Remember when DOGE tried to get rid of probationaries, which was problematic because the FS had hired so many people (Chief Moore said 5400) many of them on authorities that had two year probationary periods? And many of whom (as we heard complaints at the time) were not in field oriented positions? Without an apparent plan of what positions were most important to fill?
But then a court case said “you can’t do that” and so the FS in this Admin had to use voluntary authorities. So let’s circle back to something Chief Moore said last fall:
And you know us once we get going, we are very successful. We actually hired about 5,400 people, you know, we didn’t have a governor in there, you know. We it didn’t it didn’t just stop, you know. So 5,400 people.
And so when you talk about what the Forest Service was behind, it was never $700 million, what was mentioned. It was about $500 million. But here’s the thing. Our plan, we had 10 years to spend that money. More like eight years to spend that money. On the average, we lost about 2,000 employees a year through attrition. So, we know that at worst, we could reach that 5,000 employees over two and a half, three years. And that’s what we were looking at doing, but we needed to hire a lot of people to do that additional work that we’re being asked to do. And so, that’s why we hired the additional 5,000 people.
What occurred to me recently is that..if the FS first discovered the deficit in 2024 (based on this September 17th all-employee call) then the extra hiring must have been done prior to that. Let’s say 2022-2023.
Based on..the concept that the extra people (hired with soft money) would be balanced out by those who were retiring.. so in 2026, the FS would have ended up by losing the same number of folks. And because of the court case against the DOGE going after probationaries, those are people who went voluntarily. It seems as if we put those pieces together, and realize that this is 2026, the FS would have lost that number anyway, even if the previous Admin had continued with their plans.
Were those folks who left different folks than would have “naturally” retired? I’m not sure we know. In fact if the models of losing 2K people a year to retirement were correct, programs like VERA may have caused the FS to lose more than the 5300 or whatever it ended up being.
But the next time you hear or read, “the Forest Service lost 20% of its workforce due to DOGE” or whatever, you will know that the real story, as usual, is likely a great deal more complicated.
One of the ongoing mysteries about the Forest Service during the Biden Administration is “how exactly did it happen that they overspent such that they were $740 mill in the hole?”It seems to me that our professional reporter friends were remarkably incurious about how it all went down. Here we were also curious about “why did they hire 6K new folks on soft money?” and “why did they send so many bucks to traditional partner NGOs and also and non-experienced groups (according to the Retiree Info Network, at the behest of one Representative Clyburn) if they were going to end up short?” Was it a serious of choices by politicals, or was there some Department of War-like budget malfunction that still might be a problem today?
There are two basic questions that come to mind. First, how did it happen? What decisions were made and why? The second is what the Biden Administration folks were planning to do about it. Certainly enough FOIAing might have shed some light.
Conveniently, though, we did get a bit of new insight yesterday on question 2 when the Deputy Undersecretary posted this on X.
Today, I sent a response letter to the Senate regarding the reorganization of @forestservice . Sometimes, the truth hurts. The Biden Administration overhired—by thousands—knowing the funding stream was temporary. And on January 17, 2025, Secretary Vilsack received approval to separate 7,000 Forest Service employees. At one point, the Biden USDA even contemplated selling Federal lands to solve their spending problem! They generated hundreds of pages of memoranda, emails, and presentations on how to fix a problem THEY created with their irresponsible spending, prioritization of DEI, and gimmicks for their Democrat friends.
Vaden also attached four images, one is above and the rest below. Marc Heller of E&E News covered this and checked in former Secretary Vilsack and the new FSEEE Director, Kevin Hood.
“Dep. Sec Stephen Vaden is correct in that the Biden Administration overhired while Covid funding was rampant,” Hood said in an email Monday. “The current FS reorganization was triggered by the prior administration in large part to remedy this over budget situation, and then this administration came aboard and made the reorganization part of their own government downsizing effort.” Hood added, “There was definitely a need to reconcile the existing agency structure with the post-Covid congressional budget — some sort of reorganization was coming.”
Maybe I’m missing something, but I thought that the FS ramped up with IRA and IIJA bucks, putatively for climate and infrastructure, respectively. I wonder how Covid fits?
Vilsack on Monday pushed back on Vaden’s assertions, telling POLITICO’s E&E News that the deputy secretary had taken some information out of context, particularly on the fate of public lands.
Vilsack, who’s now CEO of the charitable organization World Food Prize, said he’d spoken internally to USDA staff about how to persuade Congress to boost funding for forest management, such as thinning forests to remove potential fuel for wildfires. The pitch to lawmakers could be, “If you’re not going to invest in it, you shouldn’t have it,” Vilsack recalled telling staff. “I said it to our internal team,” he said, “I thought it was time for us to put the issue on the table.”
