1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

I am very concerned about the Trump administration's plan to dismantle the U.S. Forest Service. This isn't a reorganization or budget adjustment. The administration announced this week that it will relocate headquarters from Washington D.C. to Salt Lake City, shutter every regional office, and destroy the research program. This is effectively the destruction of a 121-year-old agency that protects our public lands and fights wildfires. The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands. Without functioning regional offices, who responds when wildfires break out? Without research programs, how do we develop better fire prevention strategies or understand how climate change affects our forests? These are not abstract concerns. We've seen what happens when fire response fails. Our forests provide clean water, wildlife habitat, recreation access, and timber jobs. Gutting the agency that manages them puts all of that at risk. As we enter fire danger seasons going into the summer, I cannot think of a worse time to destroy our primary federal land management agency. Please vote against any legislation that enables this dismantling and speak out publicly against it.