Proposed FY 2027 Budget for U.S. Forest Service

Good morning. The subcommittee will come to order. It is good to be able to welcome the Chief of the US Forest Service here this morning uh to speak to the Forest Service fiscal year twenty twenty seven uh budget. I wanna thank you for your leadership, Chief. Uh I really appreciated the conversation that we had yesterday uh Lot on the table, uh w- and there is more to to raise here today, I I anticipate good participation from the committee here this morning. Uh I wanna start by crediting you for many of the good things that are happening back home in Alaska right now. A year ago I told you I was impressed by your understanding and your just genuine awareness of of Alaska's issues uh and I think that you've been using your legislative and your administrative authority You've entered into a shared stewardship agreement with the state of Alaska. Uh you're working on lifting the roadless rule, which in my view should never have been applied to Alaska, uh but you're doing that on a nationwide basis now. You've started the process of revising the Tongass National Forest Plan for the first time in decades. You've issued a draft decision for the South Revilla project to enable the harvesting of more timber from the Tongass. And all the while that you're doing this, your your folks are are processing the recreational permits um that uh we're seeking to be able to welcome our many tourists uh in as they seek to enjoy our multi-use forests. As you know, I've not always been um pleased or satisfied with the forest service management decisions in Alaska, and and while I have some real concerns about agency staffing, uh I think you're restoring balance to the agency mission and I appreciate that. I think you recognize the need for timber harvesting, energy development and mining, And you are reasonably allowing those multiple use activities on our forest lands, even as we're working to protect subsistence and to again uh welcome and encourage tourists back to Alaska our first cruise ship of the season I think landed a a couple days ago um so the folks are coming and I will tell you when they come up that inside passage they're going through the Tongass National Forest and they're seeing, they're seeing these these these emerald emerald uh landscapes uh around them. And and the recognition that we've actually harvested in these areas for most is like, well where, how? Well this is a renewable resource, and when managed correctly and properly, you can enjoy the abundance of what uh grows on the land while also uh enjoying the natural beauty that continues. There's a lot to be positive about right now, um but as we meet I I also have uh just a sense of dread and looming. We're looking at the maps that you just shared with Senator Merkley and and I, uh as we look to the upcoming summer season and what it's gonna mean for wildfire and drought. Uh the pictures that you're showing about Alaska uh allow me to be breathing a little bit easier but I know for my colleague here he's taken deep gulps and and the reality is is it is in so many many different parts across our country right now. There are severe threats because our forests, many of our forests are already unhealthy. Too many are overgrown, infested by insects and invasive species, increasingly susceptible to once extreme conditions that are now becoming the norm. Most forecasts are projecting that this will be a bad year for both fire and drought, and if that comes to be, it's gonna impact everything. It's gonna impact the firefighters, the forest, the forest resources, the communities that surround them, the communities on their front lines, and it's gonna impact our federal budget. We passed the so-called fire fix in twenty eighteen, we're now entering the final years of its budgetary adjustment uh in FY twenty seven. My view, we need to provide every resource needed to fight fires as part of a broader policy that addresses every facet of the problem, and that means robust forest management through a full spectrum of activities that help reduce prevent and ultimately lower the cost of wildland fire. So as we brace for fire season, the Forest Service is simultaneously tackling some very big internal initiatives, starting with a proposal for a new wildland fire service. Uh as I told Secretary Burgum last week, um there's merit to the to the proposal. Um I've seen in Alaska a state where we don't have forest service firefighting. I've seen how uh the Alaska model can work elsewhere, and I so I know it can be done, I understand why it it would make sense for the Department of Interior, but but my question still remains is does it make the same sense for the Forest Service and the lands that you manage? You're also proposing a significant reorganization of the Forest Service. Uh I agree that many improvements can be made to the agency's structure and organization, but details matter. Uh so I'll have some questions about uh how what is being proposed would actually work in practice. And uh as much as you have proposed a a reorganization, you're also proposing a consolidation of forest service assets and facilities. And again in in some cases that absolutely makes sense. I think we do have some sprawl that can be realigned. Um but as we do that, you you move cautiously, it's not it's not knee jerk, um it's not without uh a good deal of of consultation there. This isn't this isn't braq, this isn't doge. Um being lean and mean uh and and and moving to an interior-like uh state office model doesn't necessarily mean being more effective especially if the cuts being made degrade the agency's capabilities and research mission. Um but I have shared with you I think it makes sense um uh when you are the forest service and most of most of your lands are are are managed um in in the west, it makes sense. to to head uh further to the west, and you're talking about your headquarters there to Salt Lake. I could suggest that you could move it all the way to the west and and bring it up to Alaska, but uh uh I'm I'm I'm gonna back off that idea. Um perhaps the easiest thing to say right now is that the Forest Service has an incredibly ambitious agenda right now. In my view, there's no need to shy away from the conversations that will follow. Not much that you have proposed um is a hard no for me. But I'm not exactly an immediate yes on everything either. So uh uh to get to get to that good place, I think, uh I'm gonna be seeking firm assurances for what I think we need in Alaska, like a sustainable timber harvest in our largest national forest, a commitment to maintain important agency facilities and personnel, continued co-management agreements with our tribes, and a robust public process for those by agency decisions, and that's just to name a few. Um, we're a long way from ensuring our mutual goal of ensuring the health, productivity and resilience of our forest, but I do look forward to working with you, Chief Schultz, um and and along with my my ranking member, uh Senator Merkley here, and all the members on the panel to put together a good budget, um a budget that will be right for all across the country. and move us in the right direction. So again, I thank you for your leadership and your willingness to be here and to work with the committee. And with that, I turn to Ranking Member Merkley.