Texas Failed to Spend Millions in Federal Aid for Flood Protection
The money had come from a special federal disaster program that's given states billions of dollars for projects such as flood protection, tornado safety and the type of warning systems that could have saved some of the 129 people killed in Texas' recent flash flooding. Texas had rejected two requests from the flooded county for a small portion of the federal money to set up a flood-warning system.
But Texas, like most states, has chosen not to spend a significant chunk of its mitigation grant money. States routinely let the government reclaim unspent money — or let available money go unused for as long as 20 years, according to an analysis of federal records by POLITICO's E&E News.
On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
In addition to ceding the $225 million, Texas has not spent $505 million of the $820 million — 62 percent — that it got for mitigation projects nearly eight years ago after Hurricane Harvey killed 89 people and caused $160 billion in damage, records show. The funds remain available.
The unspent money highlights a central flaw in the nation's approach to protecting against climate change: The federal government gives states and communities both money and responsibility for disaster protection. Yet states and communities often lack the personnel and expertise to spend it fully.
Since July 2015, the federal Hazard Mitigation Grant Program has showered states with more than $23 billion to protect their counties, neighborhoods and homes against future disaster damage. The grants have been given automatically after each federally declared disaster and are separate from the federal money that pays for disaster cleanup and rebuilding.
But nearly $21 billion of the grant money remains unspent, E&E News found, leaving people vulnerable to the deadly flooding, winds and wildfires that climate change is intensifying. Some of the grant money was awarded in recent years, but most was awarded more than three years ago.
In the same period since 2015, states also relinquished a total of $1.4 billion in mitigation grant funding that had been approved but states never spent.
The figure includes the $225 million that Texas gave up over the past 10 years as the government closed a series of partially spent hazard mitigation grants it had awarded the state since 2001. The grants were worth a total of $850 million, which means Texas did not spend more than a quarter of the money. Most recently, on April 29, Texas ceded $5.7 million of a $13 million mitigation grant it got in 2016.
'It's a lost opportunity to build resilience,' said Peter Gaynor, who ran the Federal Emergency Management Agency from 2019 to 2021. FEMA operates the mitigation grant program.
'What happens time and time again is mitigation money becomes an afterthought,' Gaynor said.
The Texas Division of Emergency Management, which handles the FEMA mitigation grants, did not respond directly to questions about unspent money.
Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Gov. Greg Abbott (R), said in a statement, "The State continues to disburse HMGP funding as grants are awarded and encourages local officials to apply."
The large amount of unspent hazard mitigation money prompted President Donald Trump in April to stop approving new allocations, a move that angered some state officials.
A FEMA spokesperson said the agency is now helping states 'identify projects and draw down balances in a way that makes the nation more resilient, while also responsibly safeguarding American taxpayer dollars.'
Trump has assailed FEMA since taking office but on Friday offered unusual praise when he visited the damaged area in Texas. 'FEMA has been really headed by some very good people,' Trump said.
Although states had automatically received FEMA grant money after each disaster, spending the money has been excruciating at times. FEMA typically must approve each grant-funded project.
'It's such a cumbersome process,' said David Fogerson, who ran Nevada's emergency management and homeland security agency from 2020 to 2024.
States and communities — or their contractors — must submit detailed plans showing that a project is feasible, complies with environmental and preservation laws and makes sense financially. States, counties and municipalities also must have a written plan — typically a couple of hundred pages and updated every five years — showing its broad strategy to reduce disaster damage.
A Government Accountability Office report in 2021 found that state officials were 'overwhelmingly dissatisfied' with the application process.
'It almost becomes overload when you're trying to manage the disaster and then you're trying to measure how to protect against the next disaster,' Fogerson said.
Nevada has spent only a quarter of the $3.4 million hazard grant it got from FEMA after a wildfire in 2016, records show.
'It's a blessing and a curse,' Fogerson said of the grant money.
Federal funds rarely used for warning systems
Kerr County, Texas, the site of the flash flooding that began July 4, encountered the administrative gantlet in 2016 when it asked the state in 2016 and in 2018 for a small piece of its FEMA mitigation money to establish a flood warning system.
