WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris plans to visit a San Bernardino fire station Friday to announce the federal government will provide California $600 million to help the state recover from a historically severe wildfire season while highlighting plans to spend $5 billion more to prevent fires, an administration official said.
The event is part of the Biden administration’s effort to showcase a $1-trillion bipartisan infrastructure law that the president signed in November. President Joe Biden said during a news conference marking his first year in office on Wednesday that he wanted to spend more time selling the administration’s achievements in the face of low poll numbers and recent setbacks on his agenda, including the failure this week to pass a major voting rights bill championed by Harris.
Harris’ speech in San Bernardino will be the first to feature the infrastructure bill’s plans to spend $5 billion to make communities more resilient to the exacerbated risk of fire as the climate changes. Last year’s wildfire season was among the worst in California’s history, with fires scorching nearly 2.6 million acres.