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and and thank you, Chief Schultz. And uh thank you for providing a a a map that scares the bejeebers out of me. Uh the map is about the snow water equivalent that fell this year and I was uh showing you how decade by decade the snowfall and the cascades has steadily uh dropped over the last ninety years and uh but this is something way beyond that. We're talking and this is a watershed uh map so we're looking at zero percent of the thirty year median amount in Malheur zero percent, meaning they basically got no snowfall or one percent of Novi Ahi or zero percent in the John Day watershed or one percent in the Lake County watershed, or three percent in the Klamath watershed. Uh, so, uh, yes, it's extremely, extremely, uh, worrisome as we think about the role of snowfall that provides both the, uh, significant amount of water to our trout and salmon streams, and provides a lot of water into the summer for irrigation for our agriculture. So in both senses, we're looking at a very rough year. Uh, you and I share a commitment to the health of our forests and the rural and urban communities across this country that depend on them for their livelihoods and their well-being and those values transcend governmental boundaries. So it, you know, those values are important whether it's m- land managed by tribes or the federal government or the state government or by private Landowners, we share the goals of reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire. We share the value of restoring forest resiliency and the value of ensuring the American people have access to well-managed public lands. In Oregon, we treasure our public lands as places to camp and to haunt and to fish and to hike and to collect mushrooms and just to be in the wilderness to restore our souls. But when I look at the budget before us, I'm don't think it reflects those values. It pulls back on state and tribal partnerships. It backs away from research and science. It doesn't use all the tools available for better management. It projects a forty percent reduction in non-fire workforce. people in Forest Service Green who are the key to making those shared values, shared goals a reality. And as you and I have talked about, the department's outline for reorganization has generated a significant stir. You've been working to assure stakeholders that the plan won't shatter research activities and won't reduce the workforce and will take a step to take a step, won't take a step towards transferring federal lands or selling them off. But when I look at the the budget, those concerns remain significant. And now that we can look at both the reorganization plan and the fiscal twenty seven, twenty twenty seven budget together, the optics are hard to ignore. The reorganization is shrinking agency capacity just as the budget shrinks agency capacity. This isn't the bright vision for the future that I know many of us strive for. These changes appear to weaken an agency that has been a global benchmark for integrating forest research and stewardship for over a century. The budget requests suggest a dimmer vision. It zeros out federal forest research. And anyone with all the experience you've had knows how important that research is, how many different types of forests, how many different ecosystems, how many different timber opportunities there are, and how important research is to sustain all of our goals in the forest. The budget eliminates state and tribal grants to support private landowners and volunteer fire departments who are often the first responders to wildfires and it ends funding for collaborative landscape scale restoration projects. And those landscape scale restoration projects, the collaboratives have been extraordinarily successful approach as compared to traditional timber sales which end up in court, the collaboratives don't end up in in court. We're able to bring together folks with, start with very different views from the environmental side and the timber side. They work out a prescription. They form relationships. They sit in rooms together and and and really wrestle and bring find the compromises that enable them to forge long-standing partnerships that both result in a lot of uh thinning and prescribed burns and mowing uh that reduces the risk of wildfire but also supplies a lot of saw logs to our mills and if we don't get saw logs to our mills the mills shut down, and then we don't have the ability to process and effectively do the forest management. forest management are so carefully intertwined. The budget cuts recreation management by a third. And it projects a reduction of more than seven thousand forest service staff positions. And let's put up that chart just to take a a look. Even if we include the staff that is moving over to DOI, we still have a reduction from thirty thousand to twenty-three thousand. And so that is a whopper of a change in a single year. And by the way, just as the budget projects seven thousand positions being cut, in the same month, six thousand five hundred staff received notices of relocation and reassignment. So it seems like, and we know that when you shut down one center and open another, often it's a a way to kind of uh indirectly because families can't easily move and so it seems like the first strategy to try to implement this significant cut of seven thousand has a big impact on losing a lot of expertise that's been so important to the forest service. So in that sense the budget and the reorganization seemed somewhat aligned. Now, the budget that was submitted for fiscal year twenty-six did look quite similar. In a bipartisan fashion, Congress said, no, there's a lot of changes there we don't want to adopt. And I think there we may well work towards the the same reaction from Congress uh this this time. But still these presentations in the budget do feed the concerns. And there's a lot of concern about moving the Forest Service wildfire management into interior. The Forest Service has a lot more fire personnel, a lot more acres than does Interior and BLM, and so it seems like Forest Service should be in the front seat, not in the the back seat, or or I'm afraid they're actually just getting dumped out of the truck completely. So I appreciate that you are take undertaking the study that we asked for to look at that merger, and I understand that the request for proposals will come out shortly and that It might well be September, October until that uh report is done and over the course of that uh certainly encourage all consultations with Congre- Congress and the the public about uh the elements of that plan and uh hopefully hearings when the plan comes out uh because I keep hearing from forest service experts at fire management and forest management are inextricably intertwined.