Warning systems are a crucial but low-profile part of worldwide strategies to protect against natural hazards, particularly in places prone to flash flooding, which occurs when sudden, intense precipitation causes rivers to overflow.
Texas officials are scrutinizing the limited warnings that were transmitted as the Guadalupe River surged in the middle of the night and devoured areas including a girls' sleepaway camp where at least 27 campers and counselors were killed.
In Kerrville, Texas, which was at the center of the flash flooding, City Manager Dalton Rice on Saturday pledged 'a full review of the disaster response.'
Trump's staff reductions and proposed budget cuts to the National Weather Service offices have set off their own alarms that inadequate weather alerts will increase the number of disaster-related deaths.
Kerr County's request for grant money was denied in 2016 by the Texas Division of Emergency Management because the county did not have the required mitigation plan.
When the county of 50,000 people in central Texas Hill Country applied again after Hurricane Harvey, the state denied the application after deciding to spend all the grant money in Harvey-damaged counties.
'If localities do not meet federal requirements, they will not be able to access the funding. The State works with applicants to support efforts to bring them into compliance,' said Mahaleris, the spokesperson for Gov. Abbott.
The Texas Legislature will convene a special session July 21 to consider new laws that would improve warning systems in flood-prone areas.
'We're going to work on every single solution to make sure things like this don't happen,' Abbott said Friday.
Despite the importance of warning systems and their moderate cost, states have spent only a tiny amount of their mitigation grants installing them, E&E News' analysis of federal records shows.
The largest chunk of grant money has gone to flood protection, usually for individual properties. Roughly $4.5 billion has been given to homeowners in flood-prone coastal or riverside areas to elevate their house above flood level or to buy the property, demolish the home and leave the land vacant, E&E News' analysis shows. Each project costs federal taxpayers roughly $250,000.
By contrast, states have spent just $275 million on warning systems.
'The cost of warning systems proportionately to other flood mitigation activities is relatively cheaper,' said Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. 'For a small community, it could be a siren and a gauging apparatus that's tied to that. That could end up being cheaper than one buyout.'
Low-income nations such as Bangladesh have spent heavily on flood-warning systems, said Sarah Labowitz, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies disasters.
'They're doing that without a lot of resources,' Labowitz said. 'We should be learning from other places and investing in early warning systems.'
But one problem with using FEMA mitigation money for warning systems is that their benefits are nearly impossible to quantify, Berginnis said.
FEMA generally requires proof that a mitigation project funded with its grants has a positive benefit-cost ratio. Although the agency makes exceptions for some projects such as warning systems, FEMA requires grant-funded warning systems to be part of a 'planned, adopted, and exercised risk reduction plan.'
Berginnis acknowledged that states struggle to spend their mitigation grants. But he opposes Trump's recent decisions not to approve new grants.
'Mitigation happens when people are receptive to doing mitigation, and they are the most receptive to doing it in the immediate aftermath to do it, period. We are missing a key opportunity to do that,' Berginnis said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
Just how much has DOGE exaggerated its numbers? Now we have receipts.
