Now Trump is taking a chainsaw to the National Forest Service.
The Trump administration says moving the Forest Service headquarters to Utah and shutting down 31 research stations will streamline operations and bring leaders west, where the forests are.
Well yeah, it will “streamline” operations in the sense of getting rid of them. That kind of streamlining is not always a good thing.
In announcing one of the largest reorganizations in the 120-year history of the U.S. Forest Service, the Trump administration declared that there would be “no interruption or change” to the agency’s firefighting force.
But critics say the upheaval comes at the worst possible time—with the agency’s ranks already depleted and demoralized, and a new federal wildfire forecast showing exceptionally high fire risk in both the Southeast and across much of the West over the next three months.
Yes but how can anyone possibly expect Trump to care about that?
By the end of March, 1.62 million acres had already burned across the country this year —231 percent of the previous 10-year average, the National Interagency Fire Center said in its seasonal forecast released Wednesday. That included the largest wildfire in Nebraska’s history, which last month scorched 640,000 acres and killed an 86-year-old woman who was trying to escape.
Yes but focus: Trump does not care.
“President Trump has made it a priority to return common sense to the way our government works,” said U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose agency oversees the Forest Service, in making the announcement on Tuesday.
Yes but what Trump means by common sense is “more cheaply no matter what the outcome is.”
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