BuzzH
Well-known member
Indeed...I know its tough to imagine.
Forest Service Reorg - Progress or Politics
- Thread starter Big Fin
- Start date
Irrelevant
Well-known member
Um, I clearly don't understand.
your quoted section is found under Division A, Title V, Sec 505. Div C doesn't contain it. There was only one instance of "relocates" found in the bill text.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
Just want him to be transparent. Like most good HT debates, it will not be a debate about what is best, but what is best for him.
BuzzH
Well-known member
‘Illegal’ forest service overhaul risks causing ‘chaos’ across US public lands, union claims
The restructuring will close all regional offices, which manages 193m acres of land, roughly the size of Texas
SAJ-99
Well-known member
Here is a BBC article summarizing to the situation. Sort of an outsider’s take. In summary, platitudes and promises from the admin and an explanation of the structural change and how it might impact workers at the service. I’m not sure anyone changes their vote on this. The promises are attractive to those that want to verve them. I will keep relying on the Union and courts to try to stop this nonsense.
www.bbc.com
What is Trump doing with the US Forest Service?
The Trump administration has announced it will move the service's headquarters to Utah and restructure the agency.
www.bbc.com
At a personal level, I have my doubts on this re-org but I am willing to take a wait-and-see position for now. That Utah Governor Cox supports this is not surprising. I am surprised that Polis is backing this plan. Polis is a friend to land conservation folks, but is certainly not a supporter of hunters and gun owners. I can see him backing this approach as a means to shut down (or severely curtail) hunting in CO on public lands given no Federal impediments to slow him down. Just my biased opinion however but given how he has stacked CPW with anti-hunting commissioners, I think it is a plausible rationale for his support of this re-org. Polis (and his Dem legislative super-majority) also have state budget shortfall issues. Getting control over Federal public lands may be seen as a way to extract revenue from these lands and further enable his welfare-state objectives that he can't afford at the moment.Here is a BBC article summarizing to the situation. Sort of an outsider’s take. In summary, platitudes and promises from the admin and an explanation of the structural change and how it might impact workers at the service. I’m not sure anyone changes their vote on this. The promises are attractive to those that want to verve them. I will keep relying on the Union and courts to try to stop this nonsense.
What is Trump doing with the US Forest Service?
The Trump administration has announced it will move the service's headquarters to Utah and restructure the agency.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
I agree with the general view, but that is a different subject. The question is where does it take Our Public Land. The "wait-and-see for now" is my biggest issue. I worry that we can't put it back together again if it doesn't work. To the point made by other members, who would work for the government again when the jobs, many of which require specialized knowledge and skills that takes college and years of experience to build, is solely dependent on the whims of voters who have shown to be more and more impetuous. If you have doubts, I hope you express them to those who need to hear.
Interview with the Chief:
www.deseret.com
*I am aware of potential concerns with the source.
Forest Service chief explains move to Utah
Forest Service chief Tom Schultz says agency will be leaner, more efficient, closer to people.
www.deseret.com
*I am aware of potential concerns with the source.
Last edited:
geetar
Well-known member
Really impressed by this line. 
Ultimately it’s about smarter government,” Schultz told the Deseret News in an exclusive interview after the announcement.
Ultimately it’s about smarter government,” Schultz told the Deseret News in an exclusive interview after the announcement.
Perlodid
Well-known member
"Schultz said R&D is an important function, but the Forest Service has identified a lot of redundancies since research outposts have often been autonomous. By putting all of it under one umbrella, the agency can be more specific about how it conducts its various research and, subsequently, applies the findings in day-to-day management.Interview with the Chief:
Forest Service chief explains move to Utah
Forest Service chief Tom Schultz says agency will be leaner, more efficient, closer to people.
*I am aware of potential concerns with the source.
There will also be a change in areas of research that will “better align with the priorities” of the Trump administration.
They’ll focus on active forest management, minerals, recreation and fire management, Schultz said. That research will be applied to supporting not just the National Forest system, he said, but also private landowners."
So they're closing 3/4 of all FS research stations and instead of the remaining researchers being able to evaluate and prioritize what is important locally/in their region, they will have to adapt to whatever dumb shit gets pushed down from the top that the administration wants. Great.
BuzzH
Well-known member
The Forest Service Reorganization Is Illegal. USDA’s Top Lawyer Told Them to Do It Anyway.
Congress prohibited the Forest Service reorganization in its FY26 appropriations bills. Two high-ranking USDA officials are defying them.
morethanjustparks.substack.com
quarterhorse
Active member
I've been contacting my Senators. Hoping others are too. Maybe they will wake up...
Irrelevant
Well-known member
From Buzz's article
Vaden has been a Federalist Society member since 2005 — the conservative legal network that has served as the pipeline for virtually every major judicial and legal appointment in Republican administrations for decades. Its core constitutional project is concentrating power in the executive branch and stripping Congress of the ability to check it.
...
If Clarkson’s reasoning holds, it doesn’t just void these two parts of a spending bill. It voids every appropriations rider, every reprogramming restriction, every spending condition Congress has ever attached to any bill. The power of the purse becomes a suggestion. The constitutional architecture that gives the legislature control over federal spending completely collapses.
...
In Trump v. CASA, the Court’s conservative majority ruled 6–3 that federal courts lack authority to issue nationwide injunctions, the kind of sweeping court orders that had been used dozens of times to block this administration’s executive actions. Under the new rule, a court can only protect the specific plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit, not everyone affected by the policy.
That means no single judge can freeze the Forest Service reorganization for the whole agency with a stroke of a pen. The administration designed this dismantling knowing that legal backstop had been removed.
...