DOGE's latest figures on contract cuts ticked up to $54.2 billion in an update posted on Tuesday. POLITICO's findings come on top of months of scrutiny of DOGE's accounting, but the magnitude of DOGE's inflated savings claims has not been clear until now. Even so, President Donald Trump claimed hundreds of billions of dollars had already been used to reduce the federal deficit. The former head of DOGE, Elon Musk, initially promised the organization would reduce the deficit by $2 trillion. Many in Trump's Cabinet have also celebrated DOGE's efforts, including his secretaries of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and Agriculture. DOGE's savings calculations are based on faulty math. The group uses the maximum spending possible under each contract as its baseline — meaning all money an agency could spend in future fiscal years. That amount can far exceed what the government has actually committed to pay out. Counting this 'ceiling value' gives a false picture of savings for taxpayers. 'That's the equivalent of basically taking out a credit card with a $20,000 credit limit, canceling it and then saying, 'I've just saved $20,000,'' said Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law studies at George Washington University Law School. 'Anything that's been said publicly about [DOGE's] savings is meaningless.' The White House disagrees. DOGE has produced 'historic savings for the American people,' White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields wrote in an email in response to questions about DOGE's activities. DOGE's site, he said, provides up-to-date and accurate information. 'All numbers are rigorously scrubbed with agency procurement officials and updated in real time based on current information,' he said. DOGE's public list of records, or what it calls its 'wall of receipts,' says the site only represents a subset of the organization's overall savings. However, even among the sample of contracts it posted through July, roughly 40 percent of claimed savings could not be verified due to a lack of identifying information. DOGE's fuzzy math DOGE claims it has saved $202 billion across the whole of the federal government from a combination of contract, lease and grant cancellations, workforce reductions, regulation clawbacks and more. To create savings from canceling contracts or other awards, DOGE has a few options: The president could formally claw back funds through Capitol Hill — a process where Congress cancels dollars it had previously appropriated, which it did this month for the first time in decades — or agencies could reclaim awarded funds for later use, an action known as a deobligation. To assess DOGE's actual savings so far from canceled contracts, POLITICO created a database of every traceable termination posted on DOGE's wall of receipts through July 26 that was at least one month old, about 10,100 contracts. Over this period, agencies have issued clawbacks, or deobligations, on less than 30 percent of those awards, recovering $1.4 billion in funds. Even if agencies immediately recovered all unspent funds from these 10,100 contracts, the total savings would amount to less than 40 percent of what DOGE has taken credit for. And agencies would still be on the hook to spend those dollars unless Congress or the president intervened, though some in the administration have said they could simply spend less. Roughly 2,400 cancellations on DOGE's termination list through July cannot be independently verified. Some of these cancellations were simply too recent to show up in public records, but most had their identifying information redacted by DOGE, which has often labeled those entries as 'unavailable for legal reasons.' DOGE's list is filled with exaggerated savings claims across the federal government. Some contracts included on DOGE's termination list have only been modified and not canceled; others have been removed from the list without explanation. Under the VA, for example, DOGE's page reported savings of $932 million from contracts canceled though June, including awards for a cancer registry, suicide prevention services and other health care support. Federal records show the VA recovered just $132 million from these awards, or less than 15 percent of what DOGE claimed, and that the VA reinstated the contract for suicide prevention support. These contracts were canceled because VA staff could perform the necessary work in-house, VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz wrote in an email. The VA, he said, has avoided up to $27 billion in costs from reviewing and downsizing thousands of contracts 'to ensure each one of them benefits Veterans and is a good use of taxpayers' money.' But the bulk of DOGE's actions show a different approach to savings entirely: lowering the ceiling value, which experts equate to an accounting trick. Lowering the ceiling decreases the potential price tag, but it's not guaranteed those dollars would have been spent to begin with. 'Voila! Half a billion saved. Time for lunch,' said one federal contracting lawyer with nearly four decades' experience advising government contractors who was granted anonymity to explain the practice freely. At most, for contracts where the ceiling exceeds the obligated amount, this kind of action amounts to avoiding future expenses that were never guaranteed to happen. In total, the administration removed $14 billion from contract ceilings on the traceable contracts on its 'wall of receipts' through July — a far cry from the $32.7 billion DOGE claimed to have saved from terminating them. In reality, the ultimate savings from terminations are nearly impossible to predict. DOGE's calculations, for instance, don't account for expenses that come from ending contracts prematurely, like payments for outstanding leases, subcontractors, or work already performed, which can add up quickly. 