The California Climate Export Catching Fire In Trump’s Dc

California’s wildfire tech companies are seizing their D.C. moment as Congress and President Donald Trump eye sweeping fire reforms.

Representatives from Truckee, Calif.-based forest mapping company Vibrant Planet and Earth Fire Alliance, a nonprofit coalition working on wildfire-tracking satellites that includes Google and Muon Space, backed the bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act in a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C. on Thursday focused on wildfire policy and technology.

They had a receptive audience, with both Rep. Bruce Westerman, the Republican chair of the committee, and Rep. Jared Huffman, the Democratic ranking member, enthusiastically encouraging everything from drones to artificial intelligence to mapping software.

“There is no downside to scaling new technologies across the federal government, especially innovative technologies that improve wildfire suppression and response and facilitate more proactive land management,” said Westerman.

To be sure, there are still cracks. Though the bill passed the House, it's cooling its heels in the Senate, where California Sen. Alex Padilla is co-sponsoring it, amid broader budget talks.

And on Thursday, while Westerman praised Trump’s executive order seeking to consolidate federal wildfire agencies and encourage the use of privately developed technology, Huffman lambasted the Trump administration’s jobs cuts that are hampering those same wildfire agencies (“This is where I feel like sometimes we must be living on different planets,” Huffman told his Republican counterparts.)

But the growing bipartisan embrace of fire technology gives California's climate exports an easy and rare win in the age of Trump — and the companies that stand to benefit are leaning in.

They engaged “from the very start” to shape provisions of the bill, including a fire intelligence center and a pilot tech-testing program, said Matt Weiner, the CEO of nonprofit Megafire Action, which has allied with tech companies.

“This is an industry that was largely grown in California, and that’s expanding nationwide now,” said Weiner. “What you're seeing is policymakers nationwide seeing the potential and the need here…it’s an exciting time.”

They might actually be having more success in D.C. than at home.

The Los Angeles fires triggered a wave of state legislative proposals focused primarily on immediate financial relief for victims and boosting Cal Fire staffing, but tech input has been sparse (the exception being Vibrant Planet’s support for state Sen. Josh Becker’s SB 326, which bolsters wildfire planning and coordination among state agencies and utilities.)

And last month, a bill by Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris to set up an autonomous firefighting helicopter pilot stalled in the appropriations committee amid the broader budget deficit.

Part of the D.C.-Sacramento split-screen is because California’s been taking small bites out of wildfire policy as wildfires began shattering records over the past seven years, spending billions to boost its firefighting force — including over $4 billion in this year’s budget for Cal Fire — and tweaking laws to improve prescribed burning and forest management. And partly it’s because no one in Sacramento has attempted the type of sweeping reform gaining traction in D.C.

Dan Munsey, the San Bernardino County fire chief, testified at Thursday's hearing that he liked the spending on Cal Fire. But he also said that local agencies like his are ahead of the rest of government in embracing technology like firefighting drones. And he said tech can only go so far.

“The answer to this isn't the technology that is broadly available. The answer is leadership,” Munsey said. “We lack interagency department collaboration. It's very bifurcated. I fully support President Trump's creation of the U.S. wildfire agency. We have to break down the barriers. We're slowly innovating. We are burdened by the regulatory process.”

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