Trump EO: For fire survivors struggling to rebuild, help is on the way

The new presidential executive order taking over permitting in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones sends a clear message to struggling fire survivors: help is on the way.

The issue of rebuilding permits is not about politics, right or left. We must set party politics aside to rebuild the burn area. 

There are no votes for the president to win in California. He is in his second and last term. Democrats represent the affected areas.

This is about competence, accountability, and commitment.

All three have been lacking from our state and local governments from the onset of this unnatural disaster.  

I live in Pacific Palisades. I, too, lost my home. It is outrageous that only one home in my town has been rebuilt in the year after the fire, after state and local officials promised a “fast track.”

There are a few wooden frames going up here and there in Pacific Palisades. But most of the land remains empty, a wasteland.

Is this what we want the world to see in the 2028 Olympics?

Last year, when the president came to the local fire station, just four days after he was sworn into office, local residents — mostly Democrats — told him: “We can’t wait.”

Here we are, two years later. The federal government did help. The administration waived Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permitting rules. The EPA cleared out the Hazardous waste, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers removed the debris. The Small Business Administration (SBA) offered loans on generous terms to homeowners — and to renters.

The new presidential executive order taking over permitting in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones sends a clear message to struggling fire survivors: help is on the way. Empty lots are seen in Pacific Palisades January 5 2026 AFP via Getty Images

But little has been rebuilt — thanks to slow insurance payouts, high construction costs, and broken promises from Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom.

Mayor Bass says that permits are moving faster than they did before the fire. That’s a very slow baseline. And it’s still not fast enough.

The LA City Council has taken months to vote on whether to waive permitting fees for residents. These fees can range from $25,000 to upwards of $100,000 per home, depending on the build. They slow down rebuilding — but they allow the city to profit from homes that already paid their permit fees when first built.

Disaster profiteering is wrong. Government failure contributed greatly to the loss — with inadequate brush clearance, the lack of water, no pre-positioning of fire engines in the area, a delayed police evacuation, and bad “mop-up” policies that allowed an earlier, smaller fire on January 1, 2025, to smolder and reignite on January 7.

When government failure is part of the causal chain, it’s ethically indefensible for the government to profit from the rebuilding effort.

The delays are so bad that many residents are worried they are deliberate. They worry that the city not only seeks to profit from their misery, but to purposefully replace residents with dense, low-income housing.  Los Angeles needs additional housing, but not at the expense of fire victims.

On top of that, Measure ULA — the so-called “mansion tax” — is slowing down building, not just in the burn zones, but in all of LA.

The transfer tax doesn’t just apply to wealthy homes; it applies to any real estate sale over about $5 million, including apartments, clinics, and offices; it impacts burned out lots with owners taking lower payments from speculators that in turn pay the ULA tax.

What that means is developers can’t build apartment buildings. Ironically, that means even less affordable housing in LA, though the tax revenue was supposed to be spent on promoting it.

The good news is that it’s still possible to build in LA — as long as you’re the government.

The LA Department of Water and Power — the people who left the reservoir empty and who let the hydrants run dry — have been running around, digging up streets, putting up poles, pouring dirt on empty areas, and putting up trailers. They don’t need permits. They bypass the process.

With this new executive order, the federal government is holding Bass and Newsom accountable for the slow pace of rebuilding. More than that, the new order gives homeowners who lost everything in the fire renewed confidence that we can rebuild soon.

Before politics — before everything else — this is a real-estate issue. If you don’t move quickly, and with determination, nothing gets done. 

It’s time to put politics aside and rebuild our great city.

Jeremy Padawer is an entrepreneur and Pacific Palisades resident who lost his home in the Palisades Fire.