WHITEFISH — U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Shultz on Tuesday said America’s national forests need less wildfire and more logging, mining, grazing and recreational activity.

Schultz was the keynote speaker at a conference organized by the Congressional Western Caucus chaired by U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-California. The multi-day summit in the Flathead Valley has given U.S. senators and representatives an opportunity to talk policy with state officials, industry groups and prominent think tanks such as Americans for Prosperity.

Schultz said his “back-to-basics” approach to “multiple-use management” will favor expedited review for natural resource development by overhauling agency guidance on federal laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. Schultz also said he intends to aggressively suppress all wildfires and make more USFS land accessible for recreational use by motorized users and others.

“America should mine, mill and manufacture more,” he told those assembled at the Lodge at Whitefish Lake, adding that more of the country’s national forests will be available to log in the near and long term to comply with Trump’s executive orders and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed into law on July 4. 

Schultz said implementing those directives will give companies more certainty to invest in lumber mills, which cost about $250 million to build. 

“As [the Forest Service has] pulled back on harvest, there was an extra burden on private land,” he said. “If we are up and down and up and down — or just down — that does not provide certainty to make investments … When we see a mill go away, it is really tough to see that come back. We need to hang on to what we have.”

Shultz said he anticipates that the agency will begin the nuts-and-bolts process for undoing the roadless rule within the next “couple of weeks.” Implemented in 2001 under the administration of former Democratic President Bill Clinton, the roadless rule sought to preserve intact ecosystems by limiting road building.

Schultz also spoke about the “leader’s intent” document he issued earlier this year directing Forest Service personnel to aggressively suppress wildfires, which aligns with Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte’s views. Since assuming office in 2021, Gianforte has pressured federal land managers to quickly and completely extinguish wildfires, an approach that has occasionally generated friction with agencies like the National Park Service accustomed to letting lightning-sparked fires play a role in Western ecosystems.

“There’s a role for fire, but there’s a time and a place,” Schultz said. “The time and place is not June, July, August and September. That’s not the time to be managing for wildfire. We need to be putting the fires out and that’s what we’re doing.”

Asked in a follow-up conversation with Montana Free Press if that full suppression strategy also applies to wilderness areas, which aren’t typically extinguished barring imminent harm to a particular community or resource, Schultz said such decisions would be evaluated case-by-case “based on conditions and the availability of resources.”

He also told MTFP that he’s exploring agency “consolidation” efforts to comply with an executive order Trump issued at the start of his second term in the White House. A proposal outlined in Trump’s 2026 budget to create an entirely separate wildfire agency is still being developed, he said. The U.S House and the U.S. Senate are currently forwarding differing visions for that reorganization.

“Right now I don’t know what Congress is going to do,” he said.

During his Tuesday afternoon address, Schultz indicated that the DOGE-led effort to reduce the Forest Service’s ranks has not led to as many cuts as the Trump administration initially proposed. In February, the agency fired more than 3,000 agency personnel who were considered probationary, meaning they hadn’t been in their current position for more than a year or two. 

“We have not been firing people outside that process,” he said, adding that most of those employees returned “eventually.” 

Schultz told MTFP that some employees had opted into the early retirement offer, but there is no active reduction-in-force effort underway. Under that program, sometimes called RIF, federal agencies can reduce their payrolls in a manner considered more durable by being more thoughtfully considered.

“I can’t say for certain there won’t be any [reductions in force], but that’s not the plan,” Schutlz said. 

Trump anounced Schultz’s appointment to lead the Forest Service in February. He is the first chief who hasn’t previously worked for the agency, which he describes as a strength. He worked for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation between 1997 and 2021 before pursuing public- and private-sector forestry roles in Idaho.

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Lewis and Clark health officials are preparing for confirmed measles cases and urged the public to remain vigilant after an infected person visited several Helena businesses earlier this month. 

Last Friday, Lewis and Clark Public Health announced that an out-of-county resident exposed the public to measles at five locations in Helena on Sunday, June 15. 

Now, public health officials anticipate confirmed positive cases in Lewis and Clark County and encourage the public to be aware of their vaccination status and to seek medical confirmation if they experience any symptoms. As of Wednesday afternoon, no new cases have been reported in Helena, although health officials said that is not unexpected.

Shelly Maag, the Lewis and Clark Public Health nurse supervisor, told Montana Free Press that while the department doesn’t have complete immunization records for the community, indications are good that most of the area’s residents are vaccinated.