'There's no certainty because we haven't finished understanding termination costs of anything,' Tillipman said. That can take years to untangle. Until then, 'we don't know any of it,' she said, referring to savings. Plus, even drafting a contract costs money. 'You have spent multiple months or even years and many people's time getting to the best negotiated terms for the public's interest,' said Cristin Dorgelo, a former senior adviser in the Office of Management and Budget during the Biden administration. By law, agencies are still required to spend any funds Congress appropriated to them, including money they claw back from individual projects. They have some discretion to change how they spend it — perhaps to negotiate a better deal or to align it with the administration's priorities. Failing to spend appropriated dollars could violate the Impoundment Control Act, a law Trump's budget director, Russell Vought, has repeatedly said is unconstitutional. DOGE's actions will avoid future costs among the contracts it has terminated, experts agreed. But how much that ultimately amounts to and how much is returned to the Treasury, they said, lies somewhere in the middle of the numbers DOGE has published and what federal spending records show. DOGE-flation in action One of DOGE's largest savings claims is from a canceled contract for a shelter in Pecos, Texas, to house unaccompanied migrant children. In a post on X in February, DOGE said the Department of Health and Human Services 'paid ~$18M/month' to keep the now-empty center open. Canceling the agreement, it said, would translate to more than $215 million in annual savings for taxpayers. By the time the contract was added to the DOGE termination list, that savings claim skyrocketed to $2.9 billion. DOGE's math was simple: It took the difference between the contract's $3.3 billion ceiling and the amount that had been formally awarded, or obligated — $428 million — and called it savings. But HHS and its Office of Refugee Resettlement were not on track to spend anywhere close to the contract's ceiling. That ceiling represented what it would cost the government to fund the Pecos center at full capacity — 3,000 children — for 365 days a year, for five years. If the center was not full, the government would pay less, according to four people familiar with the contract who were granted anonymity for fear of retribution. But the Pecos campus had been empty since February 2024. Instead, an $18 million price tag per month covered operating costs to keep the center ready to receive children with just two weeks' notice — an option the refugee resettlement office invoked at least twice during the lifetime of the contract. In total, the resettlement office had committed to pay no more than $428 million in rental, maintenance, security and IT expenses for the 80-acre campus through November, the four people said. At that time, the contract would be reviewed for renewal or cancellation. 'The bottom line is that the contract already had built in savings and efficiency into the way it was by the way it was structured,' one of the four people said. The most the government could save by canceling the contract for the Pecos campus before the November decision date would be about $126 million, or the amount the contractor, Family Endeavors, had yet to withdraw for upcoming monthly expenses. That's 4 percent of DOGE's $2.9 billion in claimed savings. Family Endeavors referred POLITICO to a written statement responding to the contract's cancellation that said the group's mission of 'serving vulnerable communities' is ongoing. To date, no funds have been returned to the Treasury from canceling this contract. ORR has not recalled funds because it anticipates future termination costs, according to the four people familiar with the contract. By the time that happens, actual savings from canceling this contract will be even less. 'The Biden Administration wasted more than $1.8 billion dollars on a facility to house illegal aliens, which has not been used in the last year,' HHS director of communications Andrew G. Nixon wrote in an email. 'Under Secretary [Robert F.] Kennedy's leadership, HHS is ensuring that taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely and not in support of illegal immigration.' The Interior Department, which administers the contract, referred questions to HHS. DOGE also claimed $166 million in savings from canceling a contract that plays a central role in the Energy Department's ability to keep household appliances like refrigerators and microwaves as efficient as possible. The Energy Department is required by law to set efficiency standards on roughly 70 products and appliances in order to reduce energy demand. Under an eight-year contract DOGE claims to have canceled, consulting firm Guidehouse Inc. provided the analysis used to set these standards. The Energy Department said the contract had not been canceled, but reduced, saying it achieved 60 percent 'in significant savings for the American taxpayer.' DOGE posted the contract on its list of terminations a few weeks before the agency repealed 20 appliance efficiency standards in May without any supporting evidence, said Emily Hammond, who served as deputy general counsel at the Energy Department during the Biden administration. 