December 3, 2025 6:30 a.m. 

On Tuesday, Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley led a group of senators to demand answers from U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz regarding the agency’s wildfire risk reduction efforts across the West and the nation.

A release said the inquiry follows an independent analysis of publicly available data indicating that the Forest Service is approximately 38 percent behind on hazardous fuels reduction work, as compared to the previous four calendar years.

The senators wrote to Forest Service Chief Schultz, “You have continued to maintain that the Forest Service has adequate resources and staffing to manage wildfire preparedness and response on federal lands, and that, while the Forest Service is significantly behind on hazardous fuels reduction work overall, there have been more positive results, in certain regions like the Pacific Northwest. You have also claimed that in certain Western states, the Forest Service has even exceeded annual hazardous fuels reduction goals”. The letter continued, “However, it appears that to make these claims, you are referencing all Fiscal Year 2025 data, which began under the Biden Administration and includes five months of work prior to the beginning of the Trump Administration and its mass staff firings, forced retirements, and unnecessary pauses on projects”.

This latest letter follows a series of actions by Merkley and other leaders to sound the alarm over funding freezes and staffing cuts at the Forest Service that they claim have undermined critical wildfire mitigation work across the United States.

The letter from Merkley was signed by twelve Democratic Senators including Oregon’s Ron Wyden.