Trump to move Forest Service headquarters to Salt Lake City
The Trump administration announced Tuesday that the Agriculture Department’s U.S. Forest Service will move its headquarters from Washington to Salt Lake City and “begin a sweeping restructuring of the agency to move leadership closer to the forests and communities it serves.”
“For an agency whose lands, partners, and operational challenges are overwhelmingly concentrated in the West, the shift represents a structural reset and a common-sense approach to improve mission delivery,” the Forest Service said in a news release that came from the office of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
“President Trump has made it a priority to return common sense to the way our government works. Moving the Forest Service closer to the forests we manage is an essential action that will improve our core mission of managing our forests while saving taxpayer dollars and boosting employee recruitment,” Rollins said in a news release. “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. This includes supporting our timber growers across the country, including those in the Southeast, by prioritizing a regional office and promoting policies that boost timber production, lowering costs for consumers. In the past year, we have returned the Forest Service to the leading forestry and fire management organization in the world. Proper forest management means a healthy and productive forest system that provides affordable, quality lumber to build homes right here in America and it means preserving and protecting the beautiful landscapes we are blessed with across this great country.”
“Forest Service is an agency focused on the interior of our great nation,” said Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden, who has been in charge of a broader USDA reorganization that already involves moving 2,600 of the 4,600 USDA positions in the Washington area to five hubs around the country, of which Salt Lake City is one. “Relocating and realigning allows the agency to protect our land and most precious resources. Having recently visited Salt Lake City, I am impressed by the modernized facilities, reasonable cost of living, proximity to an international airport, and more family-focused way of life. This relocation is long overdue, and I am grateful to President Trump for having the courage to do what is right by the American people.”
“This is about building a Forest Service that is nimble, efficient, effective and closer to the forests and communities it serves,” said Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz, a political appointee who previously worked for state agencies in Montana and Idaho. “Effective stewardship and active management are achieved on the ground, where forests and communities are found — not just behind a desk in the capital. Through this transition, we will strengthen our connection to the forests and the people who depend on them, while supporting our employees and honoring the dedication that has always defined our service. I’m honored to help guide this new chapter for the Forest Service, following the vision set forth by President Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot more than a century ago.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said, “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.”
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, expressed enthusiasm, saying that the reorganization would include “a location in our great state.”
“Colorado is known for our outdoor spaces and nation-leading research institutions that are strengthening our forests and public lands, so it only makes sense that the U.S. Forest Service would include a location in our great state,” Polis said in the USDA news release. “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.”
Polis has split with most Democrats by also endorsing the Trump administration’s encouragement of states to ban participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from purchasing sodas and other sweetened beverages with their benefits, but that plan has been slowed after SNAP participants in Colorado said Polis’ plan would shame them.
In the news release, the Forest Service said, “Alongside the relocation of its headquarters, 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 and a unified national research enterprise.
“Under the new model, 15 state directors will be distributed throughout the country to oversee Forest Service operations within one or more states. State directors will serve as national leaders with primary oversight of forest supervisors, operational priorities, and relationships with states, tribes, and other partners. Each state office will include a small leadership support team responsible for functions such as legislative affairs, communications, and intergovernmental coordination.”
USDA released lists of new offices to be open and offices to be retained and closed.
“As the agency transitions to the state-based model, the Forest Service will shift many functions currently housed in regional offices to a network of operational service centers that will be established in Albuquerque, N.M.; Athens, Ga.; Fort Collins, Colo.; Madison, Wis.; Missoula, Mont.; and Placerville, Calif. Additional service center locations may be added as the transition progresses,” the release said.
USDA did not say how many positions would be relocated outside Washington, but The Washington Post reported, “Agency leadership told employees that roughly 260 positions would be moved, according to two sources familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.”
The plan to move the Forest Service headquarters appears to augment the Trump administration’s already announced plans to give up the USDA’s South Building to the General Services Administration and close the Braddock Place facility in Alexandria, Va., where the Food, Nutrition and Consumer Service employees have been housed, and move them to the Sidney Yates building where the Forest Service is now located.
The majority of the U.S. Forest Service-owned land is in the western states, but the forestry and timber industry is national, with a large presence in the Southeast. The USDA news release did not contain any statements from leaders outside Utah and Colorado. What forestry leaders in states outside the Mountain states think about the relocation is unclear.
Environmental leaders were critical of the move in an Associated Press article.
Farm groups have been critical of USDA’s reorganization plan, saying that USDA moving so many employees out of Washington may make it difficult for Congress to consult with them.
It’s unclear whether USDA has consulted with the congressional committees that have oversight over the Forest Service.
In the first Trump administration, the Interior Department moved the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado, but the Biden administration moved it back. The first Trump administration also moved USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Economic Research Service to Kansas City, resulting in a loss of most of the staff.
Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., ranking member on the House Agriculture committee, said, “This reorganization, like the others we saw during the first Trump administration, will push innumerable experts to leave their jobs at the Forest Service. It will result in brain drain and the loss of valuable expertise that helps to make the Forest Service work for rural communities. It will cause permanent damage to the agency and put more rural Americans at risk from catastrophic wildfire. This is another shortsighted decision by the Trump administration that makes life worse for the American people.”
The offices of House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., ranking member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, did not immediately provide comments.