Thank you, Senator Merkley. Thank you, Senator Merkley. Chief It's good to welcome you to the committee. If you would like to proceed with your statement, then we will move to questions.

Chairman Mikalski, Ranking Member Merkley, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here to testify today. Established in nineteen O five, the USDA's Forest Service is the nation's foremost federal forestry organization. We have the privilege of managing a hundred and fifty-four national forests, twenty national grasslands, covering a hundred and ninety-three million acres in forty-three states and Puerto Rico. The Forest Service works with communities, states, local governments, tribal governments, forest industry, private forest owners, NGOs, and others for managing for multiple uses. Collectively we have shared challenges that we've referred to already today in some of these comments across the nation in maintaining this level of productivity. You all have talked about wildfire risk, threats to watersheds, infrastructure strain, and the need to support rural economies that depend on healthy forest and grasslands. This has also been a priority for the Secretary and me. We share many of these. None of these challenges stop at jurisdictional boundaries, and none of them can be solved by the federal government acting alone. They require partnerships, community and tribal members. They bring local knowledge, experience and accountability. The best outcomes happen when we plan and act collectively, especially as the wildfire risk grows and pressure on public lands increases. My focus over the past year as Chief has been a return to fundamentals, keeping people and communities safe, reducing risk to communities, actively managing forest and grasslands so they remain productive, and also we want to increase and improve public access for recreation and other uses of the national forest system. While for readiness remains central to our mission, as of early March we have hired already about ninety-seven hundred firefighters, which is six percent more than we had done last year at this time and nine percent more than at twenty-twenty-four so we've looked at the same data that you're talking about, we're actually ahead of where we were two years ago by almost ten percent. Our firefighters are world-renowned for rapid response. This year we will continue demonstrating that strength to keep fires small, community safe, while also increasing the use of risk reduction tools, such as prescribed fire and mechanical thinning. We've already thinned and used prescribed fire on more than one point seven million acres year to date. Just so you know, last year was also predicted to be a very bad fire season. We actually had twelve percent more starts, fire starts, during the course of the season, but we burned half as many acres. The Forest Service was very proactive and aggressive in fighting wildfire. Last year we were also very safe. We reduced our OSHA recordable incidents by almost fifteen percent from two thousand twenty-four to two thousand twenty-five. In much of the western United States, mortality on productive timberlands now exceeds growth, particularly in the national forest system. This is driven by fires, insects, disease. In other words, our forests are dying faster than they're growing. The Forest Service currently harvests on less than point five percent of the total forested acres every year. And despite our reserves of forest land, we still rely heavily on Canada to meet our domestic timber demand, which is about twenty-five percent of our lumber currently comes from Canada. Active forest management is not optional. It's how we restore health to our forests. It's how we reduce fire risk. It's how we keep them open for public access and productive. Expanding timber production, modernizing grazing processes, and accelerating reforestation They're all part of restoring forest and grassland health and productivity. This past year we planted two hundred eighty-five thousand acres more than we've done in the last twenty-five years. Stronger management means stronger local economies, more jobs in the forest and energy sectors, productive working lands that fuel rural prosperity. Our front-line work force is critical to expanding the management of our national forest. This year I committed to hiring two thousand seasonal employees for the summer of twenty-six to ensure that we're able to do just that. We've made significant progress, offering positions to more than sixteen hundred candidates, with five hundred twenty expected to start over the next week. Seventy-five percent of those folks are focused on recreation. Our national forests provide far more than clean water and places to recreate they're all s working lands that support our America's energy security and innovation. Energy security is national security, responsible resource to who strengthens our nation's economy and resilience while upholding our multiple use mission. The fiscal year twenty-seven budget that the president proposes focuses on forest service efforts to actively manage the forest for critical minerals and permitting and energy development. Additionally, the budget emphasizes efficient and effective fire management by building upon our current best practices to unify the federal suppression response apparatus into the U. S. Wildland Fire Service under the Department of Interior. The unification of wildland fire under one DOI bureau will allow the forest service to focus on its remaining core mission of delivering critical outputs and services from the national forest system lands. The twenty-seven budget firmly supports the President's goals by significantly increasing funding for active management. The budget also proposes to increase the amount retained by the agency from ranchers and permittees the grazing fees that are collected to provide for reinvestment of the National Forest System lands. Our public lands offer some of the best recreational opportunities in the world. National Forest alone receive more than a hundred sixty million visitor users annually. Maintaining safe and reliable infrastructure for these visits and other management is critical. And that's why the twenty-seven budget requests reauthorization of the Great American Outdoors Act. Similar to the twenty-six budget, the president's twenty-seven request reduces or eliminates some aspects of federal funding from the Forest Service budget to ensure stewardship of American taxpayer dollars and to better balance appropriate roles of the federal and state governments stemming the reliance on federal government to fund and deliver these services. In closing, the twenty-seven budget request underscores our commitment to focus on investments in products from the national forest that are critical to supporting rural communities. We are prioritizing fundamentals of managing our forest for their intended purposes and ensuring maximum value for the American taxpayer. Thank you for inviting me here today and I look forward to your questions.

