoked attack on our country, on families, on jobs, and it’s unacceptable,” Ford said on MSNBC in response to Trump’s hiking of steel and aluminum tariffs.
Trump, in turn, threatened to increase the steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada to 50%, with the increase going into effect the next day.
Ford then talked with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, with the premier describing the call as “productive.” Once Ford backed down on his plan to implement the export fees, Trump reversed his planned hike to 50% on steel and aluminum tariffs. Ford is expected to meet with Lutnick Thursday in Washington, D.C.
If a deal is not reached by the April 2 deadline, the tariffs will resume.
Ontario sold around 12 terawatt hours of electricity to America in 2023, with the U.S. being Ontario’s largest energy customer outside Canada. The tariff would have likely added “100$ a month” to the bill of Americans in the affected states, Ford claimed according to CNN.
The U.S. and Canada have entered into a contested debate over trade policies, with Canada announcing an additional $20 billion in retaliatory tariffs on American goods in response to Trump’s initial 25% steel and aluminum tariffs.
Trump initially gained concessions from Canada in February, forcing them to aid in curtailing the illegal fentanyl trade in exchange for a pause on a 25% general goods tariff enacted Feb. 1. However, Trump eventually let the pause expire, with the tariff resuming in March.
“Canada is a tariff abuser, and always has been, but the United States is not going to be subsidizing Canada any longer,” Trump said on Truth Social Mar. 10.
The Ontario Premier’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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