As you’ve likely heard by now, the U.S. Forest Service is moving its headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah. The official Forest Service press release says the move will also include “a sweeping restructuring of the agency to move leadership closer to the forests and communities it serves.”
That restructuring includes shutting down the nine current regional offices and moving staff and current state directors into 15 state-based locations throughout the US, focused mostly in the West. 15 state directors will be located throughout the country to oversee forest operations in at least one state, and they will serve as “national leaders with primary oversight of forest supervisors, operational priorities, and relationships with states, tribes, and other partners.”
The Forest Service says this new approach to forest management will “simplify the chain of command, strengthen local partnerships, and give field leaders greater ability to respond to conditions on the ground.”
The Forest Service also acknowledges it is closing down physical research facilities throughout the country, but states that “The reorganization does not eliminate scientific positions, cancel research programs, or reduce our national research footprint. … Staff and programs will continue their work, relocated into fewer facilities while maintaining research presence across the country.”
The Pushback
Conservation groups, hunters, anglers, and many people who love outdoor recreation have reacted strongly to this overhaul of the Forest Service.
Federal Land Transfer
A prominent source of angst is against the move of the headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah’s state capital. Utah has been at the forefront of the movement to transfer federal public lands to state management, with its senior senator Mike Lee, a Republican, leading that charge. Republican governor Spencer Cox also signed off on a lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to give Utah control of 18.5 million acres of land administered by the Bureau of Land Management, which the Supreme Court rejected.
Critics of this move by the Forest Service say it shows intent by the Trump Administration to continue its effort to transfer federal public lands to state control. The elimination of regional offices, appointment of state directors, and explicit language around a state-focused approach to forest management, has many conservation groups worried that is could be a test run of eventual state management of federal lands.
This has become such a contentious point that the Forest Service addressed it directly in an FAQ on its website, saying that transferring federal lands to state management “is not part of the plan and has never been discussed. All federal authorities remain fully intact. No authorities are being shifted, reduced, or transferred.”
Loss Of Research Stations
Under the proposed restructure, 55 of the 77 research facilities the Forest Service currently operates will be shuttered. That research activity will be consolidated to an office in Fort Collins, Colorado. It’s not completely clear how the Forest Service plans for this to work, since they openly admit the closure of research facilities, but also claim that “Staff and programs will continue their work, relocated into fewer facilities while maintaining research presence across the country.”
The research stations being closed study various aspects of forestry, including wildfire risk and climate change. One researcher spoke to the New York Times anonymously, telling them that current attitudes in the Forest Service are downplaying ecological and climate stressors on forest health.
“They have narrowed the kinds of themes that they are interested in,” the researcher told the Times. “There are all these people who have done amazing work for decades on everything from acid rain to climate and they have put them in a new bin called ‘forest management.’”
Wildfire Risk
This restructure comes as the West braces for a potentially historic wildfire season, thanks to a winter with record-low snowfall and record-high temperatures in many places. Critics of the move are worried that the overhaul of the Forest Service is going to negatively impact wildfire management.
A coalition of 70 outdoor companies, including Patagonia, REI, North Face, Columbia, and others, have “raised concerns about the agency’s ability to properly manage the vast wildlands and continue its decades of research under the plan,” according to the BBC.
Moving Forward
This restructure will likely be challenged in court. Steve Lenkart, executive director for the National Federation of Federal Employees, says this move by the Trump administration is “illegal.”
“This kind of activity was explicitly prohibited in fiscal year 2026 appropriations,” Lenkart told The Guardian. “The Republican Congress is allowing the White House to break the law and violate the Constitution, without so much as a peep from our big, brave, so-called freedom-seeking Republicans. They won’t even uphold their own oaths to support and defend the Constitution from tyranny.”
With midterm elections in November and a potential shift of power to Democrats gaining control of at least one chamber of Congress, further roadblocks could be placed in the way of this overhaul of the Forest Service.
Well balanced and pretty objective – thank you!