Chief, thank you for your statement. We will now turn to a round of questions. I am going to yield to the Chairman of the full uh committee on appropriations, Senator Collins, for her questions and a possible statement if she wishes.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you both for your leadership of this important subcommittee. Mister Schulz, welcome. Maine, as you may know, is considered to be the most heavily forested state in the nation. Eighty-eight percent of our land is covered by forests. Our forest products industry supports approximately thirty thousand jobs across all of Maine's sixteen counties, with most of those jobs concentrated in northern and western Maine and other rural areas of our state. That is why the threat posed by the outbreak in upper northern New England, and also Canada, of the spruce budworm is so critical. Uh, this is a moth that, as I'm sure you're aware, can cause does cause substantial damage to our forests. I ha have seen photographs of the Canadian forest that were not promptly sprayed, um, with a safe pesticide versus the American side, which was And the difference is night and day. To combat the spread of this first budworm, I secured fourteen million dollars and twenty twenty-four supplemental appropriations, which private landowners and the state also uh contributed to this pot of money to do effective spraying. There is, at my request, another ten million in the FY twenty-six interior appropriations bill. It is absolutely crucial that these funds be deployed in a timely manner so that the spring can occur when it is most effective. There's a real window for spring and the first was coordinated very, very well um between the public and private sectors so chief Could you tell me um how you plan to use the FY twenty-six funds to address this ongoing threat?

Uh, Madam Chairman, Senator Collins. Thank you for the question. I did have a call recently with Mister Pingree um from Maine who is one of the contractors that's actually doing the work on the ground and he shared with me um the results from last year and the efficacy rates were probably in excess of ninety percent, exactly what you're stating. Um I lived in Helena, Montana. The Helena National Forest had a huge outbreak, same thing with spruce budworm. It it defoliates the trees, it reduces growth rates, it can lead to mortality, it's a significant problem. So the the funding use occurred last year was very effective. The funding this year, we are working right now through that process to make those funds available. Um I expect, when talking with Mister Pingree, I think their intent is to spray in the next several weeks, two to three weeks is what he indicated to me. So we are coming up on that time frame. Um, we're working currently with the state to make those funds available to the state. So I would expect um that those would be available here shortly to the state to, to pursue that and and use those contractors to get that work done.

