Governor Gavin Newsom signed new legislation that will provide more than $170 million in state funding to help prevent wildfires while signing an order aimed at speeding up the work by easing environmental permitting.

The money comes from a $10 billion bond measure for environmental projects approved by California voters last year.

Authorized as part of a fast-tracked, early action budget bill approved by the legislature, the funds will be paid to six conservancies throughout California.

The agencies, which operate under the Governor's Resources Agency will manage the removal of vegetation and thinning of forests within their regions.

At least half, $85 million, will be directed to conservancies in Southern California, while $54 million will focus on the Sierra Nevada.

The challenge of fire prevention in California, which experts say has been worsened by climate change, has become increasingly political.

In the wake of the Los Angeles fires, Trump also inaccurately blamed the state's water policies for the blazes and threatened to withhold federal aid unless the state addressed a variety of policies related and unrelated to wildfires.

In addition to the legislation, Newsom signed an executive order that allowed wildfire prevention projects to benefit from streamlining provisions outlined in his March emergency proclamation, which suspended certain environmental laws, including the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Coastal Act, for projects deemed urgent.

Shaye Wolf, Climate Science Director at the environmental group, Center for Biological Diversity, said, "Unfortunately, this money will go toward logging projects that skirt environmental review and harm forests and the climate.

Newsom, earlier this year, promised $2.5 billion for various wildfire resilience projects.

Prescribed burns, a land management tool designed to reduce fuel loads, are a major part of the state's strategy.

For CalMatters, I'm Alejandro Lazo.