{"id":9149,"date":"2026-04-14T09:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/14\/forest-service-shake-up-will-boost-states-role-but-even-supporters-have-concerns\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T09:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:36:17","slug":"forest-service-shake-up-will-boost-states-role-but-even-supporters-have-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/14\/forest-service-shake-up-will-boost-states-role-but-even-supporters-have-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Forest Service shake-up will boost states\u2019 role \u2014 but even supporters have concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Angeline
\n

Angeline Lake reflects nearby mountains in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington state. The U.S. Forest Service will be undergoing a major reorganization. (Photo by Alex Brown\/Stateline)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A sweeping reorganization of the U.S. Forest Service signals that the agency is planning to lean heavily on states to help manage millions of acres of federal land, foresters across the West say.<\/p>\n

State officials and timber industry leaders say they\u2019ve been given scant details about the plan<\/a>, which will move the agency\u2019s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, restructure its regional management, and close scores of research stations in dozens of states.<\/p>\n

While they wait for the dust to settle, they\u2019re preparing for the Forest Service \u2014 with its workforce slashed by the Trump administration \u2014 to ask more of its partners under the new model.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Forest Service itself is unable to uphold its mission and cannot alone manage the many challenges on these landscapes,\u201d said Nick Smith, public affairs director with the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group. \u201cThe transition from regional offices to more state-level offices is a recognition that partnerships are the future for the Forest Service.\u201d<\/p>\n

But many forestry veterans fear the shake-up will cause more attrition in an agency that\u2019s already shrunk because of Trump\u2019s cuts to the federal workforce. Some see a clear sign that moving the headquarters to Utah \u2014 a state whose leaders are often hostile to federal land ownership \u2014 is designed to undermine the Forest Service\u2019s management of its lands.<\/p>\n

The closure of 57 research stations, some agency partners fear, will threaten critical science that states and other forest managers rely on to learn about wildfire behavior, timber production and a host of other issues.<\/p>\n

Some observers noted that the agency is required to seek congressional approval to relocate offices, which could trigger legal challenges to the plan if lawmakers do not weigh in.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, some foresters feel the uncertainty swirling over the agency will cause chaos as the West heads into a dangerous fire season amid record temperatures and drought.<\/p>\n

The plan announced on March 31 will relocate Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz and his headquarters staff to Salt Lake City. The agency will close its nine regional offices, each of which oversee national forests across multiple states. Replacing those offices will be 15 state directors, mostly in Western states.<\/p>\n

Many state leaders, from both conservative and liberal states, say they welcome the opportunity to deepen their partnerships with the Forest Service and play a greater role on federal lands. But they\u2019re still anxious to see more details about the agency\u2019s new structure and concerned that national forests remain deeply understaffed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are definitely a lot of vacancies in key positions that need to be filled,\u201d said Jon Songster, federal lands bureau chief with the Idaho Department of Lands. \u201cI hope that a lot of that remaining expertise is not lost, but shifted to the forest level where it\u2019s desperately needed. Hopefully with all these changes there will be opportunities to put more people in some of those key gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The U.S. Forest Service is realigning its organizational structure. An asterisk indicates a location that will serve more than one facility function. (Photo by U.S. Forest Service)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scarce details<\/h4>\n

The Forest Service manages nearly 200 million acres of land, mostly in Western states. With a mandate to manage the land for multiple uses, the agency oversees timber harvests, livestock grazing, outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat.<\/p>\n

Under President Donald Trump, the Forest Service has lost about 16%<\/a> of its workforce \u2014 nearly 5,900 employees \u2014 through buyouts, layoffs and early retirements. Trump\u2019s proposed budget for 2027 would cut billions of dollars from the agency\u2019s funding.<\/p>\n

Many observers view the reorganization plan as an effort to force out more longtime agency leaders. The moves are expected to affect about 5,000 employees across the various offices that are relocating.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this were a stand-alone proposal where the American public and the public agency employees had trust in the administration, a lot of it makes sense,\u201d said Mike Dombeck, who served as chief of the Forest Service under President Bill Clinton and remains a vocal conservation advocate. \u201cBut the level of trust is at rock bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its announcement<\/a>, the agency said that the new state-based model will bring decision-making closer to the forest level and reduce bureaucracy. The Forest Service did not grant a Stateline interview request.<\/p>\n

State foresters, who are responsible for managing the forests in their states, say they\u2019ve been given few details other than the new office maps released by the agency. They don\u2019t know when the transitions will happen, which officials will be staffing the new offices or what authority they will have.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve made the statement that they need to rely more on states,\u201d said Washington State Forester George Geissler. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to lean on us, it might help us to know what that means.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The U.S. Forest Service\u2019s current regional divisions. (Photo by U.S. Forest Service)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