That is very good news because as you know there's a critical window there, and if the spraying does not occur during that time, um, you can't get ahead of it. And unfortunately we've seen our neighbors to the north not have as an effective a process and um the devastation is just remarkable as is the contrast, so thank you for your commitment to get that money out. Um there's another issue that I'm hearing about a lot and that is the forest services announcement of a reorganization plan that would move the agency's from Washington DC to Salt Lake City. And I've heard from multiple colleagues and from industry about the potential impacts of this reorganization, including the concern about the closure of research and development facilities in multiple states. Um, I'm unclear what happens to regional offices, which is more important than where the headquarters is. Uh, these laughs, however, are extremely important as well. Uh, two questions for you on this. First of all, can you clarify what the plan and purpose is for this reorganization? And second, will there be an impact on the state of Maine?

Thank you um um Madam Chairman and Senator Collins. Maybe I'll take the second one first. So we anticipate no impacts to Maine. There are no facility closures projected in Maine, so no impacts to Maine, that's the easy one. In terms of the purpose and scope of what we're proposing, so when we came into, when I came into this job last February, um the Forest Service was facing about a seven hundred fifty million dollar shortfall in the budget. So just to put that in perspective, there were a lot of folks hired Um in twenty twenty four um there was IRA funding, IIJ funding, which was one time money, um so there was a significant hole. So the forest service had actually been planning since twenty twenty four in looking at opportunities for reorganization because of the the impending cliff in terms of the lack of funding to sustain all the people that were hired over that period of time so we had to take action if you and the secretary took lead on this and she put a memo out in July of twenty five which identified First and foremost, there were four pillars. One of the pillars was we have to manage within our budgets. We can't hire staff and have staff in excess of the money we have. So first and foremost, we're gonna live within our budgets. Um, another big part of that is to - to move programs to where people are at predominantly. So when you think about in the west, about ninety percent of the national forest system lands are west of the Mississippi. So we're trying to move the headquarters to where people are at. In terms of regional offices, you asked about regional offices. We currently have nine regional offices. We used to actually have ten regional offices. There was a Region seven that was consolidated years ago. So what we've looked at, and this is not not a new concept. There's been discussions of moving and reducing regions since about two thousand seven so there's been a lot of dialogue I've talked to prior chiefs about this but we recognize what has happened over time is we have created a bureaucratic state within the Forest Service we have about thirty five hundred directives that's on top of statutes, that's on top of regulations, that's on top of a manual, we have a handbook. So we have created such a bureaucratic state and many of those directives have actually been promulgated by the regional offices over time. So what we're trying to do is push decision making down to the ground, so the men and women on the ground give them more responsibility and authority to make decisions, and to remove some of middle management, and to move people more resources to the forest. So we're not proposing to change forests. or district boundaries. We're not proposing to consolidate those offices at this period of time. But it's really about looking at how do we create a structure that is more accountable to people on the ground where the work is being done, and give them more authority to make decisions. The new structure's gonna have a state-based approach. So you might be familiar with other agencies that have taken a state, so NRCS has state conservationists. The BLM has state directors. So an approach where we have a single person, many cases in the west, in the east we have more consolidated, but having more accountability for that relationship and that liaison role. So for instance, in Oregon, in Alaska, we're gonna have a state director, and that state director is gonna have responsibility for relationships with the state, with the tribes um with local government counties with NGO community, with the industry community. So we think it's a better way to both communicate and liaison with those local entities at the same time driving decision making to the ground. That's the overall intent of what we're doing. When it comes to closing, there's been a lot of questions about R and D. R and D is in a very similar role that the agency overall is. We have a shortfall of funds. There's we look at our facilities. When you look at the number of facilities the Forest Service has across and the number of buildings we have about a three billion dollar deferred maintenance backlog. I'm gonna say it again, three billion dollars in deferred maintenance. We're woefully underfunded to maintain this facilities and structures that we have. Just between fiscal year twenty-five and fiscal year twenty-six, our facilities budget was reduced by about thirty-seven million dollars. So we're trying to be prudent stewards of the taxpayer dollar. We cannot afford the facilities we have. So what we're doing is identifying in R and D and elsewhere where we have facilities that we might have in some cases one or two staff some cases three. How can we consolidate the work? In some cases we might move forced employees from a national force to a research and development facility or vice versa. But it's really we cannot sustain the footprint that we currently have, and there's a lot of concern are we are we reducing research? No, the intent of the reorganization is to maintain the research, it's to maintain the researchers, but it's for us to take a hard look at the f- the buildings that we have all across the country there there's an example a lot of people brought up Bartlett in New Hampshire question came up about are we gonna close the the facility at Bartlett well we're gonna maintain the the s the the overall experimental force, but there are no employees at the Bartlett facility. Nobody actually works there. And we're we're, you know, there's expenditures there we have for utilities and lights, I think almost a million dollars in in annual expenditures, and nobody's physically there. So there's many instances as we've looked across the landscape, but we have to be prudent managers of the taxpayer dollars, and a lot of it is consolidation of facilities. It's being more prudent about how we do this. So that's that's a long-winded answer to your question, ma'am.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Senator Collins. And I appreciate that you spent a little bit of detail on this because I imagine that all of us have questions about what this re- reorganization is is going to, how it's going to impact us in in our regions, in our states. Um, uh, I think we all want to be good stewards in making sure that we are we are managing well, uh, to hear your comment about three billion dollars in deferred maintenance ought to get uh the attention of of each of us here um but being smart in some of these leasing decisions to me seems to uh be worthy of the conversation so thank you for the detail to that. I'll turn to Senator uh Merkley.

