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The Trump administration is eager to begin a new era for the U.S. Forest Service with a mission that maximizes logging, drilling, and mining, while dismantling the agency from within and abandoning its role as a protector of ecosystems and wildlife habitat.
In his Landline newsletter for High Country News, Jonathan Thompson writes that over the last nine months, the Trump administration has issued executive orders calling for expanded timber production and rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule, declared “emergency” situations that enable it to bypass regulations on nearly 60 percent of national forests, and proposed slashing the agency’s operations budget by 34 percent.
In addition, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is proposing a radical overhaul of the entire department that will include moving at least 2,600 of the agency's 4,600 Washington, D.C. employees to five regional hubs, with only two located in the Western U.S.—in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Fort Collins, Colorado. The goal, according to Rollins, is to “bring the USDA closer to its customers.” However, the move would eliminate the Forest Service's nine regional offices, each of which oversees dozens of national forests within their region, providing budget oversight, guiding place-specific implementation of national-level policies, and facilitating coordination among the various forests. The public has until September 30 to comment on the proposal.
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We’re trying to paint a picture here and say that your favorite parcel of public land could be on the chopping block if the industry simply points to it, pays nothing, and says they want it.”
