Photo: AFP

 

US President Donald Trump threatened once again on Sunday to withhold federal aid from California after its Democratic governor criticized his environmental policies.

Over the past two weeks, fires have ravaged nearly 40,000 hectares in the sprawling western state, where firefighters on Sunday were battling the Maria Fire, about 100 kilometers northwest of Los Angeles.

Taking a line of attack he first used last year when fires killed 86 people in northern California, Trump blamed Governor Gavin Newsom, saying he had done "a terrible job of forest management."

"Every year, as the fire's rage & California burns, it is the same thing - and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more. Get your act together Governor," Trump said on Twitter.  

Newsom, responding on Twitter, brushed off Trump's criticism in a terse 12 words, "You don't believe in climate change. You are excused from this conversation."

The president has on several occasions openly questioned the scientific consensus that human activity causes changes in the climate, and notably the drought that has contributed to the California fires. His administration decided on September 18 to revoke California's authority to set its own standards for automobile pollution.

Newsom criticized the Republican government's ambivalence in dealing with the disasters.