However, health officials recommend that anyone who received the measles vaccine in the past but can’t find records of it get vaccinated.

“Just get it done and have it and know that you’re protected,” Maag said. “Because a lot of people say, ‘Yeah, my parents vaccinated me,’ and they probably did, but if you’re exposed, do you wanna have that question in your mind, did they or didn’t they? We’re just encouraging people, if you don’t have a record, just get it. It doesn’t hurt you to get another one.” 

Maag added that the more people who get vaccinated, the more “herd immunity ” the community will develop. That immunity can help protect members of the public most at risk of getting sick who can’t receive the vaccine, such as infants under 1, pregnant women and those with weakened immune systems, Maag said.

Measles has an incubation period of about 21 days from exposure to becoming sick and infectious, Maag said. With that, public health officials are eyeing July 7 or July 8 as the county’s “safe day” when confirmed cases from the June 15 exposures should have become evident.  

Until then, local health care providers have increased measles testing for people experiencing symptoms, who are not vaccinated and who were at one of the five exposed businesses. 

“ I think they are testing more than they were prior to that exposure because right now, typically people will show symptoms at seven to 14 days, so we’re right at that time when we should start seeing some cases, if we get any,” Maag said. 

In preparation, Maag said doctors will notify the health department if they have a patient with a high suspicion of measles infection. Then, public health officials will begin an investigation and identify if the patient has been anywhere in public to create a timeline to help determine when and where their symptoms started.

Once officials receive confirmation of a positive measles test, Maag said they will notify the public of potential exposures. 

In total, Montana has confirmed 23 measles cases across four counties, with the first five identified in Gallatin County in April. However, as of Wednesday, Gallatin County has had 15 cases. Hill County health officials reported four cases, and Flathead and Yellowstone counties reported two cases each.   

The county established an online portal for measles cases and exposure data on its public health website. The website also has a measles self-report form for the public to use if they believe they were exposed and an immunization record request form for people to check their vaccination status. 

The post Helena health officials preparing for potential rash of measles cases appeared first on Montana Free Press.

” width=”224″ height=”168″ align=”right” hspace=”10″ alt=”Crowds train eyes and iPhones on Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park” title=”Crowds train eyes and iPhones on Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park” />Trump administration announces proposed 2026 budget cuts to NPS as Yellowstone sees busiest May on record.

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Over 3 million acres of public land could be sold in the next five years, after Senate Republicans on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee reintroduced land sales into the party’s major spending bill. 

Released on Wednesday night, the megabill text includes a proposal for extensive transfers of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands, supposedly for housing but with leeway for other uses. The new bill text escalates a recent GOP push to sell federal land. In May, the House Natural Resources Committee passed a version of the spending bill that called for 500,000 acres of public land sales in Nevada and Utah.

The Senate bill instructs the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to dispose of .5%-.75% of all BLM and Forest Service lands, respectively. While the percentage appears small, each agency manages huge swaths of land, mostly in the Western U.S. The BLM oversees 245 million acres, equating to 1.23 million to 1.84 million acres for sale under this proposal. The Forest Service manages 193 million acres, which would mean 970,000 to 1.45 million acres would be sold off if the bill passes.

In all, the total amount of public lands for sale could be as high as 3.29 million acres. The bill text would allow sales in all western states, except Montana.

“This Senate version is just open season on public lands.”

“It’s a travesty that Senate Republicans are putting more than 3 million acres of our beloved public lands on the chopping block to sell at fire-sale prices to build mega mansions for the ultrarich,” Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an emailed statement. He noted that the proposal’s broad language differed from the House version that focused on lands already identified for disposal in resource management plans. 

“This Senate version is just open season on public lands,” Donnelly added. 

If passed into law, the new proposal would create a process for states, local governments and tribes to have a “right of first refusal” on public land sales — suggesting that if these entities did not want to purchase these parcels, private buyers would be considered. The proposal also prohibits the sale of national parks (which are not managed by the BLM or the Forest Service), national monuments, wilderness areas and national recreation areas, as well as land with mining claims, grazing permits, mineral leases and right of ways. 

Local governments near parcels that sold would get 5% of the proceeds “for essential infrastructure directly supporting housing development or other associated community needs,” while the public land agency would get 5% for deferred maintenance.

Attempts to sell public land are not new. But during President Trump’s second term, opponents of federal land management have couched transfers as a solution to the housing crisis. The Senate committee’s one-page summary of the plan blames the federal government for “depriving our communities of needed land for housing and inhibiting growth.” 

