The Forest Service is defending its plan to relocate its headquarters to Utah and shutter most of its research facilities, as part of a major agency reorganization — but intends to proceed with these plans with or without approval from Congress.
Last month, the Agriculture Department announced that the Forest Service would move its headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition, the agency should shut down 57 of its 77 research facilities, as well as all nine of its regional offices.
Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz told members of the House Appropriations Committee that about 500 employees would have to relocate under the agency reorganization plan — about 1.5% of the agency’s 30,000 workforce.
“The intent is not to push anyone out the door,” Schultz told members of the subcommittee on interior, environment and related agencies on Thursday. “The intent, really, is to be thoughtful about how we do this, looking at where we don’t have enough staff to support a facility.”
The National Federation of Federal Employees, the union that represents Forest Service employees, estimates that about 6,500 agency employees would be affected by the headquarters relocation, and that 2,700 would be impacted by research center closures.
Steve Gutierrez, a former Forest Service firefighter, now a business representative at NFFE, told Federal News Network that employees impacted by this move would likely quit instead of relocate.
“They’re being told to pick up their entire lives and move across the country, or move two to three hours away from their residence where they live now,” Gutierrez said. “Not everybody can pick up their entire life, move their kids out of school, buy a new home in another state, sell their home. That’s a big lift for a lot of people, and not everybody’s willing to do that, no matter how much they are dedicated to the service.”
Schultz said the Forest Service isn’t looking to shrink its workforce. Thousands of agency employees left last year by taking voluntary separation incentives.
“As we remove middle layers of management, the intent is not to RIF anybody or have a reduction in force. It’s to find other roles and responsibilities, different reporting structures, but it is to ultimately move more resources to forests and districts where the work is being done on a daily basis,” he said.
In addition, the agency’s FY 2027 budget request would eliminate about 800 of the Forest Service’s 1,110 research scientist positions.
Schultz said those researchers would likely find similar jobs in the private sector or at the state level, and that the “states would step up” to provide funding for these positions.
“R&D is zeroed out in the budget,” he told lawmakers.
Gutierrez said many Forest Service researchers are already co-located at universities that sponsor them.
“We don’t pay anything for them. They’re free,” he said. “I don’t think it’s in the best interest for public lands.”
Schultz said the reorganization plan would shutter some facilities that have fallen into disrepair, and that it would “facilitate research and researchers over maintaining facilities and facility managers.”
Subcommittee Ranking Member Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said lawmakers have been left in the dark about details of the reorganization.
“We’re getting some of our information off the website. We’re the appropriating committee that has oversight on the budget. I feel like we shouldn’t have to go watch the website every day to see if you’ve made another announcement or something,” Pingree said.
“We haven’t seen this organizational chart, so I have no way to know that we’re not going to lose a lot more employees, just as we did last year with the misguided DOGE effort,” she added.
Schultz said the Forest Service would keep a limited number of employees in Washington, D.C., but that a majority — about 260 of the 350 employees in the national capital area — would have to relocate under this plan.
“Could that number be a little bit less, a little bit more? Yes. Is it impactful to those families? Absolutely. Are we going to work with them to transition them and provide assistance? Yes, we would. We look at their individual circumstances. You bet. Are the unions there at the table representing those folks? Yes, they are,” he said.
Under the first Trump administration, the USDA tried moving hundreds of employees at its two research bureaus to Kansas City. But more than half of the employees at the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture who received relocation notices left the agency rather than move to Kansas City.
“I saw what happened when we moved NIFA and ERS, and you just lose a lot of staff. Not everybody’s going to move,” Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said. “Not everybody is going to be able to move their family from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City.”
USDA is currently planning to relocate more than half of its DC-based workforce to five hubs across the country — Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City.
Schultz told the subcommittee that the Forest Service intends to move ahead with the reorganization, with or without approval from Congress.
“We have consulted with [the Office of General Counsel], and we have been afforded what they perceived to be a direction to do this, move forward, that the secretary has this authority,” Schultz said.
Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), former Interior Secretary under the first Trump administration, said he supported the reorganization. Under his tenure, the Interior Department moved the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado.
“When you take your personnel and you bring them out West, the schools are better, the cost of living is better, the opportunity to have a house is better, and you’re closer to where the actual forests are,” Zinke said. “Moving things out West, I think, is important, because most of the issues are in the West.”
The FY 2027 budget proposal also doubles down on plans to merge the wildland firefighting capabilities of the Forest Service and the Interior Department into a single agency. Congress rejected that plan in a comprehensive spending deal for fiscal 2026.
“Congress didn’t go along with that, mainly because I don’t know if it’s a good idea or bad idea, but we had a lot of questions that were unanswered, “Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said.
The Interior Department recently proceeded with plans to consolidate all of its wildland firefighting personnel and programs.
The final FY 2026 Interior appropriations bill directed USDA and the Interior Department to hire an outside group to conduct a study on the feasibility of consolidation.
Schultz said the agencies are in the early stages of contracting out this work, and that once a vendor has been selected, the study will take up to six months to complete.
“The intent of this study is to inform Congress, inform the administration on this process. But we think there’s a lot of progress we can make, even short of the study being done. That’s the intent we’re taking,” he said.
Simpson said he’s concerned lawmakers may not have time to review the study’s findings before drafting a FY 2027 spending plan.
“It’d be kind of stupid to combine the wildfire fighting in our bill without having the study completed. Otherwise, why do the damn study?” Simpson said. “This might be the best idea since sliced bread. I don’t know, but I need a whole bunch of questions answered.”
Federal News Network’s Drew Freidman contributed reporting
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