The Trump administration’s vision for a smaller Forest Service that hands off wildfire management to the Interior Department will be on display this week as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee considers the agency’s spending proposal for the next fiscal year.
Lawmakers are likely to explore two divergent views of what the Forest Service should be: the historic manager of federal lands that’s deeply involved in wildfire suppression, community-based forestry and research; or a newly pared-back agency that’s focused on timber production, wildfire prevention and public access to the 193-million acre system.
Republicans on the panel, led by Chair Mike Lee of Utah, have had a more sympathetic view to the administration’s change in direction.
Democrats are pushing in the opposite direction, complaining of canceled grants to states and communities and the loss of several thousand Forest Service employees to deferred resignations, early retirement and firings of probationary workers.