A recent analysis by Headwaters Economics found that public land transfers offer little promise as a housing solution.

“Our findings show that opportunities are limited to a few states, and are complicated by wildfire and drought risks, as well as other development challenges,” the researchers wrote. They found that less than 2% of Forest Service and Department of Interior land is close enough to population centers to make sense for housing development.

The only viable chunks of Forest Service land — defined as 5,000 acres or more — near towns are in Arizona, Utah and Oregon. Department of Interior parcels that could work for housing development are primarily in Nevada, Arizona, California, New Mexico and Utah, according to the analysis. Economists also found that more than half of federal lands within a quarter-mile of towns needing more housing and a population of at least 100 people had high wildfire risk.

Research also shows that creating more housing in scenic resort towns and gateway communities doesn’t usually result in more affordable housing. “If you build more housing and your community is a very popular place to visit, then often that housing gets consumed by short-term rentals” or second homes, Danya Rumore, founder and co-director of the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region Initiative at Utah State University, told High Country News last year. 

A broad bipartisan coalition opposes selling public land, especially among Western voters. Some members of the committee, like Steve Daines (R-Mont.), have specifically said they would not support disposing of federal land. “Sen. Daines opposes public land sales,” spokesperson Matt Lloyd told the Montana Free Press on June 4. Idaho Senator James Risch (R) has also publicly opposed such sales. Montana Republican Representative Ryan Zinke — also Trump’s former DOI secretary — was instrumental in removing land sales from the House spending bill. 

“Our findings show that opportunities are limited to a few states, and are complicated by wildfire and drought risks, as well as other development challenges.”

Chairman Mike Lee (R-Utah) has long championed attempts to sell federal land or transfer it to the states. Other Energy and Natural Resources Committee members represent Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, California and Arizona and Alaska — all states with thousands of acres of public land. 

If the committee passes this version of their megabill, a vote on public land sales would go to the entire Senate, and then, the House of Representatives. If this becomes law, it could “establish a model for members of Congress to liquidate America’s lands at any time to pay for their pet projects, with little benefit to local communities,” said Michael Carroll, director of the BLM campaign at The Wilderness Society, in a statement.

The post Senate Republicans want to sell 3 million acres of public land appeared first on High Country News.

Many Montana nonprofits that lost grant funding or AmeriCorps volunteers when the Trump administration cut funding to the service agency in April are concerned about how further budget reductions will impact their work in communities statewide. 

AmeriCorps is a “quiet force,” but will be loud if it’s gone, said Shannon Stober, facilitator of the Last Best Alums Council, which represents former AmeriCorps members.  

“It truly is a crucial part of the community fabric that happens quietly, constantly in the background,” she said. “People are not doing it for the credit; they’re here to serve the community. So many things that are happening and touching lives that people have no idea are connected to the strings of AmeriCorps.”  

In late April, the Trump administration ended nearly $400 million in AmeriCorps grants, affecting about 32,000 members and volunteers. On Thursday, a federal judge ruled the administration must restore hundreds of millions in AmeriCorps grant funding and thousands of service members, but only in the 24 states and Washington, D.C., which sued over the cuts, the Associated Press reported. Montana was not one of those states. 

Montana lost $1.2 million in grant funding and 86 member positions statewide, according to America’s Service Commissions, which represents the state groups that manage AmeriCorps funding. In 2024, Montana received $12.7 million in federal AmeriCorps funding, and more than 2,800 members and volunteers served in nearly 390 locations statewide, according to an annual AmeriCorps report. 

AmeriCorps did not respond to a request for comment about the funding cuts. The Montana Governor’s Office of Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps in the state, did not answer specific questions from Montana Free Press but sent a statement. 

“Upon receiving notice from AmeriCorps regarding grant terminations, the Governor’s Office of Community Service responded immediately to support service members through a transition period,” the statement said. “Where possible, our office and network of partners has ensured the placement of AmeriCorps service members in new roles to meet needs of community programs administered by state agencies, including at the Montana Departments of Agriculture and Fish, Wildlife and Parks.”  

The Department of Agriculture lost a $378,000 grant to fund 14 positions through the Montana AgCorps program, according to the America’s Service Commissions report. The FWP lost a $242,990 grant for nine AmeriCorps members. 