Ah thank you Madam Chair and uh Chief Schultz and I'm going try to get through a lot of topics fast um but the first is I'm very concerned about the expiration of the fire fix. For five years we had a a fund that essentially ensured there'd be no fire borrowing, that is, shutting down everything else the Forest Service does in order to fund fighting fires. But now we're in a precarious situation. Twenty twenty-five firefighting was a billion and a half higher than the previous year and twenty-five wasn't a terrible fire year. Just a ten percent increase over twenty twenty-five and we'll run out of the funds this summer to fight fires. So Um, are you concerned about uh sorting out of funds and would you, do you think we need to be talking about a supplemental or about uh actually passing a fire fix to make sure that you're not in that uh horrific borrowing from Peter to pay Paul situation and shutting down other th- other things uh during the the fire season?

Uh, Madam Chairman Senator Merkley. I think it's a great point to bring up. So the the fire funding fix, as you've alluded to, was extremely important. for the agencies that we didn't have to rob money from the land management side to pay bills. It's been very effective. As you mentioned, we spent about five billion dollars last year with wildfire suppression, a lot of money spent on retardant. Um we had a very active season and we were very successful in keeping fires small because of that. Um the fire fighting fix expires at the end of fiscal year twenty-seven. So you do not see it reflected in the president's budget because typically OMB will will take that action in the next fiscal year after it's been done. Um but I can tell you we are more than willing to work with you if you have questions about that how to address that. In terms of whether we will run out of money this year or not um our forecast is that we will not run out of funding this year, but I can tell you I've got our budget folks here we are we are constantly reviewing expenditures and where we have to transfer funds. I mean we will keep you up to speed on that as the fire season progresses. Um this fire season's already been very active in the southeast as we know so.

Yes, and as the uh charts you you have shared and reviewed the amount of places where we have uh drought and the amount of places where we have small snowpack have us uh very, very worried. In the fiscal year twenty six legislation we had an advanced notification requirement put into statute with something new. Will you strive to make sure that the forest service follows the kind of the spirit of that advanced notification on issues regarding uh staffing and reorganization?

Yes sir, um and

Thank you. I just wanted a yes, thank you.

Mm-hmm.

We've already talked about it. I'm trying to get through several issues here,

You bet.

so I am very concerned about the changes in the facilities uh in uh Oregon, and uh does the department plan to relocate the Portland research staff? And not, this is really not talking about the budget, the budget is devoid of research money, but as you and I have talked about, there's a good chance Congress will decide to keep funding that research, but even if we keep funding it, do you plan to relocate, which we will. the Portland research staff to somewhere else. And would that be to Salt Lake City or S- or Fort Collins? What's what's the detailed plan on that?

Okay, so with specifics to Oregon, we have research facilities in Corvallis and Le Grand, which we are proposing no changes to those facilities. You mentioned the Portland regional office. We have approximately a hundred and fifty employees in Portland. And what we've communicated to them currently is that we are looking for theoretically opportunities for them to be able to commute within their existing distance. which I've some folks have asked what does that mean? Typically within sixty miles of their current facility. That could be on a national forest. In a supervisor's office it could be on a on a

But that's all I'm trying I'm just trying to are you going to move the research? Are you gonna shut down that Portland research? It's the largest research

No, we're not shutting down research, no. What we're looking at is consolidating facilities.

Portland research facility, are you going to move it or shut it down?

We are not gonna shut the research down, no. The answer is no, we're not gonna shut the research down.

Portland research.

Right, we're not gonna shut Portland Research down, no.

