'FEMA Denied Individual Assistance To The Victims': Kevin Kiley Tears Into Biden's Response To Caldor Fire

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During a House Transportation Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) asked Acting FEMA Director David Richardson about FEMA's response to the Caldor Fire in 2021.

Transcript

00:00Representative Kiley. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for being here today, Mr. Richardson. I'd like to

00:05talk with you briefly about a very simple action that the President and FEMA could take that would

00:10come at a relatively modest cost, would make an enormous difference for many people in my district,

00:15and would reverse an enormous wrong committed by President Joe Biden. It relates to the Calder

00:24Fire, which you might be familiar with. The Calder Fire was one of the biggest fires in

00:29California history. It was in 2021, and you might remember the images that were really surreal of

00:36the ski slopes that were on fire and were ablaze. The blaze came very close to actually

00:44destroying the entire town of South Tahoe, which I represent. Fortunately, there was legislation that

00:51had created a categorical exclusion for fire mitigation that had allowed for a fire break

00:55to be created, and we were able to stop it from going into South Tahoe. But folks in the community

01:01of Grizzly Flats were not so fortunate. Hundreds of homes there were destroyed in 2021. The fire was

01:08so massive that Joe Biden actually came and visited shortly after and did a tour in a helicopter,

01:16and then he made a promise to the victims in Grizzly Flat that he was going to help, that the federal

01:22government would support them. He said it was a federal responsibility. He then broke that promise.

01:29Joe Biden's FEMA denied individual assistance to the victims of the Calder Fire in Grizzly Flats

01:37on multiple occasions. I spoke with the President about it personally, and he said he wanted to correct

01:43the wrong. He never did. And so these folks now, several years later, many continue to suffer with

01:53the rebuilding process. Many are still just camped out in RVs or trailers on their property, and they

02:00still have not received the individual assistance that they're entitled to. So FEMA, under President

02:08Biden, you know, as I mentioned, denied this multiple times. But the President has the authority

02:13to grant the assistance himself. And in fact, President Trump did this during his first term

02:19for multiple wildfires in California. So my question is, is this something that you might be

02:25able to look into and talk with the President about to finally get the victims of the fire in

02:30the Calder Fire, the victims in Grizzly Flats, the individual assistance they deserve?

02:34Yeah, I can go both ways on that. I can talk to, and thank you for the question, I can talk to

02:40Region 10, Bob Fenton, and I can also reach out to the White House, find out where the Delta is,

02:47and then get back to you with the potential way forward.

02:51I really appreciate that. And I think that, you know, there's also room to look at the process by

02:56which these determinations are made within FEMA. Because, you know, one of the things, for example,

03:02that they used in their analysis, even though there are bigger wildfires where folks have gotten

03:07the individual assistance, they, for example, looked at the income level in El Dorado County

03:12as a whole, which is where Grizzly Flats is, even though Grizzly Flats itself is not by any stretch

03:19of the imagination a wealthy area. But they counted the overall median income of the county against the

03:24people who lost their homes within this particular jurisdiction. There's a lot of arbitrary things like

03:28that that just don't make sense. But at the end of the day, this is a promise that the President

03:32of the United States, Joe Biden, made to the people in our community, and then he broke that promise.

03:37And I'm really hopeful that the President, if he has the ability to do so, can right that wrong.

03:42I'll reach out to Region 9, I'll reach out to Region 10, and then I'll be able to get back with you.

03:49Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Yield back.

03:51I yield to the chair, in fact.

03:52I thank the gentleman. Regarding the issue of call time, I just want to reference the New York Times article,

03:59which apparently was the source for the dispute over how many people actually received an answer on the call.

04:10And according to the article, it says,

04:14according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

04:17Now, like I've said before, we all have, I think, reasonable criticisms of and valid criticism of FEMA.

04:26But on this occasion, I just want to make sure we're not making judgments based on people that spoke on the condition of anonymity.

04:34And further in the article, it says the agency did publish similar data on October 29, 2024,

04:43which I'll remind everybody was during the last administration, during President Biden's administration,

04:48days after Hurricane Helene bailed across the South in nearly three weeks after Hurricane Milton hit Florida.

04:54That information showed the agency did not answer nearly half of the 507,766 incoming calls over the course of a week E&E News reported.

05:06With that having been said, Mr. Administrator, can you, like I said, I think we all want to level set here.

05:12People on both sides of the aisle would like to know the efficacy of the call center

05:17and the response to people calling in for disasters.

05:21Can FEMA provide that information and the source of that information moving forward?

05:28Can we get a report on that so that we can know how well FEMA is performing in that paradigm?

05:38So this is how I'll answer that, Mr. Chairman.

05:41I think we can legally share that with them.

05:44I think we can.

05:45Okay, I don't know for sure, but if we can, we will.

05:50I do know that we surged support.

05:52Yeah, I understand.

05:53I just, I think that both sides of the aisle would like, like, again, to level set and know what that information is

05:59and the source of that information.

06:01And if there's some reason that you can't do it legally, we would like to know that as well

06:04so that we can take whatever action is appropriate here in Congress.

06:08Yes.

06:08All right.

06:09I fully cooperate.

06:09I thank the gentleman, the chair now.

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