Heinrich Presses USDA Secretary Rollins on U.S. Forest Service Reorganization

Rollins: "It'll be interesting if I'm still in this role a year from now"

WASHINGTON - At a U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing to discuss President Trump's Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) budget request for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) pressed USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins on the Trump administration's reorganization of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS).

Heinrich: "At the end of March, you announced the reorganization of the Forest Service. That's a decision that's going to impact management of 193 million acres of National Forest Land and thousands of employees...How much is it going to cost to relocate staff to the new offices - the locations that don't currently exist, like Salt Lake City?"

Rollins: "We're still working on those numbers, Senator, but we'll make sure and get those to you. Ultimately, it's a massive cost savings, but that initial cost - I don't have those numbers, but we'll run those and make sure and get those to you."

Heinrich: "I'd love to see that initial cost. And one of the things I'm concerned about is: I don't want to see cost savings because we don't have people in place to be able to manage our forest lands. And when we moved the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado, we saw 87% of the folks decide not to do that. And that was not a reflection on Colorado. It's a great place to live. But people have lives, they have families, their spouses have jobs. They oftentimes don't have the flexibility to just pick up and move, especially if they're fairly advanced in their career."

Rollins: "So, Senator, it'll be interesting if I'm still in this role in a year from now. I think we'll have the data to show our initial conversations, our initial meetings. We've been extremely intentional about talking to our teams what this potentially looks like, and for the most part, most of our career staff at USDA is extraordinary...I understand your concern, and would really welcome the opportunity to keep talking about it with your state."

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