Why it Matters

The Trump administration is cutting Forest Service funding by roughly 43 percent while simultaneously pushing states and private partners to take on more forest management work. The House Subcommittee on Forestry and Horticulture held a National Forest System hearing on June 25 to examine whether partnership-based management can actually work under these constraints.

The hearing, titled "Reviewing Partnerships To Enhance Management Of The National Forest System," surfaced a fundamental tension. Four witnesses representing timber companies, conservation groups, and rural counties all agreed partnerships are essential, but they sharply disagreed on how to fund them and what safeguards must accompany expanded authorities.

The Big Picture

Wildfire has become a year-round threat. As of the June 25 hearing, 2.7 million acres had already burned nationwide. Experts warn the current season will rank among the worst on record, driven by elevated temperatures, historically low snowpack, and extreme drought conditions.

The Forest Service has identified more than 100 million acres of national forest land needing treatment. Yet in 2025, the "U.S. Forest Service treated 35% fewer acres for wildfire risk," found the Center for Western Priorities.

The Trump administration is proposing to eliminate state, private, and tribal forestry programs. It is also cutting collaborative forest landscape restoration funding. This creates an obvious problem: the administration is asking partners to do more while stripping away resources to support that work.

What They're Saying

All four witnesses testified that partnerships are essential and that wildfire poses a genuine crisis. They also agreed that Good Neighbor Authority and stewardship contracting must remain available tools. But their visions for how to proceed diverged sharply.

Ned Coe, Supervisor of Modoc County, California, spoke from a rural perspective. Modoc County has a population of approximately 9,000 people spread across over 4 million acres, roughly 66 percent of which is federally managed. The county faces unemployment and poverty rates among the highest in California. Millions of acres of Modoc National Forest land are classified as high or very high risk for wildfire due to overstocked, unhealthy forest conditions, and timber harvests in the Modoc National Forest today are a fraction of historical levels.

Sheriff Tracy Glover of Kane County, Utah, emphasized local fiscal stress. Kane County has approximately 97 percent of its land under federal management, yet receives minimal revenue from those lands. Wildfire response costs fall heavily on local governments even when fires originate on federal land, and the Kane County sheriff's office has jurisdiction over vast federal areas with very limited resources.

Travis Joseph, President and CEO of the American Forest Resource Council, focused on litigation barriers. He noted that the Forest Service is the most litigated agency in the federal government, spending more than $1.5 million in Equal Access to Justice Act payments in Fiscal Year 2026 alone. His organization represents timber companies operating mills across the West that depend on a reliable flow of timber from federal lands.

Molly Whitney, Executive Director of the Cascade Forest Conservancy, brought a conservationist perspective. Her organization works in the Pacific Northwest and has been involved in collaborative forest management for over two decades. She emphasized that prescribed fire and mechanical thinning in the wildland-urban interface are the most cost-effective tools for reducing community fire risk. She also noted that old-growth forests store disproportionately large amounts of carbon and support biodiversity that cannot be quickly replaced.

Political Stakes

The hearing was chaired by Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA-4), with Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-OR-6) serving as ranking member. The central tension quickly became clear. The timber industry wants litigation reform and streamlined environmental review as conditions for expanded partnership authorities; conservation groups insist on environmental safeguards and collaborative processes; and local governments want formal authority and resources, not just advisory roles.

Yet all four witnesses agreed on one thing: rural communities bear disproportionate costs of federal land management failures. Coe and Glover spoke passionately about how counties shoulder wildfire response costs and economic decline while Washington makes decisions about their lands.

The hearing also highlighted an internal contradiction in the Trump administration's approach. The administration is consolidating wildfire response under the Department of Interior, effectively removing the Forest Service from the equation. Simultaneously, it is proposing budget cuts that would eliminate state and tribal forestry programs that could fill that void.

What's Next

Rep. Newhouse introduced the Root and Stem Act to accelerate forest management projects through collaborative partnerships. He and Rep. McMorris Rodgers also introduced the FORESTS Act to reduce wildfires and support timber communities. The House previously passed the Fix Our Forests Act with bipartisan support, which includes a robust forestry title broadening the Forest Service toolbox for active forest management and enhancements to partnership authorities.

The Farm Food and National Security Act also includes forestry provisions strengthening partnership capabilities. But none of these legislative tools matter much if the agency lacks funding to execute them.

Forest Service partnerships already benefit 40 different states. Pennsylvania's 15th district sees benefits through forest health improvements, bolstered forest products industry activity, and expanded recreational opportunities. Similar impacts occur wherever the Forest Service maintains active partnerships with states, tribes, and local governments.

The Bottom Line

Partnerships are necessary but insufficient without sustained funding and clear authority. The hearing revealed broad agreement on what needs to happen, but the Trump administration's budget cuts threaten to make partnerships a substitute for adequate federal investment rather than a complement to it.

The Subcommittee Forestry and Horticulture hearing on the National Forest System demonstrated that timber companies, conservation groups, and rural counties all want the same outcome: healthier forests and reduced wildfire risk. But they want it achieved in fundamentally different ways. The administration's approach of asking partners to do more with less may force a reckoning sooner rather than later.

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