Free Republic

California Gov. Jerry Brown’s decision to veto a 2016 bipartisan bill aimed at mitigating wildfire risks from power lines and utility equipment has become the focus of critics as fires rage across the state. Wildfires have scorched more than 221,000 acres across California since Thursday, and Brown’s critics are pointing to the two-year-old veto as news reports suggest power lines may have sparked the deadliest wildfire in California’s history. “He has done nothing to harden those assets,” state Sen. John Moorlach, a Republican, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Woolsey fire that has engulfed over 90,000 acres in California last weekend may have spread toxic and radioactive substances from a Superfund site. Activists, who believe authorities might be downplaying the risks of the toxins released into the air, say the burning of the nuclear waste site could further complicate health concerns. According to RT, the Woolsey fire ripped right through the Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL), a federal Superfund site in the Simi Hills that was the site of the worst nuclear meltdown in United States history in 1959. While the SSFL has been the site of multiple...