Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
366 Dirksen
07/10/2025 at 10:00AM
The purpose of the hearing is to examine the President’s budget request for the U.S. Forest Service for Fiscal Year 2026.
Witness:
- Tom Schultz, Chief, U.S. Forest Service
Witness:
- Tom Schultz, Chief, United States Forest Service
Full committee markup.
| Department of Agriculture (USDA) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Cuts, Reductions, and Consolidations | ||
| National Forest System Management | -392 | The Budget reduces salaries and expenses by $342 million, and saves an additional $50 million by eliminating funding for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program, and reducing funding for recreation, vegetation and watershed management, and land management regulation. The Budget fully supports the Executive Order 14225, “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” to improve forest management and increase domestic timber production. The requested funding level supports timber sales, hazardous fuels removal, mineral extraction, grazing, and wildlife habitat management. |
| Forest Service Operations | -391 | The Budget reduces funding for expenses including salaries and facility leases to streamline the Agency’s management structure and reduce their real property footprint. |
| State, Local, Tribal, and NGO Conservation Programs | -303 | The Budget reduces grant programs that subsidize management of State and privately-owned forests. While the Budget provides reduced support for Federal wildland fire management activities, these partners should be encouraged to fund their own community preparedness and risk mitigation activities. |
| Forest and Rangeland Research (Except Forest Inventory and Analysis) | -300 | The President has pledged to manage national forests for their intended purpose of producing timber. The Budget reduces funding for the Forest and Rangeland Research program because it is out of step with timber production, but maintains funding for Forest Inventory and Analysis, a longstanding census of forest resources and conditions. |
The 2026 budget consolidates the federal suppression response apparatus into a new Department of the Interior (DOI) bureau, eliminated USFS Wildland Fire Management and the USFS Wildfire Suppression Operations Reserve Fund.