Newsom Diverted Taxpayer Funds That Could Have Stopped Palisades Fires
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration is facing fresh criticism after a new report detailed millions of taxpayer dollars flowing into a state program that funds Native American “food sovereignty,” owl counting, and “cultural burns.”
According to City Journal, the grants are part of California’s broader “Tribal Wildfire Resilience” program, administered through the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as CAL FIRE.
The outlet highlighted funding tied to “cultural burns,” a practice in which tribal groups use traditional fire techniques to clear brush and undergrowth while maintaining what grant language describes as a “close kinship” with plants, animals, and “other natural relatives.”
Since 2023, CAL FIRE has distributed roughly $24 million to tribal organizations and nonprofit groups through the program.
The initiative falls under the broader oversight of California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, who has framed the state’s past treatment of Native Americans in stark terms. Crowfoot has referred to California’s history as involving a “state-sanctioned policy of genocide” and has said the state has pursued “decades of land dispossession, discrimination, and disconnection.”
Crowfoot has also said the Newsom administration has made progress in returning land to the “leadership of California Native American tribes.”
While some of the funding has gone toward conventional wildfire prevention and land-management work, critics argue that a closer look at state grant records raises troubling questions about whether the program is being used primarily for fire mitigation or as another ideologically driven spending vehicle in Sacramento.
Those critics say several grants appear only loosely connected to wildfire resilience, suggesting the program may have expanded far beyond its stated purpose. City Journal reported that some see the initiative as a taxpayer-supported slush fund benefiting tribal organizations under the banner of climate and historical justice.
The outlet adds:
In recent years, CalFire has awarded grants that have dubious fire-management benefits: $1 million for a grant that will help a tribe provide “forest-themed ingredients” to tribe-owned restaurants; $599,000 for another to help renovate land for use as a Native American summer camp; $166,000 to one that will pay for “[t]ribal staff and members” to observe spotted owl nests; $746,000 to one supporting a tribe’s “food sovereignty” and “Fire-Centered Climate Action Plan”; and $521,000 to one that will help a tribe maintain “close kinship” with plants, animals, and “other natural relatives such as water and fire.”
California had projected in 2022 that tribes, “cultural fire practitioners,” and others would conduct 25,000 acres of prescribed burning annually by 2025.
But the state has reportedly not released data showing tribal progress toward that goal. Some tribal leaders, meanwhile, have indicated that the burns are intentionally kept small. As Ron Goode explained, “We never burn anything bigger than a big beaver hut.”
The controversy comes as victims of the deadly Los Angeles Palisades fire, which began in January 2025, are still waiting for meaningful compensation from the state.
Newsom previously pledged a $2.5 billion relief package, but recent investigations found that much of the money has not gone directly to victims. Instead, significant portions have been used for state agency expenses, firefighting reimbursements, and highway patrol operations.
“Sixteen months after California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a $2.5 billion package of relief funds and other measures for the victims of the January 2025 wildfires, state records show most of the fund remains unused, few of the dollars reached victims directly and some of the money was diverted for law enforcement unrelated to the response to the fires,” NBC4 in Los Angeles reported this week.
The local outlet also “found much of the $605 million expended to date was circulated to state agencies that performed tasks related to the Eaton and Palisades fires, $37 million went to the LA City and County fire departments to reimburse the costs of firefighting, and nearly $21 million was paid to the California Highway Patrol for managing road closures and security in the fire zones.”
NBC4 reported that roughly 60 percent of the money initially designated for fire relief remains unused.
The contrast is difficult to ignore. While Californians who lost homes and loved ones continue waiting for direct relief, Sacramento has managed to send millions into programs involving cultural fire practices, food sovereignty plans, owl observation, and language about kinship with water and fire.
For conservatives, the issue speaks to a larger pattern in deep-blue states: government leaders announce sweeping emergency relief promises, then bury the money in bureaucracy, ideological priorities, and agency spending while ordinary citizens are left wondering when help will actually arrive.
California’s wildfire crisis demands competent forest management, accountability, and direct support for victims. Instead, under Newsom’s leadership, taxpayers are once again being asked to fund a maze of politically fashionable programs while fire victims remain stuck in the waiting line.