Exposing years-old concerns about California's resilience to wildfires, a government whistleblower and other witnesses in a recent state trial alleged that cleanup operations after some of the largest fires in state history were plagued by mismanagement and overspending — and that toxic contamination was at times left behind in local communities.
Steven Larson, a former state debris operations manager in the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, failed to convince a jury that he was wrongly fired by the agency for flagging those and other issues to his supervisors. After a three-week trial in Sacramento, the jury found Larson was retaliated against, but also that the agency had other, legitimate reasons for dismissing him from his post, according to court records.
Still, the little-discussed trial provided a rare window into a billion-dollar public-private industry that is rapidly expanding — and becoming increasingly expensive for taxpayers and lucrative for contractors — given the increased threat of fires from climate change.
It raised serious questions about the state's fire response and management capabilities at a time when the Trump administration says it is aggressively searching for "waste, fraud and abuse" in government spending, proposing cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and clashing with state leaders over the best way to respond to future wildfires in California.
The allegations raised in the trial also come as FEMA and the Army...
Last week, the US jobless claims report stole the show as initial claims jumped to a new cycle high and the highest level since 2021. That triggered a more dovish repricing in interest rates expec...