Rapid Readout: Implications of the U.S. Forest Service Reorganization

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The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) held a Rapid Readout about the recently announced reorganization and restructuring of the U.S. Forest Service. Housed within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service manages nearly 200 million acres of federal land, mostly in western states. Because the service’s focus is primarily on the West, the Administration is proposing to move the agency’s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, Utah. It also intends to reorganize staff into state hubs and eliminate 57 research labs. The Rapid Readout explored how these changes could impact decades of science, including key climate-related forest research. The session also covered the implications of the reorganization on both wildfire preparedness and response and annual budget and appropriation conversations.