'DOE seems to be abnegating its duties,' Hammond said. 'Congress has required the agency to do its homework, and it doesn't appear to be doing that homework.' While DOGE claims $166 million in savings from terminating the agreement, federal spending records show the Energy Department has recalled $0 and removed just under $100 million from the contract's ceiling value. At most, that translates to $0 in savings to date and around $100 million in potentially avoided future costs. The irony, Hammond said, is that the efficiency standards Guidehouse helped to create save billions of dollars for consumers. 'The cost of developing them is quite small in contrast to the enormous impact,' Hammond said. The Energy Department has said dropping the regulations will lower costs for consumers, but efficiency standards saved households and businesses $105 billion in 2024, according to the department's own data — a far cry from DOGE's claimed $166 million in savings. Guidehouse declined to comment on the status of this contract. Holes in the wall The future of the 'wall of receipts' and of the organization remains uncertain. Updates to DOGE's public accounting page have become more infrequent since Musk's exit in May. The page's three most recent updates represented the longest periods of silence since the site launched in February. It was stagnant for most of June and went nearly four weeks before posting new terminations in July. Another 17 days passed before its latest update in August. The same is true of Trump and Musk's relationship. After leaving DOGE, Musk declared war on Trump's megabill, which the president signed into law on the Fourth of July. The two took their breakup to X, lobbing insults on the world's stage. 'What the heck was the point of @DOGE if [Trump]'s just going to increase the debt by $5 trillion??,' Musk wrote on X in July, referring to the deficit increase. The law will increase the national debt by $3.4 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Now, Musk has committed to starting a third party with the same goal as DOGE: reduce government spending. METHODOLOGY POLITICO relied on public federal spending records from USA Spending and the Federal Procurement Data System as well as DOGE's list of terminated contracts available on its ' wall of receipts ' for this report. (DOGE's website says its list of terminations are a subset of all canceled awards, but its ledger remains the only public log of its activity.) For this analysis, POLITICO excluded any contracts with a termination date within one month of its July 26 update, as DOGE cautions on its site that 'FPDS posting of the contract termination notices can have up to a 1 month lag.' POLITICO also excluded any contract terminations without a valid link to the Federal Procurement Data System, which contains additional identifying information POLITICO used to match each contract termination with federal spending records and was necessary for this analysis. When available, old versions of the DOGE data were used for USAID contract cancellations that were stripped of identifying information on the DOGE website due to 'legal reasons' without further explanation. Among contract terminations where savings could be verified, POLITICO compiled every transaction that has taken place between Jan. 20 and July 26, the date of DOGE's second-most recent update, in order to assess savings created by DOGE so far. 'Savings' represents dollars put back into the hands of agencies for later use. Agencies are required to spend dollars appropriated to them by Congress. Contracts added, removed or modified in DOGE's Aug. 12 data are not part of this analysis. Only 30 percent of the contracts POLITICO reviewed had deobligations, or money returned to the agency. The remainder either had no transaction activity during the Trump administration through July 26 or had only positive obligations during that period. Each contract has a few possible states: At least one reduction in spending: POLITICO considered all deobligations reflective of DOGE's savings to date. In some cases, agencies added funds to a contract after a deobligation or reduction in ceiling value, effectively reducing the amount saved. POLITICO counted all activity on a contract after the first deobligation or reduction in ceiling value to show the net total of dollars saved or ceiling value reduced, respectively. No changes: While DOGE says it has terminated the contract, there has been no change, negative or positive, to the amount the government has committed to spending. These contracts result in $0 in government savings to date by POLITICO's accounting. Only new spending: There are many instances where contracts on DOGE's termination list showed additional spending during the search period and no deobligations. POLITICO did not count these dollars against DOGE's savings tally (unless that positive obligation happened after a negative obligation). This is to provide additional accounting for lags in DOGE actions appearing in public accounting records.
Axios
2 hours ago
- Axios
Trump on suspected Russian court hack: "Are you surprised?"