And now the administration is executing that reorganization in open defiance of the provisions Congress wrote to prevent it, with USDA’s lawyers declaring those provisions unconstitutional by internal memo.
...
This is a direct challenge to Article I of the Constitution. To the power of the purse. To the foundational principle that Congress controls how federal money is spent. If the executive branch can void an appropriations condition by memo, then every rider in every bill is unenforceable.
Can someone please explain to me why Republicans/Conservatives would want to consolidate power in the executive branch? I know I don't want that. I tend to like this checks-and-balances thing we've half-assed got going here.
Wasn't there a ton of backlash and outcry over Obamacare as federal overreach?
I can't help but think back to a comment I believe @VikingsGuy made years ago, that he votes R for the Supreme Court nominees it represents. And I just can't help but think, "is it really that simple?" Because you're also voting for:
The Forest Service Chief is Tom Schultz. A former logging industry executive. The man now overseeing the agency that manages 193 million acres of public forest was, until recently, in the business of cutting them down. Prior to Schultz no Forest Service Chief had ever been chosen from outside the agency.
Schultz reports to Michael Boren at USDA, the Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment, the highest civilian authority over the Forest Service. Boren is a billionaire Idaho rancher, co-founder of Clearwater Analytics, and Trump megadonor with zero prior government experience. He was confirmed on a party-line vote with every Democrat voting against him.
Boren’s relationship with the Forest Service, prior to being handed authority over it, consisted primarily of fighting it. The agency accused a company he controlled of building an unauthorized cabin on national forest land. Federal officials documented an unauthorized diversion of a geothermal stream from public land onto his private ranch. He built a private airstrip in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, on land Congress designated as nationally significant, over the objections of hundreds of his neighbors. When the Blaine County Commission tried to restrict the project, Boren sued his critics, including a sitting county commissioner and Olympic athlete Dick Fosbury, for defamation. The suits were dismissed.
...
USDA’s White House Liaison, the conduit between the department and the West Wing, is Dominic Restuccia. His previous job: legislative assistant to Senator Mike Lee of Utah. Yes, that Mike Lee. The man who slithers land transfer amendments into must-pass bills the way pickpockets work a crowd.
I get the value of the SCOTUS appointees, but the SCOTUS seems to be focused on reducing its own power. And honestly more of my day-to-day life is at risk by these broader structural appointments than supreme court decisions.
Vaden has been a Federalist Society member since 2005 — the conservative legal network that has served as the pipeline for virtually every major judicial and legal appointment in Republican administrations for decades. Its core constitutional project is concentrating power in the executive branch and stripping Congress of the ability to check it.
...
If Clarkson’s reasoning holds, it doesn’t just void these two parts of a spending bill. It voids every appropriations rider, every reprogramming restriction, every spending condition Congress has ever attached to any bill. The power of the purse becomes a suggestion. The constitutional architecture that gives the legislature control over federal spending completely collapses.
...
In Trump v. CASA, the Court’s conservative majority ruled 6–3 that federal courts lack authority to issue nationwide injunctions, the kind of sweeping court orders that had been used dozens of times to block this administration’s executive actions. Under the new rule, a court can only protect the specific plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit, not everyone affected by the policy.
That means no single judge can freeze the Forest Service reorganization for the whole agency with a stroke of a pen. The administration designed this dismantling knowing that legal backstop had been removed.
...
And now the administration is executing that reorganization in open defiance of the provisions Congress wrote to prevent it, with USDA’s lawyers declaring those provisions unconstitutional by internal memo.
...
This is a direct challenge to Article I of the Constitution. To the power of the purse. To the foundational principle that Congress controls how federal money is spent. If the executive branch can void an appropriations condition by memo, then every rider in every bill is unenforceable.
Can someone please explain to me why Republicans/Conservatives would want to consolidate power in the executive branch? I know I don't want that. I tend to like this checks-and-balances thing we've half-assed got going here.
Wasn't there a ton of backlash and outcry over Obamacare as federal overreach?
I can't help but think back to a comment I believe @VikingsGuy made years ago, that he votes R for the Supreme Court nominees it represents. And I just can't help but think, "is it really that simple?" Because you're also voting for:
The Forest Service Chief is Tom Schultz. A former logging industry executive. The man now overseeing the agency that manages 193 million acres of public forest was, until recently, in the business of cutting them down. Prior to Schultz no Forest Service Chief had ever been chosen from outside the agency.
Schultz reports to Michael Boren at USDA, the Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment, the highest civilian authority over the Forest Service. Boren is a billionaire Idaho rancher, co-founder of Clearwater Analytics, and Trump megadonor with zero prior government experience. He was confirmed on a party-line vote with every Democrat voting against him.
Boren’s relationship with the Forest Service, prior to being handed authority over it, consisted primarily of fighting it. The agency accused a company he controlled of building an unauthorized cabin on national forest land. Federal officials documented an unauthorized diversion of a geothermal stream from public land onto his private ranch. He built a private airstrip in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, on land Congress designated as nationally significant, over the objections of hundreds of his neighbors. When the Blaine County Commission tried to restrict the project, Boren sued his critics, including a sitting county commissioner and Olympic athlete Dick Fosbury, for defamation. The suits were dismissed.
...
USDA’s White House Liaison, the conduit between the department and the West Wing, is Dominic Restuccia. His previous job: legislative assistant to Senator Mike Lee of Utah. Yes, that Mike Lee. The man who slithers land transfer amendments into must-pass bills the way pickpockets work a crowd.
I get the value of the SCOTUS appointees, but the SCOTUS seems to be focused on reducing its own power. And honestly more of my day-to-day life is at risk by these broader structural appointments than supreme court decisions.
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