Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) thinks he knows how California firefighters should have contained the devastating fires that destroyed neighborhoods on the outskirts of Los Angeles: just suck up the Pacific Ocean and dump it on them.
Paul made the comments during a hearing with Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who has been tapped as President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of Homeland Security.
"I see these homes burning, if they just had a generator and a hose, you start sucking the water out of the Pacific Ocean," said Paul. "Why don't they take the ocean water and put it in cisterns have a bunch of water ready when a wildfire shows up? Once again, bad local government."
There are several reasons firefighters generally do not use salt water, even when they are fighting fires near the ocean, CBS News has noted. For one thing, salt water is corrosive and can damage or destroy firefighting equipment. For another, it is highly toxic and can contaminate groundwater and kill vegetation, rendering the soil unusable.
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According to California state agencies and local members of Congress, firefighters had plenty of water, but unusually extreme high-speed winds spread embers faster than firefighters could extinguish the blazes, compounded by the fact that some electrical systems that would be used to pump water were disabled due to the risk they could spark.
Nevertheless, Republican lawmakers appear to be weighing the idea of conditioning disaster relief to Los Angeles on various policy demands to improve fire safety, an unusual demand as disaster relief is typically unconditional and bipartisan.
Other members of Congress have also floated eyebrow-raising suggestions in the past.
In 2010, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) received widespread mockery after he expressed concern that excessive military buildup on the U.S. territory of Guam might cause the island to tip over and sink. And in 2021, former Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) asked an official with the U.S. Forest Service if they could reverse climate change by altering the Moon's orbit.
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