President Donald Trump downplayed the significance of Russia's reported involvement in a hack of the U.S. federal court filing system during a press conference Wednesday. "Are you surprised?" he told a reporter. "They hack in, that's what they do. They're good at it." Why it matters: These are Trump's first comments about the recently reported cyberattack, and they come ahead of Trump's scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday. Driving the news: The New York Times reported Tuesday that federal investigators suspect Russia is behind the massive breach of a computer system that manages federal court documents, including highly sensitive records. Politico first reported on the breach last week. Hackers are believed to have targeted the same security flaws that were exploited in a 2020 breach of the same filing system. What they're saying: During a press conference at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, a reporter asked Trump if he had seen reports that Russia broke into the court systems and whether he planned to bring it up during his meeting with Putin. "I guess I could but are you surprised?" Trump said. "They hack in, that's what they do. They're good at it, we're good at it — we're actually better at it. But no, I have heard about it." The big picture: Trump appointees in the intelligence community have spent recent weeks downplaying Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election — calling claims Russia changed vote tallies a "hoax" and alleging the Obama administration suppressed evidence.
Politico
7 hours ago
- Politico
The one issue where ‘26 Dems all agree
CHORUS OF COMPETITORS — The major Democratic candidates for governor have all quickly lined up behind their party in supporting efforts to redraw California's congressional districts mid-decade to counter Texas Republicans' attempts to do the same. Former Biden administration cabinet member Xavier Becerra told POLITICO that 'Politically, we must do it.' Toni Atkins, the former legislative leader, told Playbook that 'California has always led the way — and now we must because the fate of our democracy and the country's future depend on us stopping this Republican power grab.' A visible standout … The one notable exception has been billionaire mall magnate Rick Caruso, who has not entered the field but has been floated as a possible moderate Democratic candidate. Through a spokesperson, he declined to comment on whether he supported California's power play. BIG PICTURE: The near uniform response from others in the 2026 field has not afforded any of them a chance to stand out, much less a viral soundbite chewing out the president and Texas Republicans. But it has allowed them to stay in their party's good graces and cast themselves as leaders of the resistance as they seek a fundraising surge following former Vice President Kamala Harris' decision not to run. Key incentive … When former Rep. Katie Porter came out in support of California Democrats' redistricting play, she almost explicitly explained why Democratic candidates for governor stand to benefit from backing their party's redraw. It's a chance to bash President Donald Trump to anti-Trump voters. 'This is what I hear from Californians all the time as I'm running for governor: They want a fighter. They want someone who's going to stand up to Donald Trump and stand up to the Republican shenanigans,' Porter said on CNN last week. 'I think that Trump and Texas — Texas Republicans — are leaving us no choice. They are tinkering with the rules of our democracy.' Billionaire entrepreneur Stephen J. Cloobeck has taken his redistricting arguments in a similar anti-Trump direction, distributing a campaign ad comparing Trump's untrue claims that he won the 2020 election to his support for Texas redistricting. 'Cheaters gonna cheat. That's what he's doing in Texas,' a narrator says over clips of Trump speaking, 'changing the rules so that he can't lose.' Changing course … Even Democratic candidates including former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who backed the creation of California's independent redistricting commission, have called for the commission's map to be tossed out early. Villaraigosa in an interview said he wouldn't support the California Legislature unilaterally redrawing the state's lines, but he got on board once Democrats settled on putting the map that would be used before voters. 'We have to stand up to these efforts to rig an election,' Villaraigosa told Playbook, while railing against the GOP and president's agenda. 'We have to stand up because Californians are being disproportionately targeted here, on health care, on taxes, on tariffs, on education, and these raids.' Or as state Superintendent Tony Thurmond framed the state's process in a video address: 'California is fighting fire with fire, but because we're California, we're doing it in an open, transparent and responsible way.' Family ties … By falling into line, the candidates are also doing their party a solid. They may not be able to secure enough Democratic delegates to get a statewide party endorsement in the primary — especially if the field remains so sprawling — but maintaining relationships with Democratic insiders who have a more direct stake in redistricting could help with courting donors and endorsements. 