If we go back to what Chief Randy Moore said at the Retiree Reunion last year, I quoted a bunch of what he said in this post and here’s what seems to fit with what Vilsack told Heller:
And so took that over to the Secretary. So he said, um, $33 billion. And I said, that’s that’s the answer to your question. And so he said, what if we just doubled what you had from 6 billion to 12 billion. I said, okay, we’ll do about 40% of what we’re being asked to do, but we needed to be grateful if we could get another $6 billion. That would be great. And so the Secretary Vilsack was making a move to do that with OPM and we ran out of time. But here’s what happened. We developed a plan because and we couldn’t in good conscience ask the workforce to do $10 billion more worth of work when we were clearly being underfunded. And so we hired 5,000 additional employees in the agency.
Chief Moore says later that because the FS couldn’t really stop hiring once it got going, they actually hired 5300. Anyway, the common thread is that “Congress isn’t giving the FS enough money, despite ginormous chunks of IRA and IIJA, so.. let’s hire 5K ish people and play budget chicken with Congress?” It still doesn’t add up.
To some of us, it remained mysterious exactly what the Biden Admin planned to do (other than get rid of temps for 2025) to solve the problem., but apparently Vaden found the plans, to reduce staff and reorganize.
On the Forest Service staffing issue, the agency’s budget troubles were widely reported in 2024, when then-Chief Randy Moore announced that seasonal hiring would be suspended to help fill a gap of as much as $750 million. The Forest Service’s troubles were tied to legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act, which the service used to hire staff to support increased forest work. The Inflation Reduction Act, directed $5 billion to the Forest Service for various projects, many with a focus on climate change and ecosystem recovery.
Vilsack said Monday that those jobs were always considered temporary, although officials hoped some people could stay on as permanent employees left through attrition. “This was well thought-out,” Vilsack said. “When we hired those people, we had the resources because Congress provided them.”
They were always considered to be temporary, although they were permanent hires? The other odd thing about Vilsack’s statement here is that one reason there was such a budget problem was that the Department had asked the FS to use House marks at the time to plan the budget, because the budget bill hadn’t been passed. Whereas generally agencies plan based on last year’s final budget. So they asked the FS to use an intentionally smaller budget than realistic for planning. I would have asked Vilsack “if it was so “well thought-out” then.. what happened? Then why did they ask for the approval to separate 7K employees? And why is the document Vaden posted dated 1/17/2025- after the election but right before inauguration, what exactly was the point? For me, Vaden’s paperwork revelations raise more questions and the Vilsack story still doesn’t add up. Ultimately, we’ll find out, even if we have to wait for some career fed to retire and tell all.
Sorry, all, these images Vaden tweeted are fairly small. I asked him for copies of his trove of info, so we’ll see.
You’ll remember that in the fall of 2024, the FS said that no temporaries would be hired for the summer of 2025, due to a budget deficit. The budget deficit was $750 mill, I had heard. Why did the deficit happen? I think it’s still relevant today because the numbers added in the last few years (5400) compared to the numbers lost (6K or so) don’t seem as different as the real pain units are feeling. So there are probably deeper layers to this story. Maybe only that the additions were not as vital as those who left via voluntary reductions, but even so..
At the Retiree Reunion in Missoula last fall, Chief Moore talked about it, and I thought it was interesting. You can see what he had to say on this video right around 1:38:28. It’s better to hear Randy talking, but for those who want, I took the Youtube transcript and did some editing for clarity and spelling.
Actually if you are interested in the Forest Service, hearing all the Chiefs talk and reminisce about their time is interesting. You can even download the Youtube and listen in the car or wherever. We can discuss in the comments. Anyway, back to Chief Moore. I am a big Chief Moore fan, and the venue of his retirement stories and celebration was not the place to get all the details. He’s painting a big picture and the broad sweep of events, which isn’t the same as a budget powerpoint or even a briefing paper.
My questions about his comments at the Retiree’s Reunion do not reflect at all on his legacy and leadership. I’m still trying to put the pieces together, and ask a question “were there other ways to reduce the deficit than reduce employee numbers? Or was the plan to continue into deficit?” One of the problems in finding this out was a complete lack of information from recent retirees. I have only heard second and third hand whispers, which is decidedly unusual for such an important issue. There have been no apparent leaks to the media or perhaps the media were not interested. If someone can help piece this together, it would be greatly appreciated.
Anyway, back to Randy’s talk:
This is my last statement. But I remember with Secretary Vilsack and he called us over and he wants to talk about what we were going to do because we’re going to be getting bipartisan infrastructure legislation and the inflation reduction act monies and the Forest Service got 10 billion dollars of those monies and we needed to do something with it, and so we were asked to develop a 10-year plan, and so we developed a 10-year plan is known as the Wildfire Crisis Strategy and we had 10 years to spend that money. Well, the election was coming around. We probably had to speed it up.
It sounds like they felt they needed to spend all the 10 years worth of money in case the funding was retracted by Congress? Or maybe the election he mentions was the 2024 Presidential election?