Okay. Okay. Thank you for that uh assurance. I appreciate that. And there's a whole lot of folks paying close attention at this very moment uh because uh that is our largest research facility and the number of threats we have in our forests uh from sudden oak death to uh pine beetle to new pests, like we're hearing we have a lot of spruce in Oregon. Uh so we have a a lot of concerns. And uh the relocation could affect uh we have four hundred and eighty-three staff in Oregon so uh very very I hope we'll be in I hope to be in close consultation with you about the best way to keep robust research efficiently conducted to the many challenges uh we we face. Uh the um transfer of firefighters to interior. I know that you're going to conduct this study so thank you very much for that I just want to accentuate And when I look at the fact that there are eleven thousand permanent firefighters in in versus four thousand interior, more seasonal firefighters in the forest department, more red card non-fire employees, more wildland urban uh interface, more federal firefighting aviation assets, more firefighting logistical support contracts as compared to BLM interior, it just um boggles my mind that it makes sense to separate the firefighting from forest management that forest service is responsible for. Do you share that concern at all?

So Madam Chairman Senator Merkley, I think you bring up a lot of good points and I think that's why we're conducting this study so you all directed us to do this study and I expect the RFP to be out probably mid mid-May time frame and I think it's gonna be about six months to complete it. So those kind of questions that you're asking we'll address those in that study. Um I think your recognition though that yeah about there is a large portion of the current firefighting program about seventy percent is forest service. But the intent of the unification is to create better coordination, better direction in terms of the priorities of fighting wildfires, but it also would continue to ensure that we manage lands, as you alluded to, and and do the preparation work. So we have to thin the forest, we have to use prescribed fire, all of those things reduce threats. So it's not just about suppression, it continues to be focused on all of the preventative measures that we need to take to ensure the forest are managed actively.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Senator Merkley. Uh, Chief, I appreciate your response to to the ranking member here about the report. Um, I think I think it's just prudent to make sure that we've really reviewed and analyzed this and and uh are asking all the right questions. So I appreciate the update on where that study is in the process here. Um, and as I mentioned with regards to the reorganization, um, this is important, I think. to to all of us who have forest service lands in in our states. Um and so I am going to ask that you commit to um just being very open, very transparent with with this committee um uh as as um we have questions about this proposed reorganization going forward, the impact not only on our states but the the broader system um but also Also being transparent with the Forest Service employees, cuz that's who I'm hearing from, people who are uncertain as to am I gonna have to move from Anchorage to Juneau or Juneau to Anchorage or perhaps uh elsewhere. Um uh last year was kinda rocky. I think we recognize that when we think about the impact to uh to staffing. And um and the good men and women doing a a a good job and certainly

Yeah, Madam Chairman, just we are committed to that, yes ma'am, and just so you're aware too, when we announced this, I was in Portland that day when we announced the the changes that were forthcoming. So we were trying to reach out to employees. We're having regular round table discussions. Employees are being engaged in actually the design of the restructuring as well.

Right.

So a lot of the questions people have, we don't have all the answers yet. We have a general structure as we go forward, but we are engaging our employees in this process. We're informing them. We're having round table discussions. We're meeting with them in the field about some of these topics. So there, we are definitely having our employees at the front and center of this as we proceed.

Good. Keep that up. I appreciate it. Um, the uh the president signed an executive order um over a year ago. This was regarding the immediate expansion of American timber. production, uh calling for for increased timber production on on federal lands. Um just a general update for the committee here on how Forest Service has implemented this EO over the last year and then more specifically uh to Alaska is, the impact that it's had on the ground i- in my state you know uh Forest Service has had a a pretty uh difficult time uh moving forward uh with any level of increased timber production over the years. Um and as you speak to that if you could also walk me through the Forest Service um uh effort in terms of providing for some of the longer term contracts in the Tongass that that we had discussed previously.

