• U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) is spending a lot of time pushing back on the Trump administration’s policy pushes. Since President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January and began signing a flurry of executive orders, Carbajal’s office has put out several press releases about what the congressman is doing and saying about it, including his pledge to help introduce legislation that would block the “so-called ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (DOGE)” from accessing sensitive data and government payment systems, demand full accounting from the Treasury Department, and support actions to enforce Congress’s power of the purse. Carbajal was part of a group of more than 150 House Democrats who signed a letter to recently appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent raising the alarm about DOGE’s access to sensitive personal data of U.S. citizens and the extent of Elon Musk’s access. “It is clear that Mr. Musk and his allies aim to overhaul the payments system to advance their own agenda. Mr. Musk has made numerous comments suggesting that the government should not fund programs that contradict his personal politics. Mr. Musk, who has faced multiple lawsuits over alleged racism at his companies, has stated that ‘[Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] must DIE,’ and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is reportedly targeting $120 billion in cuts from federal diversity spending. Mr. Musk also has significant conflicts of interest as a federal contractor, with two of his companies—Tesla and SpaceX—accounting for nearly $20 billion in government contracts over the past 16 years,” the letter stated. On Feb. 7, he joined other House Democrats to introduce the Taxpayer Data Protection Act, which would stop people with conflicts of interest or without security clearance from accessing the Treasury Department’s payment system. “The takeover of federal payment systems by unelected billionaires and unvetted right-wing activists is a dangerous move that jeopardizes your personal information and privacy, and we are taking action to stop it,” Carbajal said in a press release from his office. Carbajal spoke alongside state Sen. Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara), state Assemblymember Gregg Hart (D-Santa Barbara), and 2nd District Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps at an emergency town hall meeting in Santa Barbara on Feb. 8 aiming to “fight the Trump-Musk resistance,” according to Indivisible Santa Barbara, which organized the event. On Feb. 10, during the first hearing of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee, Carbajal questioned a new Department of Transportation memo instructing department employees to “give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.” “I’m having trouble understanding how birth and marriage rates contribute to making grant awards that strengthen our national supply, let along the legality of it,” he said during the hearing. “Does anyone know how marriage and birth rates help determine sound maritime investments? … Your silence says it all.”
• On Feb. 6, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order aimed at hardening communities against wildfire in response to the Los Angeles wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes. “We are living in a new reality of extremes. Believe the science—and your own damn eyes: Mother Nature is changing the way we live, and we must continue adapting to those changes. California’s resilience means we will keep updating our standards in the most fire-prone areas,” he said in a statement from his office. The order directs the State Board of Forestry to require an ember-resistant zone within 5 feet of structures located in the state’s higher fire severity zones, tasks the State Fire Marshal to update its fire hazard maps by adding 1.4 million new acres of land to the two highest tiers of fire severity, and requires CalFire and the Office of Emergency Services to work with local, federal, and tribal partners to improve the resource ordering system for wildfire response.
This article appears in Feb 13-23, 2025.