States\u2019 role<\/h4>\n

In recent years, the Forest Service has increasingly partnered with states, tribes, counties and nonprofits to carry out projects on federal lands. Foresters say agreements such as the Good Neighbor Authority have become a critical tool, allowing more work to happen in national forests even as the feds\u2019 own capacity shrinks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen some of that institutional knowledge (at the Forest Service) dwindle a little bit,\u201d said Utah State Forester Jamie Barnes. \u201cBuilding these partnerships, if you do see a decline on one side or the other, you can bridge that loss. We\u2019re working together, making joint decisions so we can get timber off the landscape here in Utah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some foresters said they welcome the chance to work more closely with the Forest Service, but they\u2019re concerned that the agency has not recovered from Trump\u2019s workforce cuts. Reassigning hundreds of employees to new locations could lead to more attrition.<\/p>\n

In Wyoming, state officials are excited to have Forest Service leaders working in close proximity. But State Forester Kelly Norris acknowledged that the move could be \u201cbumpy,\u201d given the lack of details and ongoing workforce shortages in the agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe logistics of this may be a lot harder implemented than said,\u201d she said. \u201cWe see this as a positive for us, but I do think that this is going to be a real long transition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Idaho, Utah and Wyoming are among the Western states that share the Trump administration\u2019s goal of increasing timber production on federal lands. Trump has moved to limit environmental reviews and protections for endangered species to speed up logging projects.<\/p>\n

Some Forest Service veterans feel the move to increase states\u2019 role will prove destructive in some parts of the West.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re putting the governance of the forests more subject to states\u2019 interests,\u201d said Kevin Hood, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a nonprofit that advocates for civil employees. \u201cI would be concerned that the values that don\u2019t have strong lobbying groups, such as watershed integrity, may be subjugated to extractive values like timber, mining and grazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several agency veterans stressed that the Forest Service\u2019s state directors should be career professionals, not political appointees.<\/p>\n

HQ move<\/h4>\n

By relocating its headquarters to Salt Lake City, the Forest Service said in its announcement, the agency is moving leaders closer to the forests they manage.<\/p>\n

But some are skeptical the move will bring stronger management to the West. During Trump\u2019s first term, he moved the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado. Only 41 of the 328 employees subject to the transition actually relocated.<\/p>\n

\u201cShaking things up is going to get people to abandon their positions, and that\u2019s the intent,\u201d said Chandra Rosenthal, Western lands and Rocky Mountain advocate with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a group that defends whistleblowers in the federal service. \u201cIt\u2019s a long-term dismantling of the scientific backbone and staff. The theory is that the federal government will abandon a lot of the public lands and then states will be forced to fill in those gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosenthal and others noted that Utah\u2019s political leaders are hostile to federal land ownership. U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican, led an effort last year to sell off millions of acres of federal land, which drew widespread backlash before it was withdrawn. Utah\u2019s state government has also sued the federal government, seeking to claim control of 18.5 million acres of federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would you move the headquarters of a public lands management agency to the state that is the most anti-public lands in the country?\u201d said Dombeck, the former Forest Service chief.<\/p>\n

Dombeck also noted that the Forest Service chief frequently reports to the White House, testifies in congressional hearings and coordinates national policy with other agency leaders. Moving the position out of D.C., he said, makes little sense.<\/p>\n

In a webpage<\/a> set up to respond to news coverage of the move, the Forest Service said it is a \u201cmyth\u201d that the transition is designed to reduce its workforce or transfer federal lands to the states.<\/p>\n

But some agency veterans are skeptical.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard not to reach the conclusion that this is an effort to weaken federal agencies and federal management of these lands,\u201d said Robert Bonnie, who served as undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment during the Obama administration. \u201cYou\u2019re going to lose some good staff as part of the reorganization, as they move chairs across the deck of the Titanic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, some state leaders are concerned that the uncertainty caused by the reorganization and Trump\u2019s staffing cuts could lead to chaos as wildfire season approaches. With record temperatures and drought drying out much of the West, foresters expect a challenging fire season this summer. The Forest Service remains the nation\u2019s largest wildland firefighting agency, even as the Trump administration seeks to consolidate wildland fire operations into a separate service under the U.S. Department of the Interior.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got federal firefighters, fire managers, and all they\u2019re talking about is what\u2019s happening at (the Forest Service),\u201d said Geissler, the Washington state forester. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like having a bunch of distracted firefighters on my hands going into a summer fire season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

This story was originally produced by Stateline<\/a>, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Missouri Independent, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Angeline Lake reflects nearby mountains in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington state. The U.S. Forest Service will be undergoing a major reorganization. (Photo by Alex Brown\/Stateline) A sweeping reorganization of the U.S. Forest Service signals that the agency is planning to lean heavily on states to help manage millions of acres of federal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nForest Service shake-up will boost states\u2019 role \u2014 but even supporters have concerns - WestplexNews.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/14\/forest-service-shake-up-will-boost-states-role-but-even-supporters-have-concerns\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Forest Service shake-up will boost states\u2019 role \u2014 but even supporters have concerns - WestplexNews.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Angeline Lake reflects nearby mountains in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington state. 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