An article by Christine Peterson in High Country News cites FSEEE Executive Director Kevin Hood’s concerns about the Forest Service reorganization that will move the agency’s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, Utah, the state that is currently suing the federal government to seize 18.5 million acres of public land.
Hood told Peterson that this reorganization may lead to states playing an even bigger role in forest management. “While local coordination isn’t bad in theory, he said, he’s concerned the new structure will be a step toward ceding the management of national forests and other public lands to states,” Peterson writes.
Peterson notes, “More than 80% of the 14,000 public comments submitted” about this reorganization “were negative, with many tribal representatives, conservation groups and former Forest Service staffers opposing the move.”
She cites multiple informed sources who raise legitimate concerns about the reorganization, which will eliminate all regional offices and gut the agency’s scientific research stations.
“Nobody is asking for this,” Robert Bonnie told Peterson. Bonnie oversaw the Forest Service as an Ag Department undersecretary. “None of the farm groups want this. No one in conservation wants this. Nobody…. This is not going to strengthen the Forest Service…. “It’s not about solving problems, it’s about blowing things up.”
Retired Custer Gallatin National Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson told Peterson that she has more questions than answers. “I’m not going to say if it’s good or bad at this point…. “It’s just such a sweeping change with no real analysis about if there would be cost savings.”
Several tribal representatives declined to provide comments for Peterson’s news story but voiced concerns during last year’s public comment process. Those concerns include “loss of expertise” and “fractured relationships” that will “destroy irreplaceable knowledge about Treaty rights, forest conditions, and working relationships built over decades.”
Peterson compares the Forest Service reorganization to the Bureau of Land Management reorganization that occurred during President Trump’s first term, which effectively eliminated experienced, high-level staff at the BLM. “Only 41 of the 328 BLM employees expected to move West chose to do so.” The effect on the Forest Service will be much more pronounced, especially with the elimination of all 10 Forest Service regional offices and all but one Forest Service research station.
Photo: The Sidney R. Yates Federal Building is the current headquarters of the Forest Service in Washington, D.C. (Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress).
