The U.S. will cover all emergency response costs for a massive New Mexico fire, President Joe Biden said, while warning that the Senate may block a bill compensating the state for a blaze the federal government started.
Biden surveyed fire damage from Air Force One before arriving Saturday in New Mexico to meet Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and emergency officials for an update on the blaze, which was set off by prescribed burn conducted by the National Forest Service.
“It’s an astounding amount of territory, and the impacts on families that have been there for so long are so consequential,” Biden said in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “We have a responsibility to help the state recover, to help the families who have been here for centuries.”