Many Montana nonprofits rely on federal partnerships like AmeriCorps to fill service gaps, especially in rural areas where staffing is limited, according to the Montana Nonprofit Association. The cut positions mean a decrease in capacity to support students, seniors and low-income families, and fewer civic engagement opportunities for young people, said Adam Jespersen, the association’s executive director, in a provided statement. 

“This isn’t simply about funding — it’s a dismantling of our civic infrastructure and a critical reduction in human capacity that our communities rely upon,” Jespersen wrote. “This is an attack on the very values that nonprofits, and Montanans, hold dear: service, selflessness, compassion and hard work.”

The Missoula Food Bank and Community Center will have eight to 10 fewer volunteers than expected to help run its summer meal program for children due to the federal cuts, said Amy Allison, the nonprofit’s executive director. The food bank was set to receive the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps volunteers for the first time to help with the growing program, which provided 66,000 meals last year, she said. 

“The impact is pretty significant for us,” Allison said. “A challenge in the summer is regular volunteers are on vacation, so we were excited to have additional hands early in the summer to help us get through the time with fewer volunteers. It’s just a huge lift for our organization in general to get off the ground. It would help us run the program more smoothly, help meet the likely increased need we anticipate we’ll experience.” 

The food bank is still expecting four AmeriCorps members from a different program to help for a few weeks this summer, Allison said. However, the organization is already planning not to receive those volunteers next year in case of further cuts to AmeriCorps. 

“To potentially lose those would be a significant hardship for us in meeting the community need,” she said. 

Family Promise, a Great Falls nonprofit that serves families experiencing homelessness, wrote a grant request in 2023 to hire a full-time employee with assistance from AmeriCorps VISTA. The organization finally got approval and hired someone in February of this year. But in March, Family Promise found out that AmeriCorps support for the position was cut.

“For our organization to have a full-time, paid position, and the only other full-time person in our office is the executive director, it was going to do so much to help serve people,” said Cari Yturri, development director at Family Promise. “To have that eliminated, it will set us back.”

The employee handled administrative duties like data tracking, website management and donor tracking. Yturri said that work was badly needed to set up the organization to better demonstrate its work and pursue broader funding opportunities. The salary was paid by AmeriCorps VISTA.

“We don’t know how we’re going to cover that position now,” Yturri said.

That employee, who lives in Great Falls, agreed to volunteer on a limited basis to help do some of the work they would have done in the job.

The Rocky Mountain Development Council, a Helena-based organization that provides child, family and senior services to the city and surrounding counties, houses three AmeriCorps-funded programs centered on senior volunteering: the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, Foster Grandparent Program and Senior Companion Program. 

However, the development council’s AmeriCorps program directors say they have been in limbo since late April while waiting on the status of their combined $846,216 in annual grants.

The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, which usually receives a $50,000 grant, supports aging residents by helping them remain independent in their own homes as long as possible. The program currently has about 100 volunteers who assist through services including Meals on Wheels, transportation to and from medical appointments, helping at county food banks and providing necessities to homeless shelters and group homes.  

“The return on investment for this program is substantial,” RMDC Retired and Senior Volunteer Program director Samara Lynde told MTFP. “You cannot put a value on the personal, human touch that our programs offer to our older neighbors. Almost half of those that we deliver a meal to every weekday reported that the volunteer is the only person they see or talk to all day. It is definitely more than a meal. If AmeriCorps Seniors funding is cut, most of these volunteers and services will stop.”

The Foster Grandparent and Senior Companion programs each receive $398,108 annually and have 66 volunteers who provide mentorship and companionship in nine counties. Grant funds partially support a $4 an hour stipend, gas reimbursement at 50 cents a mile, and recruitment and training for volunteers. 

“I know that for a $4 an hour stipend doesn’t sound like a lot, but they actually rely on that for their daily living expenses,” RMDC Forster Grandparent Program director Angela Nelmark said. “That going away has a huge impact on them. They could continue to volunteer at the school independently, but that stipend going away means they might not be able to pay for a prescription or gas in their car or maybe a utility bill, or especially with groceries increasing and other costs increasing.”

Concerned about additional cuts to AmeriCorps in Trump’s proposed budget, the RMDC AmeriCorps program directors met with Montana’s congressional delegation representatives last week. They hoped to raise awareness of what is at stake without these programs and what challenges the organization already faces. While the meetings went well in educating about what the AmeriCorps Seniors programs do, the directors still have worries about the future.

