Just four months into the job, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz defended his agency’s wildfire preparedness and budget plan during a July 10 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, with lawmakers from both parties expressing concerns about the fire season and state managers waiting on Washington for resources and plans.
Wildfire season preparedness under scrutiny
With fire season underway, senators pressed Schultz on whether the USFS was adequately prepared for what many predict will be another devastating year of wildfires.
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Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one-time chair of the committee, raised concerns about staffing shortages in his home state: “Fire officials in Southern Oregon told me they were coming up dangerously short in emergency preparedness. Specifically, I was told in southern Oregon, one meteorologist is trying to provide early warning systems and doing the work for four people.”
Schultz pushed back against claims of reduced capacity, stating that the USFS was at “about 99% of our hiring resources” for firefighters at the GS-9 level and below, with approximately 11,250 firefighters currently employed out of a maximum 11,300. “We’ve not made any changes to our resource availability this year.”
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) pushed back, voicing concern about “a significant reduction in capability and capacity” that he says “poses a serious danger to communities, not just in California, elsewhere in the West and across the country.”
Then there’s the local concerns, addressed by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.): “Why aren’t we releasing the funds that go to the community so that they can best prepare for this fire season?”
Schult’s answer was a sentiment Senators heard repeatedly during the hearing: “That’s still under discussion.”
Wildland Fire Service consolidation controversial
A June executive order gives the federal government until Sept. 10 to create a new Wildland Fire Service by transferring USFS firefighting capabilities from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of the Interior, a move that has generated skepticism among lawmakers. The firefighting mission was already made central by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in a May memo.
Schultz attempted to reassure senators that “this fire season, we do not intend to implement any changes in the structure of the Fire Program. Nothing is going to take place this season.” However, he acknowledged that the agency was still developing the consolidation plan, with details expected within 90 days per executive order.
“Right now, we haven’t figured that plan out yet,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) said with frustration.
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), ranking on the committee, noted: “Irrespective of how long it takes to put that plan together, I think there are many of us who are more concerned about the adequacy of that plan and would like to see that plan before we start making budgetary decisions about whether it’s a good idea or not.”
‘Roadless Rule’ reference
Schultz also addressed Republican concerns about forest management barriers, particularly the “Roadless Rule” that restricts access to certain forest areas rescinded in June. According to a USDA press release, “Rescinding this rule will remove prohibitions on road construction, reconstruction, and timber harvest on nearly 59 million acres of the National Forest System, allowing for fire prevention and responsible timber production.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), chairman of the committee, asked the chief whether the rule hindered wildfire mitigation efforts.
Schultz answered: “There’s about 24 and a half million acres of roadless areas within one mile of the wildland-urban interface. By not being able to have areas that we can go into and manage or be able to put the fires out, that is a problem. So it doesn’t help, for sure, and it definitely hinders.”
Schultz emphasized partnerships as key to improving forest management, noting that forest products company Sierra Pacific was using $75 million from disaster relief in last December’s funding bill to create fuel breaks on federal lands. “So we’re gonna be looking at other partnerships, whether that’s with NGOs, whether it’s directly with industry.”
Land possession, conservation versus preservation, and, relatedly, timber harvesting as a component to management policy remain politically divided.
“We heard loud and clear that when the administration advanced their arguments just recently for selling off public lands, the American people said, ‘No way,’” Wyden said, suggesting the reorganization was part of a broader effort to reduce federal land management. “I’m not going to allow the mismanagement and the lack of really using resources effectively become an argument that somehow this mismanagement is a case for selling off our public land.”
State and local funding cuts draw bipartisan criticism
The USFS’s preliminary fiscal year 2026 budget request would “zero out” state and volunteer fire assistance programs, transferring responsibility to state governments — a move questioned by Padilla: “How does it make sense for the federal government to zero out these programs that you say are so critical?” Schultz defended the cuts by arguing it was “putting that responsibility on the states to make those decisions locally.”
Heinrich connected the funding cuts to broader concerns about the agency’s capacity, noting that despite the goal to reduce 4 million acres of hazardous fuels in 2025, the USFS has only completed about 1.7 million acres three-quarters of the way through the fiscal year.
“We have 5,000 fewer people working for the Forest Service now [who took deferred resignation], and there are many of us on this committee that are worried that the current budget is a recipe for more trees burned and fewer trees cut,” Heinrich said.
Citing recruitment and retention challenges through the years, Cortez Masto said she was upset about a women in wildfire boot camp program having been cut. Schultz indicated that the female training initiative was one that DOGE said should be cut under President Trump’s Jan. 20 DEI executive order.
From state and local reimbursement to resourcing plans for this summer, stakeholders will have to wait on a budget proposal Congress can work with.
Learn more
Watch this hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources as well as a Senate Appropriations Committee (which sets actual spending levels) hearing a month earlier. And track related legislation introduced during this session of Congress on Congress.gov.
