Industry News
The Forest Service is in trouble. Already faced with budget uncertainty, the Forest Service and the rest of the U.S. Department of Agriculture fell into the sights of the legally dubious Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk, vowed to cut Forest Service staff across the board by 10% as part of their purge of the Federal government. With an enormous backlog of maintenance, recreation permits to issue, environmental studies to commence, and all that comes with the start of a new summer season, the Forest Service suddenly found that no one was around to do the important work of stewarding our nation’s public lands.
Many ski areas, especially in western states, operate on Forest Service lands under special use permits. Expansion, development, and improvement projects all require approval and permitting by the Forest Service. With the staffing picture currently unclear, review and approval for any projects scheduled for this summer may come grinding to a halt. The ski industry has been dealing with staffing issues related to ski area permitting for a long time. Despite money brought in from ever-growing permitting fees, local forests often do not have enough staff to review permits in a timely manner.
In February 2025, New Hampshire Congressman Chris Pappas, Colorado Congressman Joe Neguse, and Utah Congressman Blake Moore reintroduced the Ski Hill Resources for Economic Development, or “SHRED” Act. Previously introduced in 2024 and 2023, the SHRED Act aims to try to keep money raised from ski area permit fees closer to where the fees are issued. Geraldine Link, Director of Public Policy for the National Ski Areas Association, explained that currently, those fees go directly to the Treasury Department and have no ties to outdoor recreation. “Passage of the bipartisan SHRED Act is critical at this time as it would capture ski area permit fees on the local forest and reinvest them in Forest Service recreation programs and services where they are needed most,” Link said. The SHRED Act has passed the House of Representatives previously and made it out of committee in the Senate, but has yet to make it into law. But even if the law passes this time around, hiring freezes may still block key positions from being filled, even if funding is available to local forest offices from ski area permit fees. For now, development looks uncertain for many ski areas.
Problems at the Forest Service have been brewing since before the presidential election. In May 2024, the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources heard testimony from then Forest Service Chief Randy Moore in support of his budget request. Senators Joe Manchin, John Barrasso, and others questioned Moore about the Forest Service’s shrinking timber harvests despite an expanding budget. Manchin pointed out that the Forest Service had received almost 12 billion dollars in additional funding from the Build Back Better and Inflation Reduction legislation.
The National Forest System operates our public land as “working forest,” meaning that timber harvesting, mining, and other resource extraction activities happen in parallel with outdoor recreation. Though most of the general public’s only interaction with the Forest Service may be through trails, trailheads, and rangers in the National Forest, much of the work of the Forest Service is reviewing and administering timber harvesting permits on public land. Issuance of timber permits must comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other Federal regulations. In an effort to conserve habitat for endangered and threatened species, as well as protect popular recreation areas, domestic timber production has declined on public lands.
When timber production declines either through a lack of available permits or other economic factors, sawmills close. These facilities provide valuable rural jobs throughout the country and their closing often results in political pressure on Senators and Congressional representatives from that area. Beyond permitting, sawmills may also close because of a change in the type of timber that is available or allowed to be harvested. Many sawmills opened when harvesting large-diameter old-growth timber was common practice in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As supply of timber has dwindled and the Forest Service has tried to push harvesting of smaller-diameter trees, some sawmills have closed simply because they do not have the right tools for the job. Their saws are too big, so no boards get cut, and all of a sudden it looks like there is no more timber to harvest. This situation presents a major policy dispute: should the Federal Government help these mills retool their facilities to be able to handle smaller diameter trees? Or should these facilities and timber companies have foreseen a shift towards smaller diameter trees earlier and adapted? Either way, decreased timber production has put political pressure and additional scrutiny on the Forest Service.
On March 1, 2025, the White House issued an executive order aimed at increasing domestic timber production. The order argued that “heavy-handed Federal policies have prevented full utilization of these resources and made us reliant on foreign producers,” and aims to try to undo that reliance through deregulation. The order calls for the consideration of new or updated categorical exclusions to the National Environmental Policy Act for timber harvesting, thinning, and salvage. While it is certain that NEPA review adds considerable time for timber projects on Federal lands, environmental review plays a central role in promoting healthy forests.