And so what we did was that and it was at Secretary Vilsack’s request is that he said, you know, Chief, he says, we either got too much land or not enough money.
Now the FS did receive a substantial chunk of change from the IRA and the IIJA, although not all of it was for NFS and even then some was rather odd. I can’t find it right now, but I did a post on the numbers in the IRA.(e.g $100 mill for improving NEPA efficiency, not actually doing NEPA). I did two searches from different AIs and got different numbers for how much the FS received in IIJA and IRA funds, so gave up.
I said, we don’t have enough money, Mr. Secretary. And he said, well, no. He says, um, how much would you say that we’re doing based compared to what we’re being asked? And so we sent this around to all the regional foresters and station directors. And you, you all know us, you know, when you ask a question like that, we don’t always tell the complete truth when we respond back because here’s what came back. and and they were telling the truth. so I you know it was the real truth, but we get appropriated about $6 billion. When we looked at what we were being asked to do in the budget that we would need, it was about $33 billion.
So we were doing somewhere around 19% we were funded 19% of what we were being asked to do. And all of you probably know that, you know, because you people retire, you did their job and yours, you know, it just went cycle, cycle, cycle, you know, and and and so that was the first revealing piece is that we were underfunded and we’re being asked to do more and more and more, with less and less and less and it and it turned out to be truthful when we looked at what we’re being asked to do versus where we’re being funded.
But maybe IIJA and IRA added a bunch of bucks..so was it “less and less” at that point?
And so took that over to the Secretary. So he said, um, $33 billion. And I said, that’s that’s the answer to your question. And so he said, what if we just doubled what you had from 6 billion to 12 billion. I said, okay, we’ll do about 40% of what we’re being asked to do, but we needed to be grateful if we could get another $6 billion. That would be great. And so the Secretary Vilsack was making a move to do that with OPM
To put it in the President’s Budget Request?
and we ran out of time. But here’s what happened. We developed a plan because and we couldn’t in good conscience ask the workforce to do $10 billion more worth of work when we were clearly being underfunded. And so we hired 5,000 additional employees in the agency.
And you know us once we get going, we are very successful. We actually hired about 5,400 people, you know, we didn’t have a governor in there, you know. We it didn’t it didn’t just stop, you know. So 5,400 people.
And so when you talk about what the Forest Service was behind, it was never $700 million, what was mentioned. It was about $500 million. But here’s the thing. Our plan, we had 10 years to spend that money. More like eight years to spend that money. On the average, we lost about 2,000 employees a year through attrition. So, we know that at worst, we could reach that 5,000 employees over two and a half, three years. And that’s what we were looking at doing, but we needed to hire a lot of people to do that additional work that we’re being asked to do. And so, that’s why we hired the additional 5,000 people.
This seems to agree with the story “not enough people retired as we imagined” but with a different twist than “our model for retirement was wrong.” It also has the addition “we planned for them to retire over more years but we felt an urgency to hire lots more people .” It would also make sense to have some kind of “governor” in the system so agencies don’t overhire. At the same time, we remember mucho bucks being obligated to an array of the usual suspect Keystone and other NGOs, as well as ..others (the National Baptists.. for work in.. Arizona?).
Now, we had also needed to look at diversity. And so a part of what we did was try and move into areas that we have not been commonly moved into. And so of that 5,300 people, we had a lot of diversity, gender and ethnicity. And believe it or not, we went from a 18% diversity up to about 27- 28% diversity. And that was that was a record by far. and we moved the gender from about 34 to about 43. Now, what’s interesting is that now the 5,000 people that have left or lost their jobs represent the diversity and inclusion that we had reached through that effort. And I say this, I want to say that diversity and inclusion matters because a lot of the young people, a lot of our young people had the skill set to move us into this direction that I mentioned earlier. carbon sequestration, looking at developing a carbon standard, looking at our research and our science, looking at wood innovations that was what was represented in that 5,300 employees that we hired. And that’s what is being jeopardized with this latest move.
This was confusing to me when I heard it, as news stories in March said the probationary folks were being reinstated, and the Reunion was in . So who left? It appears that it was a mix of the newly hired but lots of older experienced folks. Some of the probationaries were field- working conversions from temporaries, but others had positions less directly involved with field work. At the time, field folks were complaining that the funding was being used to staff up ROs or hire chiefs of staff. I have seen recently hired hitherto unnecessary positions myself at GS-12 levels.
And just to make one point, there have been plenty of excellent people who know about carbon sequestration and carbon stuff in the FS for … at least 20 years.
As a female forester hired in 1979, I that if this is 2025 and the % women in the FS was at 34, there might be structural issues involved.. like if most of the budget is in wildfire, and wildfire folks have a smaller percentage of women, then.. we need to consider that. If fire has had trouble getting their numbers up.. does that mean everyone else has to have 70% women to balance out for the agency totals?