“ We remain hopeful that people will see the importance and keep funding these on a national level,” Lynde told MTFP after meeting with the representatives. “But we are very concerned that these things will be cut, and if these grants are cut, these services are gone completely.”

The Montana Campus Network for Civic Engagement lost its $105,000 grant for 27 members to work on projects statewide. The network, also known as Montana Campus Compact, includes 18 colleges, tribal colleges and universities, and has operated an AmeriCorps VISTA program for 25 years, said Josh Vanek, its executive director. The program supported projects to increase access to post-secondary education, particularly for low-income families and first-generation students, and address students’ basic needs like food access and mental health support, he said. 

“ We remain hopeful that people will see the importance and keep funding these on a national level. But we are very concerned that these things will be cut, and if these grants are cut, these services are gone completely.”

RMDC retired and senior volunteer program director Samara Lynde

The program had five active members when the grant was terminated and was gearing up to hire another 22 to work on 16 projects across the state, Vanek said. Those projects included developing local food systems in Havre, reducing waste at the University of Montana campus and supporting Native American students at Montana State University-Billings, he said. 

The five active members were put on administrative holds, meaning they are still receiving a living allowance but are not logging service hours, Vanek said. Their education awards, which eligible members receive after completing service, are also in limbo, he said. While the network is putting together opportunities for AmeriCorps members to finish their service terms through other programs, some are hesitant to transfer, Vanek said. 

“The federal government has not been able to guarantee that if people transfer that they still will receive their education award voucher,” he said. “If you have $4,000, $5,000 sitting in the bank and your resignation from the VISTA service that has been terminated might jeopardize access to that, you’re probably going to be pretty practical about that.” 

One of Montana’s more recognizable AmeriCorps programs, Montana Conservation Corps, was not affected by the April cuts. The Big Sky Watershed Corps also retained its funding. Typically, 350 to 400 AmeriCorps members serve on MCC crews that complete restoration and conservation work on public lands, said Jono McKinney, CEO and president. While this year’s grants seem intact, 2026 and 2027 are less clear, he said. 

“It causes anxiety for us if we start thinking that next year, we will not have our AmeriCorps funding,” McKinney said. “AmeriCorps funds are $4 million for MCC for our two grants. They represent around 28% of our budget. All facets of MCC’s programming are supported by the AmeriCorps dollars, and without them, we would have to look at some pretty deep cuts in our programming and staffing.”

McKinney said the organization plans to help Montana’s members of Congress understand AmeriCorps’ critical role in supporting MCC. 

“The reality is AmeriCorps programs operate very effectively,” McKinney said. “They are locally driven with program designs developed locally, needs identified locally, program models created locally. It’s a very locally based solution with federal support. An important part of my work is to help our members of Congress understand the great return on investment for American taxpayer dollars [that is] provided by AmeriCorps programs, whether it’s doing the environmental stewardship that MCC delivers, or connecting Montanans to legal resources and services, to working with rural communities to help them address drought, all those kinds of things.”

The post Federal cuts to AmeriCorps limit Montana programs appeared first on Montana Free Press.

The research and development team at the U.S. Forest Service employs about 1,500 people full-time, a small but mighty faction inside an agency that, until recently, was 35,000 strong. The research it conducts spans everything from managing visitors at recreation hotspots to understanding the pulse of life and land on the 193 million acres the agency manages.

Since President Donald Trump took office, his barrage of executive actions in the name of curbing waste have imperiled the basic functions of federal agencies. At the Forest Service, the result is a climate of fear and uncertainty that’s stymieing the scientists working to fulfill the agency’s mission — sustaining the nation’s forests and grasslands for the public’s long-term benefit — just as the summer research field season ramps up. 

“Science and research are critical to maintaining public lands,” said Jennifer Jones, the program director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. Federal scientists intimately understand the ecosystems of the public lands they study. Their institutional position and on-the-ground knowledge make them uniquely suited to translate study findings into effective management. “If we lose a few months — a few years — of science and science-led management of those natural resources, it could take decades and generations for ecosystems to recover if they’re poorly managed,” she said.

Forest Service workers describe the last few months as an emotional roller coaster. First came the freezes of congressionally approved spending, followed by confusing resignation offers for federal employees, firings that were reversed almost as quickly as they were ordered and promises of further workforce culling through planned downsizing. The Trump administration has even called for eliminating Forest Service research stations, according to reporting by Government Executive; three of the five stations are located in the West. 

