Forest Service: What the Administration Proposed
According to the Washington Post, the Administration’s plans for shrinking the federal government would cut employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) by 35% by 2026 – a loss of ~32,000 employees. Of these, the USDA Forest Service (USFS) was targetted for significant losses. The Administration proposed to end the Research and Development program, firing 1,641 employees. The State, Private, and Tribal program would lose 94% of its staff of 580 people. The National Forest System was to be cut by 30%, or 1,603 people. These and cuts to additional USFS programs would have totaled 39% of the agency’s approximately 30,000 staff.
The Administration issued a plan to reorganize USDA. This plan called for phasing out the USFS’ nine Regional Offices. Apparently only two offices would remain: a reduced state office in Juneau and an eastern service center in Athens, Georgia. Seven of the current stand-alone Research Stations would be consolidated into a single location in Fort Collins. The proposal retains two separate entities: the Fire Sciences and Forest Products Laboratories.
How Congress’ Appropriations Committees Responded
As I reported earlier, the Congress has not accepted these proposed cuts to the USFS. Under normal circumstances provisions in Congressionally-enacted appropriations legislation should prevail over the Administration’s plan, but now, who knows?
USFS Research and Development Program
The House Appropriations bill provides $301,706,000 for the research account, including $34 million for Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA). The Senate bill provides more for the overall research program — $308.5 million; but a little less — $32 million – for FIA. I remind you that FIA data inform us about changes in the forest, including damage caused by introduced insects and pathogens. But these data do not identify or disseminate information about how such threats might best be countered.
The Senate bill specifically retains the USFS’ five regional offices and experimental forests. The report accompanying the bill specifies funding for several issues, especially needle blights on loblolly pine and western conifers and poor regeneration of white oak (Quercus alba). The only other topic of research mentioned in the bill is fire research. I fear that might led to decreased attention to non-fire aspects of introduced tree-killing insects and pathogens – which collectively threaten a similarly sized area of America’s forests.
USFS State, Private, and Tribal Forestry program
The House bill provides $281 million for the forest health program. The bill specifies that this funding “includes forest health management, invasive plants, and conducting international programs and trade activities.” This would seem to restore funding for the Forest Health Management program – both the “cooperative lands” and “federal lands” subprograms. However, I found no language specifying funding levels for each subprogram.
The Senate bill provides $38 million more — $319.5 million — for the forest health program. The report specifies that the Cooperative lands forest health management program should be funded at $42 million. However, the Appropriations Committee allocated significant proportions of this total to specific projects. Nearly a quarter of the appropriation targets the spruce budworm outbreak in the eastern U.S. Also, $2 million is earmarked for management of the sudden oak death pathogen in the forests of Oregon and California. Another $3 million funds a pilot program for management of the highly invasive plant cogongrass. Other priorities are programs targetting Western bark beetles and invasive woody plant species – although no funding levels are specified.
The Senate bill also provides $19.6 million to support Congressionally-directed components of Forest Resource Information and Analysis; I don’t understand whether this is within or separate from the FIA program.
Under the National Forest System, the Senate bill instructs the USFS to spend at least $2 million per year on recovery of species of plants and animals listed under the Endangered Species Act, presumably including whitebark pines.
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is relatively well-off under the Administration’s plans. This agency is expected to lose 15% of employees – 1,180 people. According to Acting Deputy Administrator for Plant Protection and Quarantine Matthew Rhoads, 400 APHIS employees have accepted the Administration’s deferred resignation offer. Leaving are many program leaders – including the previous Deputy Administrator, Mark Davidson. While APHIS is allowed to hire to refill some positions, the future remains uncertain. I note a positive here: the new Farm Security Plan emphasizes efforts to combat bioterrorism, including APHIS’ safeguarding role. While I welcome that priority, I fear that the focus might be quite narrow, leaving out threats to natural resources such as native forest trees.
The impact of the proposed USDA reorganization on APHIS is unclear. The plan envisions continued reductions of the workforce and moving more than half of the remaining USDA employees away from Washington, D.C. to five regional offices.
APHIS also has done well under the House and Senate appropriations process. The House Appropriations Committee issued a press release touting its work as “Champions of U.S. farmers, agriculture, and rural communities”. The first example of this supportive effort reads: “Continuing critical investments in agricultural research, rural broadband, and animal and plant health programs.” Funding for APHIS is described as supporting the Trump Administration and its mandate from the American people. The Office of Management and Budget is said to have prioritized protecting American agriculture from foreign pests and diseases.
