US Forest Service to move headquarters from Washington DC to Salt Lake City [View all]

Source: The Guardian

Tue 31 Mar 2026 21.16 EDT
Last modified on Wed 1 Apr 2026 08.36 EDT


The Trump administration will move the US Forest Service headquarters from Washington DC to Salt Lake City and shut down its regional offices, the agriculture department has announced. The announcement sets in motion a controversial reorganization for the country’s second-largest federal land management agency that Trump officials have planned since last year.

The move, which the USDA touted as a “commonsense approach”, recalls the first Trump administration’s chaotic attempt to relocate the Bureau of Land Management from Washington DC to Colorado, first announced in 2019. The agency lost nearly 90% of its Washington-based staff, who declined to move – only for the BLM to return toWashington after Joe Biden took office.

Agriculture department officials described the move as a way to bring the administration of the USFS, which manages nearly 200 million acres of federal land, closer to its holdings, which are concentrated in western states. Under the new “state-based model”, the agency will be run by 15 directors overseeing one or more states instead of the current structure based on regions.

“This is about building a Forest Service that is nimble, efficient, effective – and closer to the forests and communities it serves,” USFS chief Tom Schultz wrote in a statement. “Effective stewardship and active management are achieved on the ground, where forests and communities are found – not just behind a desk in the capital.” About 90% of the USFS workforce already works outside the capital, according to the news outlet Mountain Journal. Conservationists view the plan as the latest in a series of steps the Trump administration has taken to weaken public land agencies.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/31/us-forest-service-washington-dc-salt-lake-city

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Washington D.C. is CAPITAL of the United States of America and is the SEAT of the U.S. government (and its agencies).

THAT is why the "headquarters" offices are there (and in the surrounding MD/VA area).

They are conflating the "field" offices with the "main" offices.



So instead of 10 "regions" with 10 "regional directors", they are basically going to create 15 regions (but not calling them that), adding MORE GS-1000 layers at the top level. How is that "efficient" or cost effective?