Newsom Diverted Taxpayer Funds That Could Have Stopped Palisades Fires

The initiative has drawn increased attention because it operates under the broader oversight of California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, who has argued that California’s history includes what he describes as “state-sanctioned policy of genocide” and that the state has pursued “decades of land dispossession, discrimination, and disconnection.”

Crowfoot has said the Newsom administration has made progress in returning the land to the “leadership of California Native American tribes.”

While a portion of the Tribal Wildfire Resilience funding has been directed toward traditional wildfire prevention and land-management efforts, critics argue that a closer review of state grant records raises serious questions about how much of the money is actually being spent on fire mitigation.