Inquiring minds might still wonder… was the deficit $750 or $500 mill? Why did the FS intentionally hire on more permanents than it could afford? What was the hurry to spend the money really about? What was the long-term plan for the Harris folks to have dealt with the over-hiring problem? Perhaps playing chicken with Congress and blaming future RIFs on not enough funding? Or maybe not having temporaries for more field seasons?
And what was the story with the Keystones and other large sums in grants- grantees who were hiring temp folks for positions that had formerly been permanent employees? And why has it been so hard to find out these things? There have been no leaks, no retirees speaking out, and no traditional media interest. It may have something to do with why the Trump Admin reductions have been so difficult and newsworthy for the FS, and not so much for other land management agencies.
I know that there are many NGOs with folks in DC watching the budget, but I’m not on their mailing lists. So here is an update from AFRC. Sounds like Congress is not going with the Budget Request numbers… pretty much as expected.. back to what they have allocated previously (with an increase for some line items). So for now, it looks like we can stop using the Budget Request numbers and have a cheerier view of FS and BLM funding into the future, which doesn’t look like a big change from the past (but of course the IRA IIJA infusions and where they went make things confusing.) Maybe a volunteer would like to keep track of the budget process?
Fiscal Year 2026 Appropriations. After a record 43-day long government shutdown, Congress passed three of the 12 regular, individual appropriations bills along with a Continuing Resolution funding the rest of the federal government through January 30. Agencies within the Interior Department and the U.S. Forest Service were funded under the CR.
On January 5, House and Senate appropriators announced agreement on an additional three appropriations bills, which included a $38.6 billion Interior and Environment appropriations bill. Overall, the measure is $2 billion below the current enacted level, but $9 billion above President Trump’s budget request that proposed major cuts.
The Forest Service would receive $3.71 billion for its non-fire programs, including $1.86 billion for the management of the National Forest System – a very slight reduction over the FY25 funding level. The proposal would maintain critical investments in key budget line items that support the Forest Service timber program, including Forest Products ($39M, level with current funding), Hazardous Fuels ($176.9M, $1.4M increase) and Roads ($73M, level with current funding).
The Trump Administration had proposed zeroing out State, Private, and Tribal forestry programs at the Forest Service. This proposal would provide $310.6M, a $27M increase over the FY25 funding level.
The bill also maintains the Forest Service’s wildland fire programs that were proposed to be consolidated at the Department of the Interior. Report language calls for an independent study of consolidating wildland fire programs to “asses the impacts a consolidation would have on reaching proposed timber targets, continued cohesion between wildland fire management and the hazardous fuel reduction program, continued use of the available red card-certified workforce….”
The Department of the Interior also avoided large reductions proposed in the President’s budget request.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) would receive $115.5M for the management of the Oregon & California Grant lands, level with the FY25 funding level and $46M above the President’s budget request. The Public Domain forestry program is also level funded at $10.3M.
If you have additional/better info from your sources, please add. High Country News has this:
The U.S. Senate passed a limited spending package on Thursday that will largely fund several science- and land-related agencies, including the Department of Interior, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, at current levels. Having passed the House on Jan. 8, the bill now heads to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.
AFGE and NARFE Call for Clean Resolution to End Shutdown
With the federal government still shut down and hundreds of thousands of federal employees not getting paid, the nation’s largest federal employee union—the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)—has broken its usual silence to call for a “clean continuing resolution” to reopen the government. And, in the latest event, NARFE has also joined with a similar press release.
It’s a rare and politically notable move. AFGE, usually closely aligned with Democrats, is now openly urging passage of a measure that Republicans have been pushing in recent days: a continuing resolution (CR) that restores government funding without policy riders or partisan add-ons.
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So why would AFGE break with that pattern?
1. Strategic Frustration Over Partisan Gamesmanship
The union’s leadership has made clear that this shutdown has moved beyond a policy dispute—it’s a crisis for workers’ livelihoods. In its official statement, AFGE warned that “political brinkmanship has gone too far” and urged lawmakers to fund the government first, then continue debating longer-term budget issues later.
By publicly backing a clean CR, AFGE is effectively saying that workers’ immediate needs outweigh partisan alignment.
2. Signaling to Democrats to Prioritize Relief Over Leverage
AFGE’s statement may be aimed as much at Democratic leaders as at Republicans. By endorsing the quickest available route to reopening the government, the union underscores that maintaining a united front isn’t worth weeks of unpaid labor. This places pressure on Democrats to compromise in order to restore pay and stability.
3. Political Optics and Moral Positioning
The timing of the announcement—just as the Senate considered new CR proposals—appears calculated to influence the debate. By calling for action while bills are under discussion, AFGE reinforces its image as the moral center of the shutdown debate, representing the human cost of inaction rather than any party’s legislative strategy.
Political Crosscurrents
The coming two weeks will likely determine whether this shutdown becomes one of the shortest in recent memory—or stretches into Thanksgiving and beyond.
