The Agriculture Department is planning to move the Forest Service\u2019s headquarters across the country to Salt Lake City, Utah \u2014 the first step of a broader agency reorganization.<\/p>\n
USDA said relocating the Forest Service headquarters will \u201cbegin a sweeping restructuring of the agency,\u201d as well as a consolidation of its facilities nationwide.<\/p>\n
The department, in its announcement on Tuesday, said this reorganization would bring agency leaders and employees closer to the communities they serve. The vast majority of Forest Service land is concentrated in the Western part of the country.<\/p>\n
As part of this reorganization, the Forest Service has designated 15 state directors to oversee its operations within one or more states.<\/p>\n
]]><\/p>\n
Under this reorganization, the Forest Service will close all nine of its regional offices and relocate that work to six hubs across the country \u2014Albuquerque, New Mexico; Athens, Georgia; Fort Collins, Colorado; Madison, Wisconsin; Missoula, Montana; and Placerville, California.<\/p>\n
USDA said these hubs, which it calls \u201coperational service centers,\u201d were selected based on where department employees and infrastructure are already located. The department said more operational service centers may be announced as the reorganization progresses.<\/p>\n
Some of the facilities currently serving as regional offices will be repurposed. Regional offices in Juneau, Alaska, and Albuquerque will be converted into state offices \u2014 and the latter will also serve as a business support service center. The regional office in Vallejo, California, will serve as a national training center.<\/p>\n
The Forest Service will also consolidate all of its research operations into a single organization located in Fort Collins.<\/p>\n
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement on Tuesday that moving the Forest Service headquarters to Salt Lake City would position agency leaders \u201ccloser to the landscapes we manage and the people who depend on them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMoving 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,\u201d Rollins said.<\/p>\n
USDA has embarked on its own reorganization and is planning to move more than half of its employees<\/a> in the Washington, D.C. area to five regional hubs across the country.<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n In February, USDA announced it is selling its South Building<\/a>, part of its D.C. headquarters complex.<\/p>\n The department\u2019s relocation plans are much broader in scope than what happened under the first Trump administration. In 2019, USDA sought to\u00a0move several hundred employees<\/a>\u00a0in its research bureaus from the D.C. area to Kansas City, but most impacted employees chose to leave the agency, rather than relocate.<\/p>\n Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said in a statement that the reorganization will make the agency \u201cnimble, efficient, effective and closer to the forests and communities it serves.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEffective stewardship and active management are achieved on the ground, where forests and communities are found \u2014 not just behind a desk in the capital,\u201d Schultz said.<\/p>\n The Forest Service\u2019s wildfire operations will continue to operate mostly unchanged. Its Fire and Aviation Management program, which, according to USDA, serves as the \u201cbackbone\u201d of national incident coordination, will keep its existing structure.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be no interruption or change to our field-based operational firefighters or their positions,\u201d USDA wrote.<\/p>\n The Forest Service\u2019s wildfire operations will continue reporting to the deputy chief for fire and aviation management at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.<\/p>\n \u201cThis structure ensures the agency\u2019s ongoing, close coordination with the Department of the Interior and interagency partners,\u201d USDA said.<\/p>\n In February, the Interior Department blazed ahead with a reorganization plan<\/a> that will consolidate its wildland firefighting operations.<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n Those plans, however, stop short of merging wildland fire personnel or programs from the Forest Service with similar resources at the Interior Department.<\/p>\n An internal memo states the Wildland Fire Service \u201cwill unify wildland fire management within DOI only.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe success of these efforts will rely on ongoing support from Congress to secure the necessary funding and authorities needed to implement and sustain these important reforms,\u201d the memo states.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump signed an\u00a0executive order last summer<\/a>\u00a0requiring the Interior Department and USDA to consolidate their wildland fire programs \u201cto the maximum degree practicable and consistent with applicable law.\u201d The Trump administration\u2019s\u00a0fiscal 2026 budget request<\/a>\u00a0noted that wildland fire response has been split\u00a0across five agencies in two departments.<\/p>\n A comprehensive spending deal to\u00a0fund the Interior Department through the end of fiscal 2026<\/a>\u00a0did not endorse the Trump administration\u2019s plans to consolidate federal wildland firefighting operations into a single agency.<\/p>\n Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee wrote in a\u00a0summary<\/a>\u00a0of the Interior spending bill last month that the spending package \u201cspecifically provides funding to continue wildland firefighting using the longstanding practice of funding both the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior to allow Congress to consider legislative proposals for such a major change.\u201d<\/p>\n