No federal natural resource agency has been more successful than the U.S. Forest Service in increasing its budget. Since adoption of the National Fire Plan in 2000, the Forest Service has enjoyed an unparalleled increase in its appropriations. Unlike its DOI cousins (FWS, BLM, and NPS), only the Forest Service has been able to increase spending above the rate of inflation, as shown in the graphs below.
The Trump administration Version 1.0 tried to staunch this spending growth, but to no avail. Congress repeatedly ignored Trump’s proposed Forest Service budget cuts and kept the FS’s money flowing. The Forest Service’s war on fire proved an implacable foe to Trump’s green eyeshade crowd.
Will Trump 2.0 have more success? Or will DOGE decide that the Forest Service’s bi-partisan congressional support for its 25-year-old war is too powerful to fight? My guess, for what it’s worth, is that DOGE will suffer the same fate my beloved Oregon Ducks did in the Rose Bowl. 😩
PS: In response to comment #1, here is a graph showing the wildland firefighting/fuels treatment percent of the Forest Service’s appropriations.
PPS: In response to Bob’s comment, here is a graph showing the Forest Service’s total (i.e., sum of appropriated plus K-V dollars) reforestation budget from 2000 to 2024 in real and nominal dollars. In the old timbering days (circa 1950s-1990s), most reforestation costs were associated with clearcut logging. Fire has replaced clearcutting as the major reforestation need. But the linkage between a fire and its reforestation is no longer as transparent as the old timber sale K-V plans.
Do you have data on what percent of the appropriated budget is for fire vs. non-fire?
I have added a graph of the percent-that-is-fire-related data as a P.S. the original post.
Hi Andy: Are percentages also available for the same time period for timber sales and for reforestation? It will be very interesting to see what happens to these numbers — if anything — in the coming year. Our forests are a mess, becoming increasingly worse, and throwing money at the USFS doesn’t seem to be having an effect.
I have added a graph showing reforestation (appropriated and K-V) spending (real and nominal) since 2000.
As for timber sales spending, I have no idea how to figure out those numbers as stewardship contracting now accounts for a substantial fraction of timber removals.
Thanks, Andy! Can you show a graph showing stewardship contracting over the same timeframe? And, if so, are there records as to who received these amounts?
The reason the reforestation numbers are down is because taxpayers instead of timber buyers are footing the bill. Also, the little reforestation work that is taking place following wildfires — which are far more extensive than logging ever was or could be — is really bad, at least here in western Oregon. And most of the work is being done by migrant crews, so the money doesn’t even stay in the community.
But I know folks in Keystone Agreements are doing refo with whatever funds went into them .. IRA or BIL.. so maybe outputs aren’t related to the categories in appropriated dollars? I’m ,as usual, confused.
I think that there is still plenty of notorious Congressional partisan misinformation entrenched in DC. Both sides continue to push their agendas, regardless of the facts of history. It’s a perfect chance to change the ideas of “Forest Management”, but no one in Congress wants to try and go wherever ‘the science’ may (‘non-partisanly’) lead.
Are we going to expect anything different from DOGE? They will try, however, DOGE will not be able to actually change any existing laws that go against their partisan plans.
We’ve also seen that when Trump pushes an idea, he always says “We’ll see what happens.” That did not work at all during his previous term. (I guess the other extreme is really saying the same thing, regarding forests, too.)