The Forest Service has announced it will move its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, Utah, and begin “a sweeping restructuring of the agency to move leadership closer to the forests and communities it serves.” The Forest Service posted this synapsis of the reorganization.
Concurrent with relocating its headquarters to Utah, the Forest Service “will begin transitioning to a state-based organizational model designed to shift authority closer to the field by organizing leadership around state-level accountability, supported by shared operational service centers.”
As a result, “all regional offices will close,” and “15 state directors will be distributed throughout the country to oversee Forest Service operations. These state directors “will serve as national leaders with primary oversight of forest supervisors, operational priorities, and relationships with states, tribes, and other partners.”
The statement notes that the agency’s “lands, partners, and operational challenges are overwhelmingly concentrated in the West” and touts the reorganization as “a structural reset and a common-sense approach to improve mission delivery.”
Agriculture Department Secretary Brooke Rollins said, “Establishing a western headquarters in Salt Lake City and streamlining how the Forest Service is organized will position the Chief and operation leaders closer to the landscapes we manage and the people who depend on them.”
Taken at face value, this restructuring offers potential for improved efficiencies and coordination in a bureaucracy that has become mired in outdated policies and mandates, but Rollins also emphasized “supporting our timber growers across the country, including those in the Southeast, by prioritizing a regional office and promoting policies that boost timber production.”
While Department and agency leaders are touting how the reorganization will move Forest Service offices closer to the field, the new plan takes the opposite approach with research. Forest Service research stations currently conduct critical research at numerous locations determined in part by proximity to key ecosystems. Under the reorganization, the Forest Service will shutter at least 56 research facilities in 31 states with potentially more closures. The seven diverse research stations that lead these facilities will be consolidated into a single research facility in Fort Collins, Colorado.
This elimination of research capacity, to “accelerate the application of science to management decisions,” combined with an increased emphasis on timber extraction, signals a continuation of the current administration’s disdain for science-based management decisions in favor of special interests and cronyism.
Utah was selected for its central location in the West – it is also a stronghold for the party of the current administration. Utah senator Mike Lee is the current chairman of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee. Senator Lee proposed selling 2-3 million acres of federal lands across 11 western states in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act, but his provision was removed before the law passed.
“This is a big win for Utah and the West. Nearly 90% of Forest Service lands are west of the Mississippi, so putting leadership closer to the lands they manage just makes sense,” said Republican Utah Governor Spencer Cox. “This isn’t symbolic. It means better, faster decisions on the ground…. We look forward to welcoming Chief Schultz and the dedicated men and women of the Forest Service to Utah.”
Democratic Colorado Governor Jared Polis also praised the move: “Colorado is known for our outdoor spaces and nation-leading research institutions that are strengthening our forests and public lands…. More than a third of Colorado is federal land, including world class ski areas like Vail and Breckenridge, and having a closer relationship with our federal partners is important to maintaining those lands and the communities around them.”
One thing that won’t change, according to the Forest Service statement, is the agency’s Fire and Aviation Management program which “will retain its existing Geographic Area Coordination Center structure,” at least, that is, “until the Forest Service’s wildland fire management operations are unified into the U.S. Wildland Fire Service (USWFS) within the Department of the Interior.”
President Trump’s Executive Order 14308 mandated this consolidation of federal firefighting into a single agency in the Department of Interior. Even though the legal path to implementing this consolidation remains unclear, the reorganization statement demonstrates a continued push for this objective, which would transfer about 55% of the Forest Service budget to the Interior Department.
New Forest Service State Offices and Their Areas of Responsibility
- Auburn, AL – Ozarks/Gulf Coast State Office (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida)
- Juneau, AK – Alaska State Office (Alaska)
- Phoenix, AZ – Arizona State Office (Arizona)
- Placerville, CA – California–Hawaii State Office (California, Hawaii)
- Fort Collins, CO – Colorado–Kansas State Office (Colorado, Kansas)
- Athens, GA – Southern Appalachian State Office (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Puerto Rico)
- Boise, ID – Idaho State Office (Idaho)
- Helena, MT – Montana State Office (Montana)
- Albuquerque, NM – New Mexico State Office (New Mexico)
- Salem, OR – Oregon State Office (Oregon)
- Warren, PA – Mid‑Atlantic/New England State Office (Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine)
- Salt Lake City, UT – Utah–Nevada State Office (Utah, Nevada)
- Olympia, WA – Washington State Office (Washington)
- Madison, WI – Great Lakes/Midwest State Office (Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri)
- Cheyenne, WY – Northern Plains State Office (Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska)
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT FACILITY CLOSURES*
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*Facilities that do not appear on the Research and Development lists of retained facilities and facility closures are under evaluation. Further information will be provided as it is available.
