Leadership Quote by Janet Napolitano

Napolitano frames wildfire risk as a failure of capacity, not a failure of paperwork, and that choice is doing heavy political work. By naming a precise figure - "at least 125 communities" - she turns an abstract climate-era menace into a countable backlog, the kind of number that sounds like it came from a briefing binder, not a talking point. It’s a credibility move, but also a pressure tactic: if the threat is this enumerated, the response can be budgeted, scheduled, staffed.

The real target is embedded in the clause she rejects. “Not because of review processes or litigation delays” is a preemptive rebuttal to a familiar argument in Western land politics: that environmental review and lawsuits are what keep fuels reduction and forest-thinning projects from happening. Napolitano is signaling to moderates, industry, and frustrated residents that she’s not here to romanticize red tape. She’s also refusing to scapegoat environmental law, which would alienate key constituencies and dodge the harder truth: you can streamline all you want, but you can’t run chainsaws, prescribed burns, and watershed work on vibes.

“Federal funding on the ground” is the crucial phrase. It implies that Washington’s response has been performative - plans, announcements, interagency memos - without the crews, contracts, and local implementation that actually change fire behavior. The subtext is a demand for governing that looks like logistics: appropriations, hiring authority, sustained maintenance, not one-off disaster money after the smoke. In Arizona, where wildfire is both ecological reality and political symbol, she’s recasting the fight from courtroom drama to supply-chain failure.