To: Members of Congress
As your concerned constituent, I’m writing to urge you to take immediate action to protect the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the public lands it stewards.
On April 2nd, 2026, the Trump administration announced plans to relocate USFS headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah, while closing its nine regional offices and shuttering more than 57 agency research stations. This decision was made without Congressional review, which is a serious breach of Congress’s oversight role.
With this sweeping reorganization, a significant number of agency employees and scientists who have dedicated their careers to protecting our national forests will likely lose their jobs. These are the experts who push back when political pressure threatens to override science.
We cannot allow all of this to happen, especially at a time when our national forests face growing threats from wildfires, disease, and climate change. Closing specialized research stations and losing forestry experts means we’ll lose the data needed to protect our national forests. Without agency science, these threats don’t disappear. They just go undetected.
Our national forests belong to every American. We urge you to act now, before our forests are left to face these threats alone.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
On April 2nd, 2026, the Trump administration announced plans to relocate U.S. Forest Service (USFS) headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Utah, while replacing its nine regional offices with 15 state offices and shuttering more than 57 agency research stations.
While officials claim that this move will streamline operations, it harkens back to the Trump administration’s 2019 relocation of Bureau of Land Management headquarters from D.C. to Colorado. This move triggered a mass exodus of experienced staff and caused significant operational disruption.
Our national forests not only provide timber for industry, they provide habitat for wildlife and important recreational spaces for the public. The loss of dedicated USFS employees and scientists will severely compromise the agency’s ability to assess and to address the growing threats to forest health from wildfires, disease, and climate change.
On top of these troubling actions, the U.S. Department of Agriculture—the agency which oversees the USFS—did not seek Congressional review before mounting this extensive reorganization.
National forests cannot afford to be left unprotected, especially as the demands on them continue to grow.
Our national forests and the people who protect them need your advocacy now more than ever before. Write your representatives today.