Idahoan to lead U.S. Forest Service
Feb. 28—A former director of the Idaho Department of Lands and executive with the Idaho Forest Group will be the next chief of the U.S. Forest Service.
Tom Schultz was selected by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to run the agency and succeed Randy Moore, who will retire Monday.
"Tom is the right person to lead the Forest Service right now, and I know he will fight every day to restore America's national forests," Rollins said in a news release Thursday. "Together, Tom and the incredible employees at the Forest Service will work to execute the agenda of President Donald J. Trump to make America's forests healthy and productive again."
Before Thursday's announcement, Schultz was to serve another role in the Trump administration. In January, he and another Idahoan were selected for high posts within the Department of Agriculture. Michael Boren, of Boise, was nominated to be the undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment and Schultz was initially hired to be Boren's chief of staff.
He will now lead the Forest Service and its more than 30,000 employees.
"Working with our partners, we will actively manage national forests and grasslands, increase opportunities for outdoor recreation, and suppress wildfires with all available resources emphasizing safety and the importance of protecting resource values," he said in a news release.
In choosing Schultz, Rollins is departing from a tradition of selecting chiefs from the upper echelon of the Forest Service. Schultz has a long history in forest management but none as an employee of the agency. Prior to starting his work as chief of staff, he was vice president of resources and government affairs at the Idaho Forest Group. He previously was the director of the Idaho Department of Lands and worked for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
While unusual, the move by Rollins to select a chief from outside the normal pool of candidates is not unprecedented. President Bill Clinton named Jack Ward Thomas as chief. At the time, Thomas was a well-known biologist at the agency but did not have experience as a top executive. Next, Clinton looked outside of the agency and selected Mike Domebeck, who had worked as a Forest Service fisheries biologist for a dozen years before becoming a science adviser to the Bureau of Land Management.
Idaho political leaders praised the hiring of Schultz and view his lack of history at the agency as an asset. The Forest Service oversees 193 million acres of forests and grasslands across the country, including about 20 million acres in Idaho. Its mandate requires it to manage for multiple uses, including timber, grazing, recreation and conservation.
That differs significantly from the direction of private timber companies and even state agencies that manage with an eye to profits over other considerations. The broader approach taken by the Forest Service and the much more complicated set of laws and regulations it must follow, including robust public involvement, means it is often less nimble than other timber managers, including the state. That can cause conflict between the agency and state political leaders who often press it to respond with greater force to wildfires and to approve more logging projects that provide a steady stream of timber for local mills.
Daily headlines, straight to your inboxRead it online first and stay up-to-date, delivered daily at 7 AM
"Tom Schultz's deep, on-the-ground experience and skills, including his long-time service in Idaho, will be critically useful as he manages our federal forests," said Sen. Mike Crapo in a news release. "He intimately understands how federal decision-making impacts our great state, and I look forward to working with him in this capacity."
Idaho Gov. Brad Little reissued a news release Thursday that offered praise for Schultz and Boren.
"The appointment of Tom Schultz, an Idahoan, to such an important position for Idaho and the West signals the Trump administration's continued support for how we do things here in Idaho," he said in a news release.
The Idaho Conservation also welcomed Schultz. While he is Forest Service outsider, John Robison, public lands and wildlife director for the environmental group, said Schultz is well known throughout the state via his participation in collaborative processes that involve the Forest Service and other stakeholders.
"Chief Schultz understands firsthand how essential public lands and clean water are to our quality of life, identity, and rural economies," he said.
During an interview earlier this month, Schultz, then poised to serve as chief of staff for the under secretary of agriculture, told the Tribune that ensuring the agency is prepared for the upcoming wildfire season will be a top priority. He also said the agency would strive to listen and understand the needs of various stakeholders as it carries out its multiple-use mandate.
"A big focus is to make sure we are aligned with our public," he said. "We are there to serve the American public."
Moore announced his pending retirement Wednesday and said in a message to employees that the staffing turmoil within the agency played a role in his decision to step away. The agency fired about 2,000 probationary employees in recent weeks. President Trump and his special adviser Elon Musk have said more layoffs across the federal government are expected.
Robison noted that will make it tougher on Schultz.
"He faces a significant challenge in keeping our national forests accessible and functioning for people, fish, and wildlife. Fortunately, Chief Schultz has a strong track record of collaborative success. He understands how recreationists, foresters, sportsmen, conservationists, and local communities can work together to improve forest health, watersheds, and rural economies."
Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
More Details Emerge Around the Public Land Sale Bill — and It's Worse Than You Think
As the magnitude of Senate Republicans' proposal to sell millions of acres of public land in the West has reverberated over the last two days, opponents are mobilizing to keep what they call a bad idea from becoming law. They're encouraging the hunting and fishing community to flood Instagram and Facebook with 'hell no' videos and posts that denounce the Wednesday night bill introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). They're contacting congressional delegations to let them know that the mandatory sale of between 2.02 and 3.04 million unidentified acres of BLM and Forest Service land over the next five years is a political land mine. And they're digging into the arcane and dense language of the bill to learn that it has much, much wider ramifications for Western land management than its proponents have indicated. 'Don't take the bait that this is about 'affordable housing,' as its proponent claims,' says David Willms, associate vice president for public lands with the National Wildlife Federation. 'It isn't.' An attorney, Willms has parsed the bill's language and concluded that, in both its wording and intention, it intends to remake the map of the Western United States by allowing the sale of public lands that could be used for nearly any purpose under an expansive 'associated community needs' definition. He says that could include AI data centers, ski areas, golf courses, or consolidation of large ranches. Willms and co-host of Your Mountain podcast Nephi Cole detail both the specifics of the bill and its potential consequences in a remarkable podcast that dropped today. Other conservation groups have calculated the amount and mapped the locations of BLM and Forest Service land that would be eligible for sale under Lee's bill. It totals 120 million acres across 11 Western states. .embed-container {position: relative; padding-bottom: 80%; height: 0; max-width: 100%;} .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container iframe{position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;} small{position: absolute; z-index: 40; bottom: 0; margin-bottom: -15px;} For public-land advocates, defeating the Senate Energy and Natural Resources' budget draft, which contains the public-land sale language, is the biggest fight of their careers. 'Anybody who supports this in the Senate that has any inkling that this is a good idea, they need to get their ass kicked,' says Land Tawney, the animated leader of a lobbying group called American Hunters and Anglers. 'We need to flood their social pages with comments. We need to call their offices. These folks are too scared of the public to have public meetings, but if you see them on an airplane coming home for the recess, that's a good time to remind them to keep public lands in public hands.' Meanwhile, critter conservation groups like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation are encouraging their members to get engaged. 'RMEF is very concerned about the federal land sales provision included in Chairman Mike Lee's energy and natural resources section of the pending budget reconciliation bill and will continue to work to remove that measure from the legislation,' the foundation said in a press release. 'We encourage our members to contact their senators to express their opinions about selling two million acres of BLM and national forest lands across the West. ' Because Lee's bill draft was dropped on Wednesday evening, following an hours-long meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which he chairs, early reporting focused on the jaw-dropping acreage in play. The bill, in a section titled 'Mandatory Disposal of Bureau of Land Management Land and National Forest Service System Land for Housing,' requires the BLM and Forest Service to 'select for disposal no less than 0.50 percent and not more than 0.75 percent' of eligible land for sale. National parks, wildlife refuges, designated wilderness areas, national monuments, and historic sites would be exempt from sale. The bill identifies additional exemptions: lands where there are legally recognized permits or rights-of-ways are not eligible for sale. That means livestock grazing leases, mining claims, rights-of-way for a transmission line or a pipeline or an energy lease or a solar or wind project. And federal land in Montana is exempt, because that state's senior senator, Steve Daines (R), negotiated with Lee to omit Montana from the budget package in order to reduce bill-killing opposition. In a video that discusses some of the provisions of his bill, Lee stresses that the sales would be of 'underutilized' federal land 'suitable for residential development' in order to alleviate housing shortages around fast-growing Western cities. That's not the case, says Willms. 'You're hearing that this bill would address affordable housing. It won't,' he says, pointing to bill language that says eligible land must address 'local housing needs or any associated community needs.' 'The term 'community' isn't defined,' notes Willms. 'We know the administration has called for building data centers on public land. Maybe that's considered a 'community need'? It could be a business park. Or maybe a golf course. It's public land sale under the guise of affordable housing but it's really for economic development for any use. And land can be nominated for sale by state and local governments, but the bill also says land can be nominated for sale by 'interested parties.' That could include corporations, foreign governments, we just don't know.' The bill also contains a provision that 'a person may not purchase more than 2 tracts of covered Federal land in any 1 sale… unless the person owns land surrounding the tracts of covered Federal land to be sold.' In other words, large landowners could use the land-sale mechanism to buy inholdings and consolidate their private holdings. Willms also takes exception to Lee's claim that the public would have opportunities to weigh in on proposed land sales. 'The bill contains language that says all these sales are 'considered to meet the requirements of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act,' which means that they are deemed to have already complied with all public-notice and participation requirements,' says Willms. 'It basically means the public is cut out of this. These sales will not have a public process.' If the lands package makes it into the Senate's version of the budget reconciliation bill, and the bill becomes law, public-land sales would start quickly. The bill calls for the process to start within 60 days of passage and requires the 2 to 3 million acres to be sold within five years, with 90 percent of revenue going to the U.S. Treasury, 5 percent returned to the state of the sale, and 5 percent going to the agency that sold the land. The upshot, says Willms, is 'they're going to try to jam this through in a week or two without public input, without vetting any of the potential consequences this bill will cause. This bill is not ready for prime time, yet it's in prime time … everybody is forced to take a vote on it. But I think that's intentional: jam this [mandatory land sale] into a big bill with a high priority in a tight time frame.' Sources don't expect Lee's lands package to get a vote in his Energy and Natural Resources Committee. 