“If we lose a few months — a few years — of science and science-led management of those natural resources, it could take decades and generations for ecosystems to recover if they’re poorly managed.”

Spring and summer are usually an all-hands-on-deck time of year for field-
going scientists. As the snow melts and the days lengthen, researchers head outdoors for fieldwork they’ve been planning for all winter. This year, however, they are grappling with uncertainty regarding funding, labor and logistics. “I don’t know what I’m going to do on Day 1,” said a Forest Service aquatic biologist, who requested anonymity, citing fear of retribution for speaking publicly, just four weeks before their field season was set to begin. “I wish I had a plan. I just show up every day and see if there’s any news.” 

Most of the planned field projects in that scientist’s district have been suspended indefinitely. Still, one study, with the Fish and Wildlife Service, may happen: a survey of the movement of threatened bull trout along a western Montana river. The goal is to see how local populations are faring so that future recovery efforts can target problem sites. 

But whether the team can execute it is another matter. The biologist needs a minimum of two extra hands to help install fish traps and tag captured trout, and at least $10,000 to install transponders for tracking the fish. But that support is now uncertain, so the biologist is making contingency plans, building their own fish traps and calling in favors to see if other groups can help with personnel or equipment. “We’ll have to get really creative — and beg and borrow from other agencies,” they said. In theory, the project could be delayed until next year, but the team is acutely aware of the ticking clock of the trout’s survival. “The sooner you intervene, the better your results,” the biologist said. 

Research also helps federal agencies cultivate community relationships. One Forest Service scientist leading an effort to map aquatic biodiversity across the West is hounded by job insecurity: If they lose their job, no one will be left to analyze and interpret the two years’ worth of field samples that state and tribal collaborators have already gathered. “When I can’t be accountable to my partners in holding up my end of the research, that doesn’t have a good look,” said the researcher, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about their work. At the time of the interview, the scientist had no plan B to salvage the project if they’re let go. 

Forest Service research often involves repetitive environmental monitoring and inventorying. This allows scientists to catch anomalies, such as the initial appearance of an invasive species. The eradication of the invasive European grapevine moth from California’s wine country in 2016, for example, was due to early detection and rapid action. Still, it took federal and local agencies seven years to eliminate the berry-munching pest. 

“If you just stop a program in the middle, that’s insane,” said Elaine Leslie, a former agency chief for biological resources at the National Park Service who is currently on the executive council of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. “That is waste and fraud, right there. Years and years that people have spent protecting things are about to go down the tubes.”  

In response to an email from HCN asking about federal cuts to science, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which houses the Forest Service, sent a general statement that did not address concerns about what the changes mean for research. Instead, it read in part, “We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar is being spent as effectively as possible to serve the people.”

OTHER AGENCIES ARE also under assault. The Trump administration has proposed dissolving the research divisions of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as slashing NASA’s research budget. Some remaining scientists are taking on non-research duties: With a hiring freeze for seasonal custodians in place at Yosemite National Park, scientists are on the roster for cleaning toilets. 

All this translates to a chaotic period for agency employees. Delays and uncertainty are eating into the valuable hours of the limited field season. Getting field-ready takes time: hiring seasonal staff, training new recruits, setting fieldwork schedules and ensuring that everyone is paperwork-compliant. “From A to Z, there’s a lot to do before you ever put a boot in the field,” Leslie said. “Everybody’s behind, because of this debacle.” 

“We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar is being spent as effectively as possible to serve the people.”

At first glance, the science at the Forest Service — from studies on the foraging behavior of fish to the rhythms of coastal fog and the properties of river bedrock — might seem esoteric. But scientific breakthroughs often occur only after years of investment, when scientists finally put together enough pieces to reach a larger understanding. 

“You never know where the leaps and bounds are going to come from,” said the aquatic biologist researching bull trout. So, field season after field season, “you just have to keep looking.” 

We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.

This article appeared in the June 2025 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Scientific field season in jeopardy.”  

The post As Trump comes after research, Forest Service scientists keep working appeared first on High Country News.

” width=”224″ height=”168″ align=”right” hspace=”10″ alt=”President Donald Trump’s budget proposal includes allocating $1.1 trillion to defense spending while reducing non-defense federal spending by $163 billion” title=”President Donald Trump’s budget proposal includes allocating $1.1 trillion to defense spending while reducing non-defense federal spending by $163 billion” />Recommendations include new consolidated wildfire service, more tasks in state hands, less science.

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