'I won't stand by and watch a Texas takeover that ultimately gives Congress the green light to strip away more of our civil rights and harm Californians with even deeper program cuts,' former state Controller Betty Yee said in a statement supporting California's response. The Republican response … Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative media personality Steve Hilton have also gone the way of their national party, stridently opposing California's redistricting gambit. Hilton issued a threat to sue the state over it, calling the maneuver 'a blatant, unconstitutional and illegal power grab designed to cement one‑party rule.' The redistricting play has given Bianco and Hilton a prime chance to rail against partisan line drawing not just now but through the 2026 election, knowing that if one of them makes it to the run-off, they'll likely be running against someone who supported Democrats' gerrymander. 'Dictator Gavin Newsom believes he has to destroy democracy in order to 'save it,'' Bianco said on social media, offering a flavor of the attacks he could launch at Democratic opponents on the issue. 'We're going to fight back, just like we did when he unlawfully banned people from going to church and opening their small businesses.' GOOD MORNING. Happy Wednesday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. Like what you're reading? Sign up to get California Playbook in your inbox, and forward it to a friend. You can also text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as 'CA Playbook' in your contacts. Or drop us a line at dgardiner@ and bjones@ or on X — @DustinGardiner and @jonesblakej. WHERE'S GAVIN? Nothing official announced. BIG NEWS: On Wednesday, Aug. 27, POLITICO is hosting its inaugural California policy summit. At The California Agenda, some of the state's most prominent political figures including Sen. Alex Padilla, Katie Porter and Xavier Becerra will share the stage with influential voices in tech, energy, housing and other areas to chart the path forward for a state at the forefront of critical policy debates. The live and streamed event is free, but advanced registration is required. Request an invite here. MORE ON REDISTRICTING DIFFERENT TIMES — Common Cause, a good government watchdog that had previously been opposed to mid-cycle redistricting, is changing course. As POLITICO's Aaron Pellish reports, the group released a new policy statement Tuesday, stating that it will not condemn California's redistricting effort — which it called a 'counterbalancing measure' to Trump's push to draw several new Republican-leaning seats in Texas and around the country. In the statement, Common Cause said it will not endorse partisan gerrymandering in any case but is deciding now to not condemn actions taken by states like California given the context of Trump's efforts to 'lock in unaccountable power and silence voters.' 'We will not endorse partisan gerrymandering even when its motive is to offset more extreme gerrymandering by a different party,' Common Cause said. 'But a blanket condemnation in this moment would amount to a call for unilateral political disarmament in the face of authoritarian efforts to undermine fair representation and people-powered democracy.' EDUCATION UCLA'S PARTIAL REPRIEVE — A federal judge ordered the Trump administration Tuesday to restore some of the funding it cut from UCLA in late July, handing a partial victory to the UC system as it faces a $1 billion settlement demand from the White House over alleged antisemitism on campus. As POLITICO's Eric He reports, it was not immediately clear how much money would be returned to the campus. Judge Rita F. Lin of the Northern District Court of California had already sided with the UC in June when she barred the National Science Foundation from terminating additional grants to UC researchers. In her ruling Tuesday, Lin said the foundation had violated that order by cutting off funding. NEWSOM V. HARVARD — Newsom on Tuesday called for Harvard President Alan Garber to resign following a report from The New York Times that the university is nearing a potential $500 million settlement with the Trump administration. 'Looks like Harvard has chosen to surrender,' Newsom posted on X. 'An absolute failure of leadership that will have demonstrable impacts to higher education across our country. He should be ashamed.' Newsom had blasted the Trump administration's demand of $1 billion from UCLA — a move that applied pressure to the public UC system not to capitulate as Ivy League institutions have after jousting with the president. He also said the state would sue. The governor personally, and through staff, communicated with members of the UC Board of Regents, UC Office of the President and UCLA regarding the Trump administration's settlement demands, according to Newsom's office. 'The governor sees this as an undemocratic assault on a vital public institution and he's not giving an inch,' said spokesperson Bob Salladay. 