AFGE’s public intervention may give moderates in both parties political cover to support a clean CR without appearing to cave. But if either side continues to treat the shutdown as leverage for unrelated policy goals, the voices of federal workers may again be drowned out by partisanship.
AFGE’s hope since October 1 has been that the spending impasse would be resolved to the satisfaction of both sides of the aisle, including on the critical question of healthcare affordability that members of both parties have acknowledged must be addressed. In the meantime, the government must be funded. With less than a month before Thanksgiving, no federal worker should have to turn to a food pantry to help prepare the family table. Please vote for cloture.
Whether that appeal finally shifts the debate—or simply highlights Washington’s paralysis—will become clear in the days ahead.
NAFSR sent out the below summary last week. Looks like some of the “ideas many of us think are bad” about R&D and S&PF are off the table.
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Public Lands
The bill rejects President Trump’s efforts to shortchange America’s cherished landscapes and ensures that funding for operations of the National Park System, the National Wildlife Refuge System, National Conservation Lands, and the National Forest System is fully protected at enacted levels.
The bill provides the funding necessary to maintain personnel at prior year levels and requires the necessary staffing levels to be able to provide visitor services, Tribal consultation, ensure public safety, and carry out the science necessary to respond to growing natural threats and increased visitation.
National Park Service
The bill provides $3.27 billion for the National Park Service, including $2.87 billion for the operation of the National Park System, which is equal to the enacted level and is $145 million above the level in House Republicans’ bill and $875 million higher than the level requested by President Trump.
The bill provides the resources to sustain fiscal year 2024 staffing levels—rejecting staffing cuts made since January—and to support a full complement of seasonal staff during fiscal year 2026.
The bill also provides $168 million for the Historic Preservation Fund and protects all 433 national park units from being sold off or otherwise eliminated from the National Park System.
Forest Service
The bill provides $6.17 billion for the Forest Service, excluding additional funding for the Wildfire Suppression Operations Reserve.
Of this amount, $3.7 billion is provided for the Forest Service’s non-wildland fire management responsibilities and provides sufficient funds to sustain appropriate staffing levels.
The bill rejects the steep $1.4 billion cuts to the Forest Service’s non-fire budget proposed by President Trump.
The bill provides funding for the Forest Service to improve forest restoration and fire risk reduction efforts on federal lands and through cross-boundary partnerships.
It also provides $175 million for hazardous fuels reduction projects, $31 million for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program, and $6 million for the Legacy Roads and Trails program to prioritize fish passage improvements and repurposing unnecessary roads as trails.
The bill continues funding for state grant programs and federal and cooperative research that were proposed for termination in President Trump’s budget request, including an increase of $8 million for State and Volunteer Fire Assistance Grants, and a total of $8 million for Joint Fire Science research.
Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF)
The bill allocates $900 million for federal land acquisition and financial assistance to states provided through the LWCF under the Great American Outdoors Act.
This program is critical for improving recreational access to our federal lands, protecting iconic landscapes, delivering grants to states and local governments to create and protect urban parks and open spaces, and providing farmers and ranchers with easements to allow them to continue to steward their private lands in the face of development pressures.
Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT)
The bill fully funds payments to counties through the PILT program, which are estimated at a total of $550 million.
Protects Full Funding for Wildland Firefighting and Supporting Federal Wildland Firefighters
The bill provides funding for the permanent pay fix and job series for federal wildland firefighters to prevent a devastating pay cut for the firefighting workforce.
The pay fix was enacted as part of the fiscal year 2025 continuing resolution and began as a temporary bonus for Forest Service and Department of the Interior firefighters provided in the Infrastructure and Investment in Jobs Act.
The bill bars consolidation of federal wildland firefighting into one agency in fiscal year 2026 and specifically 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.
Wildfire Suppression
The bill fully funds essential wildfire preparedness and suppression efforts by providing $4.25 billion for wildfire suppression, of which $2.85 billion is for the Wildfire Suppression Operations Reserve Fund.
The Reserve Fund provides the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior an assured amount of funding to be used when major fire activity requires expenditures exceeding regular base suppression operations funding. This funding level—in addition to carryover balances—will meet projected needs for fiscal year 2026 wildfires.
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Here is a link to Faith Campbell’s take (focusing on invasive species)..below are some parts that interested me.
The Senate bill provides a total of $8.6 billion for the Forest Service. This includes $308,497,000for the Research and Development program. This is an increase of $8.5 million above funding for the current year. The Senate bill specifically supports retaining the five regional offices and experimental forests. Remember, the Trump Administration had proposed to eliminate the Research program – other than Forest Inventory and Analysis. The Committee’s report link specifies that the USFS should prioritize projects requested by or benefitting the agency’s mission, not requests by external entities. The benefit to the agency and public should be stated before a project is initiated. The report specifies funding for several issues, including/
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There is also $19.6 million to support Congressionally-directed components of Forest Resource Information and Analysis – which is apparently separate from the FIA program.
