Trump’s environmental, small business chiefs visit Palisades, echo federal order to speed up permitting

By Amancai Biraben

Unfilled insurance claims. Slow permitting. Costs.

Thirteen months after the Palisades and Eaton fires tore through whole towns, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin and Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler visited Pacific Palisades on Wednesday, where they heard local concerns over fire recovery while touting the Trump administration’s efforts at speeding up the rebuild.

They also said they had productive meetings with local leaders even as they criticized state and local officials for bureaucracies that moved too slow.

Zeldin left the session pledging to work with local governments but also saying President Donald Trump’s recent executive order seeking to supercede local and state permitting process and requirements for speedier rebuilding as “unprecedented.”

The order last week empowered Zeldin and Loeffler’s federal agencies to expedite housing rebuild permits and “to cut through bureaucratic red tape and speed up reconstruction” in the fire-scarred areas where more than 16,000 structures were lost on Jan. 7, 2025. The order also directs federal agencies to expedite waivers, permits and approvals to work around any environmental, historic preservation or natural resource laws that might stand in the way of construction.

“President Trump isn’t just watching. He’s expecting the very best of his team. And we accept that challenge,” Zeldin said. “The mandate is absolutely clear —  to assist other levels of government and to assist these local families, residents and small businesses to rebuild.”

The visit, which did not include the Altadena/Pasadena/Sierra Madre area, where the Eaton fire ravage thousands of homes and killed 19 people, came a day after the Los Angeles City Council voted to waive permit and plan-check fees for homes and businesses damaged or destroyed in last January’s Palisades fire.

It also came on a day when Mayor Karen Bass’ office denied a published story that said she directed the watering down of an after-action report that detailed alleged failings of the Los Angeles Fire Department during last year’s deadly Palisades fire.

And, the county’s Board of Supervisors weighed in on Tuesday, unanimously threatening to sue the Trump administration if local land-use powers are overridden by the executive order.

Prior to the roundtable with local community members, Zeldin and Loeffler met with Bass and Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger in a meeting that was “nothing but productive,” the federal officials said.

“We discussed a variety of ways to clear a path to rebuilding, which includes advancing efficient and expeditious permitting for thousands of residents as one of many top priorities,” Zeldin said in a statement later. “Administrator Loeffler and I, on behalf of President Trump, asked these local elected officials to join us in this urgent effort, and I am hopeful great progress will be made in the days and weeks ahead.”

But Barger did tell Zeldin and Loeffler that most impacted residents who have not rebuilt in the Eaton fire burn footprint — an area she represents — are hindered, not because of permitting delays, but because they lack the capital to move forward.

In December, Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote to congressional leaders seeking $34 billion in aide for fire survivors and rebuilding.

Newsom has stood opposed to Trump’s order, pleading to Trump on X to release federal funds.

“The Feds need to release funding not take over local permit approval speed — the main obstacle is COMMUNITIES NOT HAVING THE MONEY TO REBUILD,” Newsom posted.

Zeldin on Wednesday chalked Newsom’s response up to his 2026 presidential ambitions.

Loeffler, whose small business administration approved 12,600 disaster loans for Los Angeles totaling $3.2 billion in disaster relief last year, urged this new phase or wildfire rehabilitation would open an expedited path to recovery “for every borrower who has been held hostage by the bureaucracy of Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass.”

Newsom’s press office has long pushed back on the claim of failed leadership, noting that more than 1,625 home permits had been issued, with hundreds of homes under construction and permitting processes occurring at least twice as fast as before the fires.

“An executive order to rebuild Mars would do just as useful,” Newsom’s team has posted.

Jillian Michaels, Palisades-based trainer whose own home perished in a 2018 wildfire and who has since been a vocal opponent of local and state government wildfire responses, was at the meeting. Calling out unfilled water reservoirs during the 2025 wildfires and ensuing insurance claims that have gone unmet, she emphasized her support for new leadership in recovery.

“It’s been a year! In California, we just have too much red tape and people are literally being caught in the middle of a bureaucratic nightmare,” Michaels said. “I don’t know how it changes, but it needs to change.”