The Daily Observer London Desk: Reporter- Donna Robert
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced that he would head to Hawaii to survey damage and recovery efforts following devastating wildfires in Maui and Lahaina.
Mr. McCarthy’s trip comes as a pair of Republican-led House panels are launching investigations into wildfires that have left 115 dead and hundreds missing.
“I’m headed to Hawaii to assess the damage, response, and recovery efforts on the ground from the fire in Maui.,” Mr. McCarthy, California Republican, said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “It’s clear we need answers into how this tragic fire occurred and what could have been done to prevent it from happening.”
Republicans have been critical of the Biden administration’s response to the disaster and have taken issue with the high death toll and number of still missing and unaccounted for people. The Associated Press reported that the number of people officially listed as missing from the fire stood at 385 on Friday.
GOP lawmakers also decried the delayed federal response to Maui and Lahaina and President Biden’s “no comment” reply on the rising death toll in Hawaii — the administration has since said that the president did not hear the reporter’s question.
Those criticisms have evolved into a pair of congressional investigations led by the House Oversight Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, Kentucky Republican, said earlier this week that the panel would be launching an investigation into the federal, state and local government response to the wildfires.
“The response by federal, state, and local officials to the catastrophic wildfire in Maui raises serious questions and Americans, especially those impacted by this tragedy, deserve answers,” Mr. Comer said in a statement.
“As recovery efforts continue, the House Oversight Committee has a responsibility to ensure taxpayer dollars are being used efficiently and effectively,” Mr. Comer continued. “To minimize the risk of waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars, the Oversight Committee will examine the federal government’s response in Maui and work with other committees of jurisdiction to ensure accountability.”
Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced in a letter to utility company Hawaiian Electric, the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission and the Hawaii State Energy Office that the panel would be launching an investigation into the utility company’s role in the fire.
The lawmakers wrote that evidence of a downed power line that sparked on dry grass in Lahaina indicated that Hawaiian Electric equipment “may have been the cause.”
The GOP-led panel also pointed to a pledge by the company in 2019 to upgrade the grid to lower the risk of wildfire, but that “information coming to light” showed that Hawaiian Electric had not taken steps to harden and modernize electrical infrastructure in Maui until the last couple of years.
“In our capacity as Chairs of the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the U.S. House of Representatives and its respective energy policy and oversight subcommittees, we are empowered to oversee energy supply, reliability of all power, and regulation of energy resources throughout the country,” the lawmakers wrote. “To that end, we seek a fuller understanding of the role, if any, of the electric infrastructure in this tragic event.”