?? Perhaps someone here understands that.
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Reminder: the House Appropriations bill provides $301,706,000 for the research account – almost $7 million less than the Senate. The House’ allocation for the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program is $34 million. Thus, there is a $9 million difference in funding levels – a significant challenge to reconcile. How will funding for the already-underfunded invasive species programs fare?
Other groups, no doubt, have their own summaries.. please put any you run across in the comments.
Remember House Interior Approps does both FS and BLM appropriations. Here’s a link to the bill text, but Marc at E&E did us a big favor by pointing out the key elements of interest.
House appropriators Monday turned away a Trump administration effort to slash the Forest Service’s research budget, proposing to hold spending steady at about $300 million in fiscal 2026. The proposal by the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee is part of an $8.5 billion annual spending plan for the Forest Service that largely ignores the administration’s most far-reaching proposals.
Total spending for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 would be $16.8 million less than this year’s level. Spending not directly tied to fire suppression would total $3.6 billion, or about $107 million less than this year. The measure is scheduled for a subcommittee markup Tuesday. The research budget would total $302 million, of which $34 million would be reserved for forest inventory and analysis — the data-collecting operation that the administration hadn’t looked to scale back.
Lawmakers’ decision to stick with research funding follows a strenuous lobbying campaign by Forest Service retirees and others who said the programs have a distinguished, long history worth continuing.
The committee proposed $2.43 billion for wildland fire management at the Forest Service, plus the $2.48 billion disaster fund that’s mandated by Congress and likely to be tapped to cover rising wildfire costs. Lawmakers didn’t endorse the administration’s proposal to move wildfire suppression to the Interior Department, which would require creation of a new sub-agency there.
Appropriators also opted not to endorse the administration’s proposal to eliminate funding for state and private forestry programs, including international forestry. State and private forestry programs would receive $281 million, a slight decline from this year and a bigger drop compared to the $337 million spent three years ago.
These include many of the grants the Forest Service provides to states and localities for practices from reducing potential wildfire fuel to planting trees, although the bill doesn’t dictate exactly how the funds are to be distributed.
As appropriators have learned this year, a top-line spending number doesn’t guarantee that the administration will spend the money as Congress likes.
The Agriculture Department this year has siphoned money away from some of the state forestry grants to pay employees who took deferred resignation, and a USDA official told lawmakers last week that the administration intends to shift already-appropriated grant funding to boosting timber production.
The appropriations bill also includes $202 million for reducing hazardous fuels such as dead or dying trees in national forests. Up to $30 million of that amount may be used to promote increased use of biomass such as in wood products.
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There are a variety of things that there may be a backstory on.. like why NFF and NFWF are singled out as non-profits. Here’s a peculiar one:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, of any
2 appropriations or funds available to the Forest Service,
3 not to exceed $500,000 may be used to reimburse the Of4 fice of the General Counsel (OGC), Department of Agri5 culture, for travel and related expenses incurred as a re6 sult of OGC assistance or participation requested by the
7 Forest Service at meetings, training sessions, management
8 reviews, land purchase negotiations, and similar matters
9 unrelated to civil litigation: Provided, That future budget
10 justifications for both the Forest Service and the Depart11 ment of Agriculture should clearly display the sums pre12 viously transferred and the sums requested for transfer.
Were OGC folks jetting around the country in some unusual way?
What does this mean?
That $20,000,000 may be used by the Secretary of Agri1 culture to enter into procurement contracts or cooperative
2 agreements or to issue grants for hazardous fuels manage3 ment activities, and for training or monitoring associated
4 with such hazardous fuels management activities on Fed5 eral land, or on non-Federal land if the Secretary deter6 mines such activities benefit resources on Federal land.
Does that mean that only 20 mill may be used? Line 20 of the previous pages says “not to exceed” for another purpose, which makes sense, but what does “may be used” mean? Is it gently encouraging that amount?
One of our Anonymous friends asked this question and provided a link to the Interior Budget Justification 2026 for the US Wildland Fire Service (should abbreviations for different agencies within the same department be so similar, e.g. USFWS and USWFS- could this lead to confusion)?.
“USFWS Proposed Budget FY26, need help comparing real numbers to current, they seem inflated here.”
I’m not good with budget documents, but perhaps what is missing is the FS budget from 2024 and 2025 that is expected to be included in the 6.5 bill in the USWFS 2026 budget request?
I agree with the idea of consolidating duplicative programs, or at least checking to see if they are duplicative.
