SACRAMENTO — The Bush administration took six months to evaluate Gov. Gray Davis' emergency request last spring for $430 million to clear dead trees from fire-prone areas of Southern California.
The request was finally denied Oct. 24, only hours before wildfires roared out of control in what has become the largest fire disaster in California history.
Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs), a leader in the effort to get federal assistance for fire prevention, questioned Thursday why the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not rule sooner.
"FEMA's decision was wrong," Bono said. "The timing couldn't have been worse.... We knew this disaster was going to happen with certainty. It was only a matter of when, and we were trying to beat the clock with removing the dead trees."
If Davis had received the denial earlier, Bono said, he would have had time to wage an appeal.
FEMA spokesman Chad Kolton said the agency denied Davis' request for an emergency declaration because California was already receiving more than $40 million from the departments of Agriculture and Interior to deal with a bark beetle infestation that has damaged thousands of acres of forest in the San Bernardino Mountains.
"Federal agencies were already engaged in a very substantive way," Kolton said. "Federal assistance was already being provided."
Davis' request, made in a letter to President Bush dated April 16, took months to process, Kolton said, because "we obviously wanted to consider this issue very carefully."
Members of the California congressional delegation were informed of FEMA's decision in an e-mail last Friday, after some of the fires were already burning. Kolton said Davis' Sacramento office was also notified of the decision verbally and in a faxed letter.
In that letter FEMA offered no explanation for why it had taken six months to rule.
"FEMA recognizes the difficulty that the state of California and affected local governments are facing," wrote Michael D. Brown, undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response.
"After a careful review of the information contained in your request, the authorities granted to [Department of Agriculture] and [Department of Interior], and the resources they have already committed to the state, it has been determined that the federal assistance through FEMA is not warranted."
