WASHINGTON — President Trump officially asked EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to serve as his new permitting czar for Los Angeles on Thursday — days after Trump signed an executive order to take over local zoning in fire-ravaged areas.
“They can’t get their permits. They still can’t build. And they’re losing spirit too. I mean, a lot of people are losing spirit,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting.
“I’m putting Lee Zeldin in charge of getting them their permits,” the president said, gushing that the former Long Island congressman was “the most reliable, solid guy.”
Trump exclusively revealed the order for the Tuesday issue of The California Post and again slammed state and local officials for being too slow to issue building permits one year after the blazes were extinguished.
“You need the city and state [permits]. And I hear you have great powers over them,” Trump told Zeldin.
“Let the people build their houses and as fast as you can help them. Help the mayor and help the governor get that permitting done.”
Zeldin recalled a trip last year that he made to Los Angeles.
“There were people with contractors all over Palisades and Eaton ready to rebuild right then. And there, you’re talking about a year,” Zeldin said, contradicting California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s claim that zoning wasn’t slowing reconstruction.
Newsom asserted Tuesday that 1,625 building permits had been issued for the roughly 13,000 destroyed homes and that “the main obstacle is COMMUNITIES NOT HAVING THE MONEY TO REBUILD.”
Zeldin said that Trump’s order has “made it clear to us that he’s heard enough, and the message should be heard loud and clear to that local leadership.”
“They should be motivated listening to this right now and when this cabinet meeting is over, if it hasn’t been done already, is that they need to go into the office where these permits are just laying around, flip over tables and if you have to fire people,” he said.
Trump’s executive order, which may face court challenges, calls on the Small Business Administration and FEMA to adopt regulations within 90 days that “replace preempted State or local permitting regimes… with a requirement that builders self-certify to a Federal designee from each agency that they have complied with all applicable substantive State and local health and safety standards with respect to the structure proposed to be rebuilt using Federal emergency-relief funds.”