'Under the reconciliation process, they aren't required to mark up each section in committee,' said an unnamed legislative source who wasn't authorized to speak to the press. 'They will probably not do committee votes in order to avoid taking any more hard votes than what is necessary.' The committee's portion of the budget package, containing the land-sale requirement, will go to the Senate budget committee for review and then for a vote on the full Senate floor. That vote could happen prior to the July 4 congressional recess, says the source. The majority Republicans can only lose three votes in the Senate. If the budget package passes the Senate, then it's likely to return to the House, where it passed by a single vote last month. 'If this does pass the Senate, then I don't think the House can stomach the lands provision,' the legislative source says. 'The House language [that proposed selling 500,000 acres of federal land in Utah and Nevada] was a bridge too far for Representative Zinke (R-Mont.), among others. I think this Senate version is a continent too far for some of these folks.' A number of sources have criticized Daines for abrogating campaign pledges to defend public land. As the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, widely credited with winning the Republican majority in the Senate, and as a ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, he could use his influence to strip or moderate the lands package. 'When this lands package was in the House, we had Zinke stand up and say that selling public land was his 'San Juan Hill' and his 'red line,'' says Willms. 'But on the Senate side you don't have [a Republican] who is saying they will not vote for this.' But critics say Daines' deal with Lee has taken both Montana senators out of the fight. 'Hopefully some Republican Senator will stand up and be that champion, but we don't have that, so there's a high risk of this provision staying in this bill.' Which means, if the Senate passes the lands bill, the next and probably last place to kill it will be in the House conference committee. The unnamed legislative source said that Western senators and representatives are already getting plenty of heat on the topic, and they said that continued pressure could cause them to pull the lands package from the budget bill. 'The hunting and angling community needs to keep the pressure up,' they said. 'At the end of the day, the Republican delegations need to realize that the sportsmen's community is a big voting bloc, and the broader outdoor recreation community is an even bigger voting bloc. These folks need to realize that they're messing with a $1.3 trillion industry, but even more to the point, they need to realize this is the third rail and they've been put in an untenable position by their party's leadership.' The larger issue of disposing of the public estate without a public process or a clear public purpose isn't just a Western issue, the legislative source said. 'It doesn't matter if you live in Bozeman or Baltimore, these lands belong to you. The best thing I can advise, as someone who sees how members [of Congress] respond to stimuli, is let your Congressman know how you feel. Your members need to hear from you, and the time window is very short to engage.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Minnesota Title IX investigation escalates after Champlin Park softball championship
The Brief The U.S. Department of Education is escalating its Title IX investigation into Minnesota after the Champlin Park girls softball team won a state championship with a transgender pitcher. Law professor David Schultz says Minnesota and the Trump Administration have very different interpretations of Title IX when it comes to transgender athletes. Attorney General Keith Ellison is suing the Trump Administration, challenging the executive order that MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - The U.S. Department of Education is raising the stakes in its Title IX investigations against the State of Minnesota. What we know The federal government announced an investigation into Minnesota earlier this year. A few weeks ago, they launched a second investigation into the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League for allowing transgender athletes to play in women's sports. Thursday, officials announced they were accelerating the investigation. Why you should care This, after the Champlin Park girls softball team garnered national attention. The Rebels just won the Class 4A state championship, led by a star pitcher who is transgender. The U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice announced Thursday they were elevating their investigations into the Minnesota Department of Education. Federal officials say it's because Champlin Park won the state softball title with a male athlete. "If we start to look at the state of interpretation of Title IX, it's not completely clear," said David Schultz with the Mitchell Hamline School of Law. Dig deeper Schultz says Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination and education, is being interpreted very differently by the Trump Administration and the State of Minnesota when it comes to transgender athletes. "It comes down to the federal courts, including possibly the Supreme Court, to render the final interpretation of what Title IX actually requires or what it means," Schultz said. The Minnesota State High School League and Department of Education's position is that Minnesota human rights laws ban discrimination based on gender identity, and that it does not conflict with Title IX. The Trump Administration believes Title IX protects women athletes, and transgender athletes violate that protection. "They're going to have to eventually show that the interpretation of the word sex isn't broad enough to include transgender, and if transgender athletes participate in high school or college sports, their participation actually hurts women, and therefore violates Title IX," Schultz said. What's next So where does this go from here? It's now an expedited investigation, with a resolution expected soon. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has an ongoing lawsuit against the Trump Administration, challenging President Trump's executive order banning transgender athletes in women's sports and threatening to pull federal funding to states. The federal government's response is due by June 26.
E&E News
a day ago
- E&E News
Trump's watered-down wildfire order skirts fight with Congress
President Donald Trump's plan to revamp the federal response to wildfire fell short of expectations about reorganizing agencies without help from Congress. But the executive order Trump signed Wednesday still faces political headwinds. Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley called the president's order 'hasty' and 'poorly planned' as wildfire season begins. Advertisement Forest Service retirees, among others, are organizing around opposition to the idea of lessening the service's role in wildfire suppression. But supporters of the effort say it could help the government better organize around fighting fires and appears to avoid confronting Congress about a wholesale reshuffling of agencies.