I have to point out two areas in which I think the Budget write-up is wrong, as well as inconsistent. It is also against the intentions that I think this Admin has.. which is to focus on what we might call “science for the people” or scientific work of practical value, that answers questions that folks in forest management and farmers want to know. In my view, by targeting forumula funds and FSR&D, they are actually short-circuiting opportunities for the public to influence research priorities and design, and in fact, produce practical research. It leaves people further divorced from direct influence over research priorities. It seems to me based on the stated goals of this Admin, it would be better to identify more direct methods of people influencing R&D portfolios rather than getting rid of the ones that are working.
This comes from my experience at NIFA and with the Fund for Rural America, a research, education and extension program that Congress funded in the hope that it would generate some useful information. The utility of USG research has been a long-standing concern of theirs.
1. NIFA
The Budget eliminates wasteful, woke programming in NIFA, such as activities related to climate change, renewable energy, and promoting DEI in education that were prioritized under the Biden Administration.
My only thought is that if certain Admins prioritize things, then other Admins can de-prioritize them. I’d prefer a system that focuses on non-partisanized topics, but that’s just me.
In addition, the Budget reduces funding for formula grants because they generally do not achieve the same results as competitive programs.< Instead, the Budget focuses on the President’s goal of advancing the competitiveness of American agriculture through the merit-based Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. The Budget protects funding to youth and K-12 programs such as 4-H clubs, tribal colleges, and universities. This investment would help prepare future generations of farmers. It also ensures HBCUs are amply funded.
What does the bolded piece even mean? I remember when employees came over from NSF to tell us at NIFA that formula funds were old hat, and the cool new way of doing business was better.bringing combos of scientists in to decide funding. It seemed to me one of those beliefs which needed to be taken on faith, as I never saw a formal analysis. Having seen both sides, I think it depends on how each is administered, and of course, what you think are the appropriate results (who interprets “better”?). Users are not allowed on the panels, and there was no separate way for us to hear from them what issues were important to work on. Individuals or groups decide and submit proposals.
There can be good formula and bad formula administration. Before formula funds were diverted into competitive grants (and there was a sizeable chunk of funding), some schools used to have formal groups of users advising them on issues that they thought needed research. So if a state was beleaguered by some pest, for example, they didn’t have to enter a US wide competition (where scientists alone rated proposals) to get grant funds. Deans would figure out a way to get it done with the research and extension capacity available. Of course, that was at its best- it could also be a slush fund for the Dean to award to his or her favorites, or to use to recruit scientists, or I’m sure there were other uses.
On the other hand, competitive grants can be more scientist generated.. what scientists think is useful. And there can be quite a gap between what scientists think is useful compared to what forest managers or farmers think is useful. For example, Chelsea Pennick is trying to round up funds to research “why previous biomass efforts haven’t been successful” and Frank Carroll has questions about managed fire, to whom does he take them? At least in the old days, you could sit down with a human being (Dean or substitute) and make your case.
As I looked into this, I noted that some odd things about how forests are included, for example in the NAREEEAB board (it’s interesting that social scientists and economists don’t count as “academic or research societies”, they instead count as “industry, consumer or rural interests.” And there is one position out of 15 for a forest person. Also interesting is that the NAREEEAB has subcommittees, apparently at the behest of Congress. This sounds like a great idea..but I don’t know how it has worked out.
SCC studies the scope and effectiveness of research, extension and economics programs affecting the specialty crop industry. It reports its research findings and makes recommendations for improving these programs, with the goal of making U.S. specialty crop production more efficient, productive and profitable.
But wouldn’t it make more sense to study such things for forest research across agencies (perhaps there can’t be an interagency FACA committee?). Within the USDA, there is the Forestry Research Advisory Committee or FRAC. However, on the FRAC webpage I didn’t see anything recent. This could be a broken link problem.. hard to tell.
2. Other Intramural USDA (ARS, NASS and ERS)
It’s interesting that giving money to land-grants to decide is bad (formula funds) but giving it intramurally via ARS is fine. Which is not to criticize ARS nor FS intramural. And looking back, I wonder if part of the formula funding critiques were really about other universities getting access to USDA funds.
The Administration is committed to prioritizing research that supports American agriculture. However, many of the current ARS facilities are in disrepair. The Budget reduces funding for research sites across the Nation that have exceeded their ideal lifespan and reduces funding for research projects that are not of the highest national priority. The Budget also makes small reductions to the Economic Research Service and National Agricultural Statistics Service to stop climate-politicized additional scopes added by the Biden Administration while ensuring all critical analysis and data collection continues.
I wonder who is deciding which research is of “the highest priority”? It seems to me that university administrators and faculty have to thread the needle of “what the scientific community thinks is currently cool to study” “what farmers and land managers in the State need” and “what is fundable by the current mix of programs among federal agencies.” I don’t envy them.
3. Intramural Forest Service (Forest Service R&D)
The President has pledged to manage national forests for their intended purpose of producing timber. The Budget reduces funding for the Forest and Rangeland Research program because it is out of step with the practical needs of forest management for timber production, but maintains funding for Forest Inventory and Analysis, a longstanding census of forest resources and conditions.
