Industry News
On March 31, 2026, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced a “sweeping restructuring” of the U.S. Forest Service, including relocation of the headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah, closing all nine regional offices, and closing 57 out of 77 research stations. The restructuring has been characterized by many nonprofit groups, including Protect Our Winters, The Wilderness Society, and The Sierra Club, as an attempt to critically weaken the Forest Service, paving the way for the transfer of federal lands. The closure of the regional offices is part of a move towards a state-based organizational model, relying on 15 state directors instead of regional foresters, which have existed for more than 120 years.
Moving the headquarters and closing the regional offices requires thousands of experienced employees to make a painful choice between relocation and resignation. While all 50 states are currently represented in nine regional offices, under the new state-based model, forests will be managed under 14 state offices, four operations service centers, and a national training center. No changes will be made to firefighting operations ahead of the impending fire season, but efforts are underway to incorporate Forest Service firefighters into the newly created U.S. Wildland Fire Service.
The Forest Service’s unique network of research stations, experimental forests, and study areas staffed by some of the leading experts in the field is an asset that is directly under threat. Under the reorganization, research efforts by the Forest Service will be consolidated into just a small handful of sites, the largest located in Colorado. The Forest Service stated on its website, “staff and programs will continue their work, relocated into fewer facilities while maintaining research presence across the country.” However, much of the Forest Service’s most valuable research is conducted on 76 experimental forests, four experimental ranges, and four experimental watersheds. Research on some of these sites was initiated in 1908 with the establishment of the Forest Service, and many have been in operation for more than 60 years. The value of these long-term study sites and the datasets they produce is irreplaceable, and there are serious questions about the Forest Service’s ability to continue to operate these sites with most of its scientific staff located in Colorado. Jim Pattiz, co-founder of More Than Just Parks, wrote about the value of these research institutions:
“Once the science is gone, there’s nobody left to flag the damage. Nobody left to say ‘this will destroy this stream’ or ‘this species can’t survive this level of harvest.’ The timber industry gets its clearcuts. The mining companies get their access roads. And the next time someone asks “what will this do to the forest?” the answer will be silence, because the people who knew are gone and the studies that would have told us were terminated by press release on a Tuesday in March.”
Many ski areas operate on public land under Special Use Permits issued by the Forest Service. Ski areas that hold these permits work in conjunction with the Forest Service to deliver thoughtfully managed recreation opportunities on public lands, and members of the public are keenly aware of the relationship between the ski industry and the Forest Service. In the weeks following the announcement of the restructuring, several unrelated social media posts by the National Ski Area Association, the trade association for the ski industry, were filled with dozens of comments about the restructuring of the Forest Service. Many comments were direct quotes or variations of the following: “The Forest Service is being dismantled. Your business runs on these lands. We need you to speak out publicly, lobby your congressional representatives, and be ready to fund the legal fight that is coming. Silence is a choice. Your customers are watching.” The message is clear: with the Forest Service under threat, many members of the skiing public did not care about anything else the NSAA had to say, unless it was about the Forest Service.
SnowBrains reached out to the NSAA and asked for comment on the restructuring of the Forest Service and response to the social media comments. “NSAA and public land ski areas appreciate and support the hard-working people from the agency that we work with every day to make our partnership successful,” a spokesperson for the NSAA said. “NSAA has been working on improving staffing and capacity at the Forest Service for over a decade. We are anything but silent. NSAA filed comments on the USDA Reorganization Plan in August of 2025, and we have had numerous discussions with USDA and US Forest Service leadership over the past year in support of recreation staff capacity.” The spokesperson went on to detail lobbying efforts on the part of the NSAA in support of the SHRED Act, a bill that would keep fees from special use permits on the forest where they are collected, to support additional recreation, instead of going directly to the U.S. Treasury. The SHRED Act has been reintroduced several times, but has yet to be brought up for a vote.
Many outdoor brands have made public statements on the restructuring, raising concerns about the effectiveness of the agency moving forward under the restructuring. According to saveusfs.org, Patagonia, REI, Black Diamond, Mountain Hardware, Cotopaxi, and seven other brands have made public comments in opposition to the restructuring. More than 70 companies signed a letter from the Conservation Alliance criticizing the restructuring and headquarters move.
On the heels of widespread staffing cuts and a slashing of the Forest Service budget at the start of the Trump Administration, the restructuring of the Forest Service could represent a serious threat to an already struggling agency. Many critics of the restructuring brought up the theory that a systematic weakening of the Forest Service could be a precursor to the transfer of federally managed public lands. The Forest Service has denied this connection, but statements by Tom Schultz, former logging executive and Chief of the Forest Service, continue to emphasize deregulation and “unleashing American energy and resource potential.” As the snow melts off the skiable parts of our public lands, and wildland firefighters prepare for what is sure to be another challenging summer, the long-term health of the Forest Service itself, along with the public land it manages, is now seriously uncertain.
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Amen to the common sense comment, Bernard.
What is missing from this article are the lumber companies who can help thin forest that help limit fire danger. Products can be used to build homes which are in short supply pretty much in the entire country. These hands off groups like the sierra club offer no solutions other than keep tax payers out of forest lands.