The U.S. Forest Service is in damage control.

Almost two weeks ago, we published an article documenting the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in its 121-year history — the gutting of its headquarters, the elimination of every regional office, and the destruction of the largest forestry research program on Earth. The article widely circulated on social media, reaching hundreds of thousands of readers.

The administration had clearly expected this to go down quietly. A press release on a Tuesday. Bureaucratic language designed to make your eyes glaze over. ‘Streamlining.’ ‘Mission delivery.’ ‘Common sense.’ They thought nobody would notice. They thought nobody would care.

They were wrong.

Last week, the administration scrambled to respond. The White House Rapid Response account dismissed our reporting as “lies from these losers.” Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Vaden — a former trade court judge with no background in forestry, ecology, or land management — posted a seven-tweet thread attacking the article. And the Forest Service itself added a “Myth vs. Fact” section to its official reorganization webpage — a point-by-point response to our reporting, paid for with your tax dollars.

They contested three claims. Three. And every one of them had already been contradicted — by their own scientists, their own union, and independent reporting from Science magazine, KUNC, VTDigger, and the Union of Concerned Scientists — before the administration even posted its rebuttal.

Here’s what they claimed. Here’s what’s actually happening. And here’s what they didn’t dispute.

What They Didn’t Dispute

Before we get to their three “myths,” it’s worth noting what the administration chose not to contest.

They did not dispute: That the last time this administration relocated a land management agency, 87 percent of affected staff walked out the door and three people showed up to the new headquarters. That more than 25 percent of Forest Service staff have already been forced out through mass firings and deferred resignations. That the Forest Service Chief overseeing all of this is a former logging industry executive. That the headquarters is going to the state currently suing to seize 18.5 million acres of your public land — the same state whose governor signed a deal weeks earlier for de facto control over Forest Service operations. That the reconciliation bill mandates a 75 percent increase in logging and locks in twenty-year timber contracts through 2045.

None of that was challenged. Not one word. Because every word of it is documented, sourced, and on the public record.

What the administration chose to fight on instead was three narrow claims where they believed they could muddy the water. It hasn’t gone well.

“The Reorganization Does Not Eliminate Scientific Positions”

That’s the Forest Service’s official position, posted on its reorganization page. Deputy Secretary Vaden echoed it: scientists will keep their jobs.

The scientists’ own union says otherwise.

“It’s more or less move, or retire or leave,” Carl Houtman, a thirty-year Forest Service employee and union representative for Forest Service researchers at the National Federation of Federal Employees, told KUNC last week. Scientists at affected labs have been told their positions will be relocated, but where and how far “remains unclear.” The agency hasn’t said how many employees outside Washington will be affected. When they ask for details, the answer is: “Well, those are still being worked out.”

Move, or retire or leave.

We’ve heard this before. When the Trump administration moved BLM headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado during the first term, they said the same things. No positions eliminated. Staff relocated. Mission continues. Then 87 percent of the affected workforce walked out the door. Only three people — three — actually relocated to the new headquarters.

That wasn’t a failure of execution. It was the design. Because when you tell a scientist with twenty years of place-based research, a mortgage, a spouse with a career, and children in school to pack up and relocate to a consolidated office that has nothing to do with the ecosystem they’ve spent their career studying, they don’t move. They leave. The people with the deepest expertise and the strongest institutional standing — the ones most capable of pushing back against bad decisions — are exactly the ones who can’t uproot their lives on a few months notice. That’s not a prediction. It’s a documented pattern.

And the evidence is already mounting.

Aly Urza, a research ecologist who spent eight years at the Reno lab, warned that pulling scientists out of place-based facilities would sever local partnerships and long-term monitoring programs. “It’s really heartbreaking,” she said. “They’re incredible resources and really important for public land management.”

In Vermont, the George D. Aiken Forestry Sciences Laboratory at the University of Vermont is closing. Five full-time researchers. The university lab director called them “a huge part of the research community” and “a big loss.”

The National Federation of Federal Employees formally condemned the restructuring, calling it “a reckless disruption” and stating that the administration “cannot dress up a mass workforce disruption as common-sense management.”

A former coordinator of the USDA Climate Hubs who worked directly with Forest Service researchers wrote this week that when he worked at BLM headquarters in 2024 — five full years after the Grand Junction relocation — the agency was still crippled by decreased staffing, missing expertise, and loss of institutional knowledge. He sees the same trajectory for the Forest Service.

The Forest Service research program is the largest and most respected forestry research organization on the planet. Approximately 1,500 employees. More than 500 scientists. Eighty experimental forests, some hosting continuous studies since 1908. Nearly 60,000 peer-reviewed publications. It’s the scientific backbone that informs every responsible land management decision on 193 million acres of national forest. Countries send their scientists here to study it. There’s nothing else like it on Earth.

And the administration is telling the public it will survive having nearly sixty of its facilities shuttered, its five independent research stations dissolved, its scientists scattered or forced out, and its entire operation consolidated under a single director in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Deputy Secretary Vaden knows better. He was USDA General Counsel during the first Trump term. He provided the legal justification for relocating two USDA research agencies from Washington to Kansas City — a move the department's own Inspector General concluded was illegal. Seventy-five percent of the affected staff walked out the door. The agencies never recovered. He said exactly the same things then that he's saying now. No positions eliminated. Staff will be relocated. The mission continues. He knows what those words mean. He knows what comes next. And he went on Twitter and said it anyway. It's not ignorance, folks. It's willful deceit.

