Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz is scheduled to testify at hearings on both sides of the Capitol this week as a major shake-up at his agency faces lawmakers’ scrutiny.
Schultz can expect questions on the Forest Service’s plans to consolidate research facilities and on the Trump administration’s proposal to move wildfire management out of the forest agency and into the Interior Department’s U.S. Wildland Fire Service.
That’s not all that’s confronting Schultz, a former timber industry executive.
Schultz is tasked with the administration’s top forestry goal of increased logging on public land to reduce the nation’s dependence on imported wood. He is managing those objectives while aiming to reduce the 193-million-acre national forest system’s wildfire risks, which officials say goes hand in hand with forest thinning and commercial logging.
