Column: The Republican Party is betraying a devastated Los Angeles

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

66% : On his first day back in office, Trump signed more than a dozen orders rolling back climate progress.
59% : Asked at a confirmation hearing about his past suggestion that climate advocates have overhyped the extremely well-documented link between fossil fuels, rising temperatures and worsening wildfires, Wright held firm.
49% : So what did former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), Trump's choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency, say when asked at a Senate confirmation hearing last week about the effects of heat-trapping fossil fuel emissions?"I don't sit before you as a scientist," Zeldin responded.
34% : No mention of the fact that the U.S. is already producing record amounts of oil and gas -- or that the heat waves, storms and fires exacerbated by fossil fuels are terrible for the economy, as Los Angeles is learning.
32% : What if Biden had blamed the destruction on the climate denial of Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, saying taxpayers in other states shouldn't have to bail out Floridians for storms intensified by their elected leader's fossil-fuel-friendly policies?What if Democrats had said they'd help rebuild Florida only in exchange for the state's red-leaning congressional delegation agreeing to make concessions on gun control, LGBTQ+ rights or some other partisan issue?
30% : L.A. is burning, and Trump loyalists say the city's elected officials are to blame, and they'll help us only if the Democratic Party accedes to their demands.
25% : And none of it should overshadow the fact that Trump and his administration are working to exacerbate a climate crisis that has fueled bigger, more destructive fires.
23% : Trump also declared a "national energy emergency."
21% : Trump has also claimed, falsely, that L.A. doesn't have enough money to fight fires because city officials have diverted resources to undocumented immigrants.
19% : The betrayal will continue until Trump offers federal aid with no strings attached and Republican leaders start working to confront the climate crisis.
17% : Even before he took office Monday, President Trump said he would approve disaster relief funds for fire-ravaged Los Angeles only if Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed to policy changes that would allow more water to flow from California's northern rivers to southern farms and cities -- a boon to Trump-friendly farmers in the San Joaquin Valley.
8% : Then in his inaugural address, Trump claimed the fires were being met "without even a token of defense" -- an unfounded attack on Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats.

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