'There is no wiggle room here for him — he's all in with this fight.' SILICON VALLEY MAHAN'S MOD MAJORITY — San Jose Councilmember Anthony Tordillos was sworn into office Tuesday — delivering Mayor Matt Mahan a solid bloc of moderate Democrats to help implement his policy agenda at City Hall. Mahan, who backed Tordillos in a June special election, has irked Bay Area progressives and labor unions in recent years with his headline-grabbing moves, including a plan to tie the raises of some city employees to performance metrics and his vocal support for a ballot measure to increase prison sentences for drug- and theft-related offenses. But Tordillos' win provides Mahan with a firewall against his critics on the left. The new councilmember defeated a progressive, labor-backed candidate, Gabby Chavez-Lopez, by double digits in an expensive runoff contest. Mahan, in a recent interview with Playbook, seemed to bask in the outcome: 'Culturally, (Tordillos) and I are part of what … is going to be a majority bloc that focuses on what measurably improves outcomes, versus previous ideological commitments.' He added, 'Two-thirds of the electorate is not for the hyper-ideological progressive' approach to city government. CLIMATE AND ENERGY DEAL OR NO DEAL — The Trump administration is taking away California's backstop Trump-proofing tactics to protect its climate regulations: its voluntary deals with industry. On Tuesday, the FTC announced an agreement with four heavy-duty truck manufacturers and their trade association, declaring California's agreement with them 'unenforceable.' Read more in last night's edition of California Climate. TOP TALKERS LA CORRUPTION CASE — Prosecutors filed additional charges against Los Angeles City Councilmember Curren Price this week, the LA Times reports. Price had already been charged with 10 felony counts, including grand theft and perjury over allegations that he voted to approve projects that would financially benefit his wife, Del Richardson. Her consulting firm allegedly received more $150,000 in payments from developers before he voted on their projects. Price has denied any wrongdoing. Michael Schafler, Price's attorney, called the charges 'nothing more than an attempt to pile on to a weak case.' Price told the Times that 'there is no evidence whatsoever that Councilmember Price was aware of the alleged conflicts when he voted for the agenda items.' FEINSTEIN'S TREASURES — Dozens of items from the estate of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her husband, the late financier Richard Blum, are going up for auction later this week. The collection included antique European furniture, opulent jewelry, historic artifacts, rare paintings and Persian and Tibetan rugs that once decorated the couple's former mansion on Billionaires' Row in San Francisco. Highlights of the collection, as SF Gate reports: 'a photograph of Feinstein posing with Queen Elizabeth II"; 'a German carved chest circa 1740 (valued from $800 to $1,200)"; and 'a Louis XV-style writing desk (valued from $500 to $700).' The most expensive item is a diamond and platinum solitaire ring valued from $40,000 to $60,000. AROUND THE STATE — Police departments eager to fill vacant jobs are increasingly hiring officers who were previously fired or dismissed from other agencies. (San Francisco Chronicle) — Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who Trump recently suggested will have his show canceled next, revealed he recently secured Italian citizenship. (CNN) — Treacherous rip currents are pummeling beaches in San Diego County, with swells reaching 6 to 7 feet in some locations. (The San Diego Union-Tribune) — Trump's big spending bill includes a surprise boost for affordable housing developers in California: an increase to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. (CalMatters) PLAYBOOKERS SPOTTED: CARUSO MAKING ROUNDS — LA mega developer Rick Caruso, who's weighing a run for governor, was in Sacramento for a dinner and meetings — including a chat with POLITICO's Christopher Cadelago. Earlier in the day, he met at his home with Piers Morgan. STORK ALERT — J. Baylor Myers, VP of corporate development at BitGo and a former top aide to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in the first Trump administration, and Dakota Myers, a paralegal in San Francisco, on Aug. 4 welcomed John Baylor Myers Jr, who came in at 8 pounds and 13 ounces. Pic … Another pic PEOPLE MOVES — Ivy Brittain is now regional director, state government affairs at the Plastics Industry Association. She was previously legislative affairs director at the Northern California Water Association. — Seamus Garrity is joining Mercury Public Affairs as a managing director. He will continue to work between LA and Sacramento and was previously a partner at Lighthouse Public Affairs. BIRTHDAYS — Margot Roosevelt … Chris Dhanaraj ... Emily Myerson … former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen … BELATED B-DAY WISHES — (was Sunday): Ajita Talwalker Menon at Calbright College WANT A SHOUT-OUT FEATURED? — Send us a birthday, career move or another special occasion to include in POLITICO's California Playbook. You can now submit a shout-out using this Google form.
