{"id":3331,"date":"2026-04-23T21:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3331"},"modified":"2026-04-23T21:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:00:10","slug":"industry-insider-seeks-to-eviscerate-u-s-forest-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3331","title":{"rendered":"Industry Insider Seeks to Eviscerate U.S. Forest Service"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As the country hurtles toward a potentially record-setting fire season, a recent announcement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to drastically resize and restructure the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) would effectively eviscerate key research and protections for the nation\u2019s public lands, according to a new report released today by Public Citizen<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cRestructuring the Forest Service in this way will dramatically reduce its ability to conduct scientific research,\u201d said Lois Parshley, research director with Public Citizen\u2019s Climate Program<\/strong> and author of the report. \u201cThese relocations will undermine key data collection needed to understand climate change.\u201d <\/p>\n

Schultz\u2019s restructuring of the USFS would close two-thirds of the agency\u2019s research stations, disrupting data collection on long-running experiments. The shift will reduce the agency\u2019s ability to collect environmental data, weaken its capacity to track conditions, and hamper research that informs land management decisions.<\/p>\n

The agency\u2019s headquarters, which have been located in Washington for more than a century, would be relocated to Salt Lake City, and approximately 260 employees<\/a> have been informed they must relocate or lose their jobs\u2014a move that echoes the first Trump administration\u2019s relocation of the Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction, Colorado.<\/p>\n

The two leaders at the center of the evisceration have longstanding conflicts with the USFS. Before Schultz\u2019s appointment to lead the USFS, he worked at the Idaho Forest Group<\/a>, one of the country\u2019s largest lumber producers. Within months of taking office, Schultz began implementing policies aligned with positions he advocated as a timber industry representative<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Michael Boren, the USDA\u2019s Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment, which oversees the agency, once faced a restraining order<\/a> for allegedly buzzing a U.S. Forest Service trail crew at low altitude in a helicopter. Boren also ran afoul of the government by building a private airstrip on national recreation land and an unauthorized cabin on national forest land.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an industry executive, Schultz advocated to reduce environmental reviews and more recently testified to Congress in support of an industry wish list,\u201d said Parshley.<\/strong> \u201cDOGE cuts and an early retirement program drove nearly a fifth of Forest Service employees to leave the agency last year. Fewer people are being asked to do more, at the same time as fire seasons are growing longer and forests are under mounting stress from climate change.\u201d <\/p>\n

Read the full report here.<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the country hurtles toward a potentially record-setting fire season, a recent announcement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to drastically resize and restructure the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) would effectively eviscerate key research and protections for the nation\u2019s public lands, according to a new report released today by Public Citizen. \u201cRestructuring the Forest Service […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[742],"class_list":["post-3331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ciencia-y-tecnologia","tag-vr-news-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}