The Senate’s report instead cites traditional justifications for funding APHIS. It said that the appropriated funds will help protect the nation’s animal and plant resources from diseases and pests. (As usual, the examples cited are all animal diseases: chronic wasting disease, new world screwworm, and avian influenza.)
The reports accompanying both bills say agricultural quarantine – preventing pest introduction – is an important responsibility of the federal government. I am cheered by this statement since the Trump Administration puts such emphasis on shedding responsibilities.
Unlike the USFS, funding levels for most APHIS programs are unchanged from this year. (Of course, inflation has reduced the amount of work that can be carried out using the same amount of money.) The following table shows funding for programs of interest during the current year (FY2025) and levels proposed by the House and Senate bills for Fiscal Year 2026 (which begins on October 1).
Figures in millions of dollars (rounded up)
FY2025 enacted FY26 House FY26 Senate
APHIS total $1,148 $1,146 $1,168
Plant health subtotal $387.5 $388.6
Agric. quarantine $35.5 $35.5 $35.5
Field crop and rangeland $12 $11 $11.5
Pest detection $29 $28.5 $29
Methods development $21.5 $21.5 $21.5
Specialty crops $206.5 $216.3 $208.5
Tree and wood pests $59 $59 $58.6
Emergency preparedness and response* $44.5 $44.5 $44.3
* this fund is apparently for both animal and plant emergencies
The Senate and House bills contain identical language authorizing the Secretary “in emergencies which threaten any segment of [US] agricultural production …, [to] transfer from other appropriations or funds available to the agencies or corporations of [USDA] such sums as may be deemed necessary, to be available only in such emergencies for the arrest and eradication of contagious or infectious diseases … in accordance with sections … 431 and 442 of the Plant Protection Act … and any unexpended balances of funds transferred for such emergency purposes in the preceding fiscal year shall be merged with such transferred amounts”. The House report reminds the Administration that this language means that the emergency fund is intended to enhance, not replace, use of funds transferred from the Commodity Credit Corporation when confronting pest or disease outbreak emergencies. I have long sought increased funding for APHIS to respond quickly when a new invasive organisms is detected. Such flexibility is necessary because the regular process for adopting an appropriation stretches over about three years.
Also, both bills support continuation of APHIS’ feral swine management program. However, they prioritize funding projects in areas with the highest pig populations. I think this is backwards from the perspective of efficiency – although it might build political support for the program.
The House report mentions management of Arundo canes, said to be depleting groundwater levels in western states; eastern spruce budworm in the Northeast; spread of the southern pine beetle and spotted lanternfly; and invasions by the non-native shrub glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus).
The Senate report notes that two strains of the sudden oak death pathogen Phytophthora ramorum and here – the EU1 and NA1 strains – pose major threats to Douglas-fir-tanoak forests in Oregon and California and the associated quarantines restrict exports of logs. Therefore, the report says funding for addressing this threat should be no lower than the FY24 level. (Oregon senator Jeff Merkley is the top Democrat on the Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee.)
I am thrilled to see that the House report requires APHIS to report within a year on recommendations to enhance existing protocols to better protect Hawai`i from bioinvasion. The report is to evaluate the feasibility of APHIS working with the state to improve biosecurity, prevent invasive species establishment, and mitigate damage from those already there. The report is to evaluate the risk of invasive species arriving via movement of people, baggage, cargo, and other items.
Finally, the “Big Beautiful Bill” adopted by the Congress in June, increased funding for APHIS’ Plant Pest and Disease Management and Disaster Prevention (Plant Protection Act Section 7721) from $75 million to $90 million – but only for Fiscal Year 2026. This grant program continues to be crucial to funding vital programs. This year the program has funded more than 300 projects. I wonder – might forest pathologists prepare a proposal for next year that would fund a study to improve America’s phytosanitary program regarding pathogens? Two possible study topics might be 1) evaluating the efficacy of APHIS’ current regulations in preventing introduction of fungal pathogens, oomycetes, bacteria, viruses, and nematodes on imported plants and/or 2) identifying currently unknown microbes resident in regions that are important sources of origin for traded plants, vulnerability of hosts in the U.S., and new technologies for detecting pathogens
Posted by Faith Campbell
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For a detailed discussion of the policies and practices that have allowed these pests to enter and spread – and that do not promote effective restoration strategies – review the Fading Forests report at http://treeimprovement.utk.edu/FadingForests.htm
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