“State Directors Will Be Career Federal Employees”

This is the claim Deputy Secretary Vaden built his rebuttal around. Our article described the new state directors as political appointees. The Forest Service says they’ll be career federal employees. The Washington Examiner treated this as a decisive fact-check. The Forest Service posted it on its website.

The distinction matters less than they want you to think.

Here’s what’s being eliminated: nine regional foresters. Career professionals promoted through the ranks over decades. Scientists and land managers with deep expertise in the specific ecosystems they oversaw. People with the institutional standing, the scientific credibility, and the professional independence to push back when political pressure came — whether from Washington or from a governor’s office. They were the structural buffer between politics and the land.

Here’s what’s replacing them: fifteen state directors whose job description, per the administration’s own materials, centers on “legislative affairs, communications, and intergovernmental coordination.” That’s not land management. That’s political liaison work. These positions exist to interface with governors, state legislators, and congressional delegations — the same politicians who in states like Utah and Idaho have spent decades trying to wrest these lands from federal control.

In an interview this week, Deputy Secretary Vaden himself described the model: eliminate the regional layer entirely and let forest supervisors report directly to the Chief. The Chief is Tom Schultz, a former logging industry executive installed by this administration. The new chain of command runs from the forest to the logging executive, with political liaisons embedded in state capitals in between.

You can call these positions “career” all you want. You can print it on business cards. You can post it on your website in bold type. It doesn’t change the fact that you just eliminated the only structural layer of professional independence between political pressure and 193 million acres of public forest, and replaced it with political liaisons whose entire job is to coordinate with the governors and legislators who want to liquidate those forests. The function is political. The design is political. The outcome will be political. And everyone paying attention knows it.

“This Has Never Been Discussed”

The Forest Service says the reorganization is “not a step toward transferring federal lands to the states” and that transfer “has never been discussed.”

Interestingly, our article didn't claim it was “discussed.” We reported that the structure enables it. That every move this administration has made over the past fourteen months points toward it. And that the pattern is unmistakable.

The evidence is not subtle.

Utah is suing the federal government right now to seize 18.5 million acres of BLM land. That case is engineered to reach a sympathetic Supreme Court. Governor Cox signed a deal weeks ago embedding Utah in Forest Service decision-making on eight million acres of national forest. The Forest Service headquarters is now going to Salt Lake City. Rep. Russ Fulcher is circulating letters in Idaho preparing counties for federal land transfer. Senator Mike Lee has tried multiple times this year to force the sale of public lands through must-pass legislation. Steve Pearce, the administration’s nominee to run the Bureau of Land Management, has spent his career advocating for the end of federal land ownership. The reconciliation bill mandates logging quotas that treat forests as nothing more than timber inventory. The Roadless Rule has been rescinded, opening 58 million acres of American wilderness. NEPA has been gutted.

And now the agency that manages 193 million acres of public forest is being stripped of its regional expertise, its scientific capacity, its institutional independence, and its headquarters — and relocated to the state that is the epicenter of the radical anti-public lands movement.

“This has never been discussed.” That’s their answer. That’s all they’ve got. Not “we would never do that.” Not “the president opposes land transfer.” Not “we are committed to permanent federal ownership of these forests.” Just: it hasn’t been discussed.

You know what else was never ‘discussed’? The BLM relocation — right up until they announced it. The Roadless Rule repeal — right up until they did it. Every dismantling this administration has carried out arrived as a fait accompli, wrapped in euphemism, with the people affected reading about it in a press release.

‘Never been discussed’ is the answer you give when you’re not ready to announce it yet. It’s the answer Mike Lee would give if you asked him whether he plans to sneak another land sale rider into a must-pass bill. It’s not a denial. It’s a non-answer in place of the truth.

The Weight of What They Left Standing

The administration had more than a week to prepare a response. It deployed the White House communications office, the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, the Forest Service’s public affairs team, and a cooperative media ecosystem that included The Federalist and the Washington Examiner.

The total output: three contested claims, one name-calling tweet, and a rewritten webpage.

They didn’t address the damning BLM precedent. They didn’t explain why the headquarters is going to the state that is suing to seize federal land. They didn’t respond to the seven former Forest Service chiefs who publicly opposed this plan. They didn’t address the 47,000 public comments, 82 percent of which opposed the restructuring. They didn’t explain how mandatory logging quotas will be implemented responsibly after the scientific infrastructure has been dismantled. They didn’t explain what happens to thirty-year watershed studies when the facilities that house them are closed.

They called us “losers” and contested a job classification.

Meanwhile, every regional office is still closing. Every research facility on the closure list is still closing. A logging executive is still the Chief. The mandatory timber quotas are still law. The headquarters is still going to Utah. And 193 million acres of American forest — an area larger than Texas, held in trust for every citizen of this country — are still being handed to the people who’ve spent their careers trying to skin them for parts.

None of that changed last week.

Jim Pattiz is an award-winning filmmaker and conservationist who serves as the co-founder of More Than Just Parks. Jim has spent his career traveling to America’s most wild & precious spaces telling the stories of public lands.