Um Madam Chairman, um just to kind of put this in historical context, if you go back to the late eighties um right before the spotted owl was listed, the Forest Service would sell about twelve billion board feet a year. Today Our target this year is three point two billion board feet. Um, when you look at forest plans, we have a hundred fifty-four national forests. Those forests have forest plans. If we just implemented every forest plan and did the work that is prescribed in those forest plans, we would sell approximately sev- seven billion board feet per year. The forest plans ad- address wildlife concerns, they address watershed concerns, soil concerns, they talk about desired future conditions, it a- it accounts for recreation. So my direction to our staff has been implement forest plans. The president gave us clear direction in the executive order to increase over the next four years what we sell by about twenty-five percent, which will be about four billion board feet. Again, I'm gonna reflect back on forest plans, if we implement forest plans to their full extent, which is what we should be doing, that would be selling about seven billion board feet. Congress has given us additional direction. So in the reconciliation bill, in law now it says we are gonna increase over our twenty-five base by two hundred and fifty million feet a year what we would sell for the next ten years. That still puts us just under what is directed in our forest plans. So we are moving in that direction. So in last year we sold two point nine four billion board feet. This year our goal is three point two billion board feet. We're moving forward per the direction in the EO and per direction from Congress in how we proceed in that fashion. Again, this isn't just about timber targets. Forest management is a tool by which we manage the forest. It reduces risk. for insect and disease, it reduces wildfire risk, it provides habitat for wildlife, it provides recreational opportunities, provides public access. So forest management timber is a is a tool to do the work. In terms of specifics in Alaska, so Alaska, if you w- reflect on the forest plan which was adopted in twenty sixteen, the goal in there was about forty five million feet. The forest service has been hovering between one and three million feet a year, probably on and off for the last eight years. So we aren't doing that this year. We just sold a sale the other day. closed on it last Friday. It was three and a half million feet. Uh, we had sold a prior a million feet in Alaska this year. The goal this year is about twenty-seven million feet. We're moving toward that forty-five million for goal that's identified in the forest plan. We'll be there next year. That's the plan. And as w- as we mentioned in your opening statement, we are reviewing and updating the Tongass National Forest Plan. We're going through a process to do that. So we're gonna re-evaluate the goals and objectives in the plan and involve the public in that process. So we are well on our way to following the president's direction, following Congress's direction, and moving forward in its, it's in a sustainable, thoughtful way, working with communities, ensuring that it's within the direction of the forest plans, and even as we do that, at the end of ten years we're gonna get close to full implementation. That's what our goal is, full implementation of the national forest system plans.

Thank you for that update. Let's turn to Senator Baldwin and following her it will be Senator Houston.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, thank you, Chief, for your testimony, for being here today and your service. The President's budget request uh cuts all the funding for state, private and tribal forestry programs and the volunteer and state fire capacity grants that help support local fire departments in responding to wildfires are eliminated in the President's budget. These rural volunteer and career firefighters are already stretched pretty thin. And this budget asks them to continue to risk their lives fighting fires on federal land with no resources to back them up. Rural communities depend upon these departments not just for wildland fire but for every fire emergency that occurs in their communities. The budget also proposes transferring funds to build up a consolidated federal wildline land firefighting effort. This appears to be the president's attempt to rebuild what was broken last year when thousands of Forest Service employees were fired, many of them who held uh wildland firefighting uh certifications. So I have two questions uh on this topic, area chief, how do you expect to recruit uh wildland firefighters to a federal agency when it has already shown uh, its willingness to fire them without, uh, warning. And, uh, the second question, um, and I'd like you to address both of these, under this reorganization will municipal departments continue to receive federal funding to fight fires on federal lands?

Uh, Senator Merkley, Senator Baldwin. Um, your first question in terms of, uh, the status of what happened last year. So last year we didn't fire any firefighters. We didn't fire any employees overall. There were about sixty five hundred employees that took DRP voluntarily left the agency. So we did not implement a RRIF in that process. Um what we have done um in terms of firefighting this year, like I mentioned in my opening statement, we've already hired ninety seven hundred firefighters which were ahead of where we were last year by about five percent and from twenty four were almost ten percent ahead of where we were in terms of firefighters so we've actually done a tremendous job of recruiting firefighters this year so that we're ready for the firefighting season.

Okay.

So we're ahead of that.

And then under the reorganization, will municipal departments um continue to receive federal funding of any sort to fight fires on federal lands?

Right, so your your your question about state and private, which would include those dollars there, um we would not, under this budget, those funds would not be available. Well, that would be a requirement of the state to do that. We have programs in Oregon and Idaho and Nevada where we have range land fire protection associations where we've seen permittees, ranchers step up and actually form associations. or they actually are the initial attack on many of those fires at minimal cost to both the state the permittees and the federal government. So there's other models to look at to assist in managing wildfire situations when the when we aren't gonna necessarily provide those funds in this budget.

But those grants are eliminated, OK.

Yes ma'am.

Um, I wrote you this week about the closure of the Region nine office in Milwaukee, uh, because it will affect both federal employees and Wisconsin's tribes, including the eleven member tribes of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. The Region Nine office operates under a formal memorandum of understanding with the commission and supports almost daily coordination on natural resources management across our national forest lands. Um, this is a legal commitment rooted in treaty reserved rights, and the federal government is um bound to uphold. Um, how will the Forest Service maintain the current level of daily coordination with uh Gliffwick, uh uh the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, and its member tribes, given the projected loss or relocation of two hundred and fifty staff in Wisconsin?