FY26 Trump Budget Request Details Released - New Wildfire Agency and Huge Cuts Outside WFM

[u/Flat-Suggestion-8373]

Here are some of the wildfire-related items in the FY26 budget blueprint that the White House released today (link below). Chiefly, it proposes a “new Federal Wildland Fire Service” under DOI. But also note significant changes in related areas, like the draconian cuts to the “non-fire” side of Forest Service (e.g., almost complete elimination of FS R&D, significant cut to already underfunded NFS activities, etc.).

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal-Year-2026-Discretionary-Budget-Request.pdf

[u/Ready-Ad6113]

They don’t want researchers around because we provide evidence and facts against their destructive policies. We can only hope this will fail but it’s unlikely.

[u/zoinkability → u/Ready-Ad6113]

It's super depressing, not just from a jobs standpoint but also from a science standpoint. A lot of the research done in the FS is very long term. All those long term studies would be abandoned, and if a later administration — or even congress next year — wanted to restart them they would essentially be starting from scratch again. 10, 20, 30, 40+ years of federal investment in these studies down the drain.

[u/Wanderingghost12 → u/zoinkability]

It's already begun from what friends of mine have told me. I know a gal who works for the USFW and they had to abandon their 13-year data collection on Northern Spotted Owls. The sensors are still out in the woods but no one can collect or interpret the data. When the program lost funding, last I heard, researchers were talking about illegally downloading the files to save the research since it's so important to NSO population monitoring

[u/zoinkability → u/Wanderingghost12]

Uuuugh