You’ve gotta be kidding! For some of us, getting an FS researcher interested is our only hope. How can the Admin say that the ARS is doing useful work and the FS is not? It’s just bizarre. I wonder if anyone actually believes that. Of course, some projects are more useful, in that sense, than others. But I’m sure that’s equally true of competitive grants funded by NIFA and intramural research at ARS.
Finally, we have to leave USDA because there is some overlap between what USGS does and what FS R&D does.
4. USGS
USGS provides science information on natural hazards, ecosystems, water, energy and mineral resources, and mapping of Earth’s features. The Budget eliminates programs that provide grants to universities, duplicate other Federal research programs and focus on social agendas (e.g., climate change) to instead focus on achieving dominance in energy and critical minerals.
Now some of us remember when agencies like BLM lost their R&D arms with the combo into USGS. Which meant again, that there is no institutional link between what managers feel they need and getting research done. At the time, it was kind of the same with Forest Health folks and FS R&D. “Your problems are too practical for us.” “OK, we’ll do the work ourselves.” “You can’t because that’s research and you are not funded to do research.”
My broader point is that if, as I think, some USGS research overlaps with FSR&D, then it won’t anymore if FS R&D is gone.
Of course, NSF is also in the mix. Check out this project at Univ of Montana. It sounds good (although, in this abstract, kind of nebulous), but you could see the FS funding it.
This Regional Innovation Engines Development Award is focused on precision forestry and rangeland management. It will be a new economic driver in the Northern Rockies/Northern Plains region by applying technology, tools, and data to the emerging field of precision forestry and rangeland management. This project, led by the University of Montana, brings together researchers and partners from the Plains University Innovation Alliance, the Montana Wood Products Association, the Nature Conservancy, the US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium in addition to state Climate Offices, economic and workforce offices in the Montana Governor’s Office, and venture capital firms. Through this innovative partnership between public institutions, Tribal Community Universities, and private industry, the team will create a dynamic economic development ecosystem and an expert knowledge base that will address critical issues related to land management with national and global relevance. As a key aspect of the effort, the Development Award will demonstrate the application of recent and emerging technologies to manage the land to maximize the economic benefit of federal, Tribal, and private forests and rangelands while minimizing ecological impacts such as fire, drought, and flood. Technologies such as lidar, autonomous aerial systems, satellite imagery, sensor arrays, and predictive modeling can increase forest and rangeland production by improving the available data for use by land managers. This will enable more precise policy and decision-making and improve environmental risk mitigation.
The ball is rolling on selling federal lands for housing with the creation of a task force that would identify federal land that would be suitable for housing. The task force would be run by the Departments of the Interior and Housing and Urban Development.
“The aim of Trump’s new task force is to identify the land parcels suitable for building. It will then transfer or lease them out to public-housing authorities, nonprofits or local governments to develop homes. The land might occasionally be sold to private developers, according to a HUD representative. The federal agencies would determine that on a “case-by-case basis” in coordination with the local government.”
Really? One might suspect this money-grubbing Administration would sell the most valuable land and to the highest bidder. Especially if this is going to be used to finance its sovereign wealth fund.
No mention here of whether the Forest Service or national forest lands would be involved – it could be limited to lands not otherwise “designated,” including national forests. The other interesting thing is this:
“Developing even 512,000 acres of the Bureau of Land Management’s lots could yield between three million and four million new homes across western states such as Nevada, Utah, California and Arizona, according to a preliminary analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C., center-right think tank.”
It’s hard to picture where those acres would not be, given that …
“Only a small portion of U.S. government-owned land is near cities with housing shortages. About 47 million acres, or 7.3% of all federal land, falls within metropolitan areas that need more homes, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of government land maps and housing-shortage data from the National Association of Realtors.
In a few cases, local housing shortages overlap with an abundance of federal land in the area, such as Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. This policy could make a big difference for those housing markets.”
But what about Seattle, Portland, Spokane and … Missoula. The prices in many northwestern national forest-adjacent cities (and towns) indicate a housing shortage in these places. This article says the Secretaries want “affordable” housing, but it’s hard to imagine what kind of constraints that would put on the process – anywhere that has a housing shortage has an affordable housing shortage, and I can’t imagine this federal government adding requirements to local real estate deals to ensure housing affordability. Given the lack of guardrails being recognized by this Administration, I can imagine that any community that is interested could be coming into some new real estate.
“HUD will pinpoint where housing needs are most pressing,” and Interior “will identify locations that can support homes while carefully considering environmental impact and land-use restrictions,” the agencies’ secretaries wrote in the Journal’s opinion piece.
So they say. Will they consider the effects on national forest management of expanding the WUI? Land management plans should have identified lands suitable for disposal (or maybe a process for doing that) – would this matter? (Maybe someone with a WSJ subscription can pry out some more details about what these Secretaries have in mind.)
