#MotherJones May 9, 2026
How Prescribed Burns Can Help Save Taxpayers Billions
For decades, the US #ForestService has actively managed #PublicLands 2 reduce #wildfire risks by clearing underbrush & #trees, or employing prescribed burns—something #IndigenousNations have practiced for centuries. #Scientists have generally lauded the ecological benefits of what is also known as “fuel treatment.” Now, they say there’s another reason to support this approach: It saves money
US Forest Service Overhaul Sparks Fierce Debate: "Dismantling" or "Streamlining"?
US Forest Service is closing 57 research sites and moving HQ to Utah. See how this affects forest management and research.
#ForestService, #ResearchCuts, #UtahMove, #PublicLands, #Conservation
https://newsletter.tf/us-forest-service-research-sites-closing-utah/
The US Forest Service is closing 57 out of 77 research facilities nationwide. This move aims to streamline operations and relocate headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah.
#ForestService, #ResearchCuts, #UtahMove, #PublicLands, #Conservation
https://newsletter.tf/us-forest-service-research-sites-closing-utah/
A land grab by any other name...
https://triplepundit.com/2026/usda-forest-service-reorganization-public-lands-lumber-industry/
#publiclands #forests #nationalforest #forestservice #statesrights #conservation #usda #sustainable #sustainability #timber #lumber #utah #recreation #outdoors #csr #esg #landgrab #patagonia #research #science
Tell Congress to hold hearings on how the US Department of Agriculture Secretary can implement a reorganization of the US Forest Service in direct contravention of legislation that both houses of Congress passed and the President signed into law; and how the General Counsel is allowed to declare a duly enacted law unconstitutional by internal memo and face no consequences. 🙃
Call script: https://indivisiblesf.org/call-scripts/stop-the-destruction-of-the-us-forest-service
Interview: Trump is destroying the Forest Service.
The intent is to "hollow out this federal agency & hand it to the resource extraction industry."
Potentially, there will be a transfer of federal public lands to states.
~Jim Pattiz
The Trump administration in late March announced an extensive reorganization of the Forest Service, the federal agency responsible for managing 193 million acres of public lands across 43 states, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. As part of the changes, 57 of 77 research stations across the country will be shuttered, with the headquarters relocating from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City. While the overhaul is billed as an effort to improve efficiency, conservationist Jim Pattiz says it will effectively destroy the agency. “This is a critically important agency,” says Pattiz, co-author of the newsletter More Than Just Parks that tracks threats to public lands across the country. “The intent here is obvious. It’s to hollow out this agency and hand it to the resource extraction industry and prepare it for, potentially, the eventual transfer of our public lands to states.”
https://www.hatchmag.com/articles/trump-administration-orders-dismantling-us-forest-service/7716263
RED ALERT: TRUMP ENDS FOREST SERVICE
Late Tuesday afternoon, the Trump administration announced the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the agency’s 121-year history. An execution.
They’re shuttering every one of the ten regional offices. They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable science, the kind you literally cannot restart once it’s gone.
And they’re replacing all of it with fifteen lobbyists who have spent their careers demanding that the #ForestService log more, protect less, and get out of the way.
One hundred and ninety-three MILLION acres of your national forests. An area larger than Texas. The largest public land agency in the country. Just handed on a silver platter, to the people who’ve spent their entire careers trying to destroy it.
And they did it with a press release.
(I needed reader mode to see the page, dunno why)
#forestry #forests
Late Tuesday afternoon, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball and the morality of a foreclosure notice, the Trump administration announced the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the agency’s 121-year history. Not a budget cut. Not a policy shift. Not a “reorganization.” An execution.
joe•iuculano 
NewsletterTF
Gail Waldby ❌👑
Tina M Casey
Indivisible SF
DrALJONES
Ryan M
Barbara Monaco
MissConstrue