Today, House Agriculture Subcommittee on Forestry and Horticulture Ranking Member Andrea Salinas (OR-06) delivered the following opening statement at a subcommittee hearing titled “For the Purpose of Receiving Testimony from Chief Tom Schultz, U.S. Forest Service.” Watch the hearing here.

[As prepared for delivery.]

Thank you, Chairman Newhouse, for convening us today, and thank you to Chief Tom Schultz for joining this Subcommittee hearing so we can better understand the work and capacity of the Forest Service and what it needs to successfully deliver for the American people.

Before we begin, I want to acknowledge the two Forest Service employees who were recently taken hostage while serving the public in California’s Shasta-Trinity National Forest. We are grateful for their safe return, and our thoughts remain with them, their families and all public servants who face risks in the line of duty.

Scientists predicted that 2026 would be a difficult fire year, and they were right. More than 3.9 million acres have already burned nationwide, that’s 900,000 more acres than the 10-year average! With these blazes, we saw the tragic loss of three firefighters on the Cottonwood Fire along the Colorado-Utah border, and a Canadian helicopter pilot on the Gold Mountain Fire. Our hearts go out to their families and their crewmembers, including the two additional firefighters who were injured. These statistics highlight how severe the wildfire danger has become and the need to ensure our public land management agencies are working at full capacity.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration has been focused on topics other than wildfire preparedness: from its disruptive, and likely illegal reorganization plan and the consolidation of wildfire response under the Department of Interior, to a myopic focus on commercial timber harvest at the expense of hazardous fuels treatments – all of which are making our communities less safe.

I frequently hear from Oregonians and stakeholders that this Administration is causing chaos on our public lands. Current employees of the Forest Service are demoralized and confused about what the future holds. The agency has lost 16 percent of its staff since 2024, and I have heard that some employees do not know who they report to anymore. The agency also sent 6,500 of the remaining employees a vague letter in March that their jobs would be affected by the reorganization, but four months later there are still no details, only anxiety and uncertainty for these workers and their families.

It’s difficult to see the chaos as anything other than intentional. Despite overwhelming negative feedback from the public, employees and former senior Forest Service officials, the administration has carried on with its plan. And we know now, despite past statements by the administration, that they did have a goal to push out our Forest Service employees. They prepared their plan behind closed doors, with a goal to push out 15 percent of the Forest Service staff. And, no surprise, they hit that target. The public and Congress are now saddled with the consequences.

It continues to feel like the administration is hiding critical information about the reorganization at every turn. 500 employees originally received notices that they may have to relocate, specifically employees in Washington, D.C., Milwaukee, Atlanta and Portland. However, agency whistleblowers highlighted in a letter to the committee that this number is not consistent with the number of employees working in buildings identified for closure under the reorganization plan. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter that letter into the record.

This sweeping reorganization creates more questions than answers, and the fact that it’s being implemented right as wildfire season is upon us is alarming. Doing so threatens the Forest Service overall – the loss of staff, and the institutional knowledge they have, should not be casualties in the Trump administration’s reorganization of the Forest Service. Each is too valuable to be lost.

This brings me to another action by this administration that is causing serious concern – the attempt to consolidate wildfire management into the Wildland Fire Service under the Department of Interior. This consolidation of wildfire response would strip staff from the Forest Service to work for the new agency. But these employees not only fight wildfires at the Forest Service, they also engage in important forest management that mitigates future wildfire risk. This proposal would fracture the critical communications link between land management and fire management and it is yet another threat to the Forest Service’s efficacy.

Given how much disruption the Forest Service has endured, it is no surprise that many of its key performance metrics have suffered. From 2024 to 2025, the Forest Service treated roughly 25 percent fewer acres for hazardous fuels, and it is on track to hit that same weak target again this year. It also published less research, issued fewer recreation permits, and completed fewer miles of trail maintenance. This is not efficiency. At some point, the fewer people on the ground to do the work, the less work gets done.

Chief, you have a lot of experience in forestry, and my guess is that you’ve probably stopped some even worse things from happening under this Administration. At the end of the day, though, we simply can’t be satisfied with avoiding the worst outcomes. We have got to do better.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.