'Shark Tank' investor blames environmentalists, Sierra Club for LA fires
Venture investor Chris Sacca laid the blame for the Los Angeles County fires on environmentalists during a podcast Thursday.
"If you really want to put some blame on some people about what happened in the LA fires, if we're really just playing the blame game," Sacca said on The Tim Ferriss Show. "It's the f---ing environmentalists, it's the f---ing Sierra Club, who makes it impossible for anyone to actually do any defensible space, to mow anything down, to do any controlled burns, to actually create any defensible space around our f---ing communities."
During the podcast, the investor who appeared as a guest host on several episodes of "Shark Tank," said that there is a perpetuated cycle of failure that is responsible for the current wildfires, which broke out on Jan. 7 and have killed over 20 people.
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"They are expediting the rebuild of any houses in those areas that burned down, but you can't make any f---ing changes to them," Sacca said.
Sacca, who worked as an adviser and surrogate for former President Obama's 2008 campaign and was a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton in 2016, said the fires offered an opportunity for LA to build "different s---."
"So we just saw a bunch of tinderboxes go up, and it's a great opportunity to be like, 'Hey, maybe we should build in some different s---. Maybe we should build in some different shapes. Maybe we shouldn't have ventilation that sucks everything up into the roof structure. Maybe we shouldn't use the cheapest wood available, which is how Americans build s---. Maybe we should have more concrete, more aluminum, more heat reflection, more concrete walls around stuff. Maybe, just f---ing maybe, we should use more shrubbery around it that actually absorbs more water and is less flammable.’"
"But no," he added. "Expedited permitting if you build the exact same f---ing thing you just had. Otherwise, you go back to the end of the line. It's just so funny to be a climate investor and find myself constantly at odds with the god---n environmentalists."
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order to suspend the environmental review process to expedite permitting and help streamline the rebuilding and recovery process.