It is currently unclear how staffing cuts across the Forest Service will impact attempts to clear the way for more timber harvesting. Forest Service foresters, biologists, and ecologists are often heavily involved in environmental review and decision-making. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has not provided any information about which jobs have been cut from which forests. In an attempt to gain more clarity into the staffing situation, SnowBrains reached out to more than one dozen National Forest offices. None of these offices responded directly to interview requests, and instead reffered to the National Press Office. A USDA spokesperson at the National Press Office provided SnowBrains with the following statement: “Under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act, USDA will continue to meet its commitments to protecting vulnerable wildlife while also meeting the President’s directive to provide the nation with abundant domestic timber, unhampered by burdensome, heavy-handed policies that neither ensure American economic security nor protection of natural resources.”
In addition to recreation and timber production, the Forest Service is also responsible for fighting wildfires in the National Forest System. As many of the layoffs were happening during the hiring period for the upcoming wildfire season, concerns mounted that the forests would not be adequately staffed with wildland firefighters this summer. “Wildland firefighting positions are considered public safety positions,” a USDA spokesperson said. “USDA has been actively working with OPM on its wildland firefighting positions. Protecting the people and communities we serve, as well as the infrastructure, businesses, and resources they depend on to grow and thrive, remains a top priority for the USDA and the Forest Service. We are incredibly proud of our firefighters, and we will ensure they have the training, tools, and resources they need.”
Wildland fire staffing and funding have traditionally been excluded from previous budget issues. The September 2024 hiring freeze only applied to non-fire seasonal positions. Considering that many of the other cuts to the Federal workforce made by DOGE were well outside norms, the fire staffing situation remained uncertain. In early March 2025, the congressional delegation from Washington state sent a letter to Secretary Rollins and Chief Tom Schultz expressing “great concern regarding the recent decision to indiscriminately terminate hundreds of United States Forest Service (USFS) employees, integral to Washington state’s economy, public safety, and way of life.” Nearly a quarter of Washington is covered by its five national forests, some of which were hit much harder than the 10% staffing reduction that was headlined. The letter pointed out that many of the positions that were cut serve support roles to wildfire fighting operations or are dual-purpose staff members with firefighting certifications.
While the executive branch cast uncertainty onto the state of fire readiness this summer, the legislative branch sought to strengthen it. The recently passed continuing resolution that avoided a government shutdown included provisions to make permanent the pay increases that were included in the 2021 infrastructure bill. In the interceding four years, firefighters have tried several times to make the pay increases permanent, but have gotten caught in the crossfire of previous rounds of the funding fight. These permanent pay increases are expected to go a long way in ensuring fire crews across the country are adequately staffed.
Early March brought some relief to the nearly 6,000 USDA workers that had been fired in the form of a court order from the Merit System Protection Board, an independent internal court for Federal workers. The order sent everyone back to work for 45 days while the mass layoffs continue to be investigated. It is unclear if these employees will be fully reinstated, but significant damage has already been done. Federal jobs, like those at the Forest Service, are known for stability, good benefits, and lower pay compared to the private sector. With stability no longer the guarantee it once was, the layoffs, permanent or not, could be the start of a ‘brain drain,’ or widespread loss of expert and highly-trained, experienced workers at the Forest Service and throughout the Federal government.
Some see this brain drain as a means to a larger, more devastating end. “Laying off the people who care for these lands is step one,” New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich said in a virtual meeting on public lands layoffs. “They want to be able to say that our public lands are going unmanaged.” In the first Trump Administration, the President issued an executive order to shrink the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah by 85%. Though President Biden restored the land set up in the last part of the Obama administration, many are not hopeful for the future of Bears Ears. Already, rule changes at the Department of the Interior are preparing to expand the scope of mining and drilling operations on public lands.
The Forest Service serves the important role as steward to a vast amount of our public lands. Budget challenges, shifting priorities from the White House, and job security uncertainties have all led to a weakening of an institution that has worked to provide and maintain recreation access and careful stewardship of those public lands. Without expert biologists and foresters along with experienced and well-equipped rangers, the Forest Service will not be able to deliver the same level of stewardship it has been able to in the past. Moving forward into peak recreation season, it is unclear how many trails may open, how many rangers there will be, and how many new oil drilling or clear-cutting operations may show up on public lands. Court challenges and policy changes continue to play out as the start of fire season draws nearer. Yet one thing remains clear: the disparity in viewpoint between how users of the National Forest System and the people in charge of it has never been larger.
