Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom has indicated that he will remove some building restrictions for victims of the Los Angeles wildfires which he said Sunday is part of an effort to push for a Golden State version of the Marshall plan to rebuild “LA 2.0.”
The Marshall Plan was the effort, headed by the U.S., to rebuild Europe after the destruction of World War II. Newsom has issued an executive order to suspend the state’s environmental laws and permitting requirements to aid wildfire victims to rebuild homes and businesses.
The costs of the damage so far are estimated to be between $135 billion and $150 billion over 10 years, AccuWeather reported.
“I find that strict compliance with various statutes and regulations specified in this Order would prevent, hinder, or delay the mitigation of the effects of these fires and windstorm conditions,” Newsom stated in the executive order.
He subsequently appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press saying that “California leads the nation in environmental stewardship. I’m not going to give that up.”
“But one thing I won’t give in to is delay. Delay is denial for people: lives, traditions, places torn apart, torn asunder,” he added.
The suspension of the building code applies only to buildings in “substantially the same location” as they were before the fires. The order states that the height and footprint can’t exceed 110 percent of their initial size.
NBC asked Newsom if his state would be ready to host not only the soccer World Cup in 2026 but the 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympics.
The governor argued that there should be a Marshall Plan for California, saying, “We already have a team looking at reimagining LA 2.0.”
“We are making sure everyone’s included, not just the folks on the coast, people here that were ravaged by this disaster,” he added.
The Marshall Plan, named after then-Secretary of State George Marshall, was part of the Economic Recovery of 1948, signed into law by President Harry Truman, which invested more than $13 billion into rebuilding the economies of Western Europe. It also brought investments to the continent ravaged by war and stimulated the U.S. economy by creating a market for its products.
Newsom told NBC that he was speaking to city, civic, business, nonprofit, and labor leaders about the recovery.
“We have got to be thinking three weeks, three months, three years ahead; at the same time, we’re focusing on the immediacy, which is life safety and property,” Newsom told the network.
Newsom’s comments prompted outrage among some on social media, with several sharing near-identical messages, writing that his comments “should send chills down the spine of every citizen of Los Angeles. @GavinNewsom sees the fires as an opportunity to accelerate his ‘Marshall Plan.’”
“This means no single-family zoning, public transit for ALL, equity/climate/DEI agenda,” a user going by the name Matt Baker added.
“We need new leaders, not a new LA. LA isn’t perfect but it’s just FINE. It’s NEWSOM who’s responsible for many of our problems. He’s the LAST person to fix them. And no he’s NOT using the loss of much of LA as an opportunity (as he did with COVID) to create a ‘new normal,’” he said. “This scumbag has to go.”
“YOU weren’t elected to reimagine ANYTHING. You were elected to keep us safe (failed), manage our taxes responsibly (failed), educate kids (failed)…” another user, Houman David Hemmati, tweeted. “Your term is over, either by resignation or recall. Either way, pack your bags.”
“He is trying [to] turn Pacific Palisades into a communist dump. Terrible,” a third added.
“Hey, he’s so good at this ‘equality’ thing, all the homeless will be the new millionaires soon. He’s thrown enough money at the problem. The fires are Homelessness 2.0!” Alexandra Datig said.
Several users also mentioned the idea of the “15-minute city,” which is an urban planning concept that requires that most daily necessities be available within a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit journey.
A conspiracy theory has developed starting with the notion that restricting car use is equivalent to government overreach and an attack on individual freedom, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation noted.
The conspiracy theory snowballs from there, with the claims that restricting car use and making it easier to walk or ride a bike is putting cities on the path to becoming open-air prisons operated by the government.
“The idea that neighborhoods should be walkable is lovely. The idea that idiot tyrannical bureaucrats can decide by fiat where you’re ‘allowed’ to drive is perhaps the worst imaginable perversion of that idea — and, make no mistake, it’s part of a well-documented plan,” Canadian psychologist and controversial public figure Jordan Peterson wrote on X.
The idea of the 15-minute city has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum, prompting claims that it’s part of a global plan.
“The lies range from small lies — like ‘they’re going to not want you to drive [at all]’ — to big lies — literally using terms like ‘they want to turn your neighborhood into a concentration camp’ that ‘your life is going to be like the Hunger Games, where there [are] different sectors that you’ll be representing’,” former Vancouver Chief Planner Brent Toderian told ABC.
