Newsom Diverted Taxpayer Funds That Could Have Stopped Palisades Fires

Since 2023, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) has distributed roughly $24 million to tribal organizations and nonprofit groups through its “Tribal Wildfire Resilience” program.

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.”