Camping season is kicking off in Utah, and with it comes a fresh set of guidelines for visitors heading into one of its 46 scenic state parks. Whether you’re planning a weekend getaway or a longer …
Camping season is kicking off in Utah, and with it comes a fresh set of guidelines for visitors heading into one of its 46 scenic state parks. Whether you’re planning a weekend getaway or a longer stay, understanding the rules and regulations will help ensure a more enjoyable experience in Utah’s outdoors.
The youngest son of a Venezuelan family that resettled in Utah after seeking asylum was tortured at a prison in El Salvador, attorneys say.
The man, who was 19 when he was detained by border officials, is the youngest son of a family that now lives in Utah.
FILE – Prison guards stand outside holding cells at the Terrorism Confinement Center, a “mega-prison” built especially for gang members, during a media tour in Tecoluca, El Salvador, Feb. 2, 2023. Utah attorneys say a Venezuelan man was detained in San Diego and transported to the Salvadoran prison, where they allege he was tortured. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez, File)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration will move the U.S. Forest Service headquarters out of the nation’s capital to Salt Lake City as part of an organizational overhaul that …
By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM and SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration will move the U.S. Forest Service headquarters out of the nation’s capital to Salt Lake City as part of an organizational overhaul that involves shuttering research facilities in 31 states and concentrating resources in the West, the agency announced Tuesday.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the move, which is expected to be completed by summer 2027, will bring leaders closer to the landscapes they manage and the people who depend on them.
“Effective stewardship and active management are achieved on the ground, where forests and communities are found — not just behind a desk in the capital,” Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said.
Nearly 90% of National Forest System land is in the West, though Utah is only the 11th-ranked state for national forest coverage, with about 14,300 square miles (37,000 square kilometers).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been moving thousands of employees out of Washington over the past year and eliminating layers of management as part of Trump’s push to slim down the federal workforce and make it more efficient.
With the move to Utah, about 260 Forest Service positions currently located in Washington are expected to relocate, and 130 workers will stay put, the agency said.
Deputy Agriculture Secretary Stephen Vaden said Salt Lake City stuck out for its reasonable cost of living, proximity to an international airport and the state’s “family-focused way of life.” It’s a Democratic-led capital city in a red state with values rooted in the locally headquartered Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, celebrated the move Tuesday as “a big win for Utah and the West,” while environmental groups viewed it as a precursor to the agency’s dismantling.
Taylor McKinnon at the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity described the move as “a costly bureaucratic reshuffle” that will put more power in the hands of corporations and states to log, mine and drill public lands.
“National forests belong to all Americans,” said McKinnon, the environmental group’s Southwest director. “Our nation’s capital is where federal policy is made and where the Forest Service headquarters belongs.”
FILE – A person walks along a dirt road in Deschutes National Forest, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)
FILE – Snow dots the Sawtooth Mountains in the Sawtooth National Forest in central Idaho, June 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Boone, File)
President Donald Trump listens to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins speak during an event with farmers on the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, March 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
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FILE – A person walks along a dirt road in Deschutes National Forest, May 1, 2025, near Bend, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)
Josh Hicks, conservation campaigns director at The Wilderness Society, predicted that the move will lead to less access to public forests and threats to wildlife habitat, clean water and air.
“At a time when wildfires are getting worse, and access to public lands is already under strain, the last thing we need is an unnecessary reorganization that creates chaos and confusion for the land managers, researchers and wildland firefighters who help keep our forests healthy now and for future generations,” he said.
The Wilderness Society also pointed to Trump’s prior attempt with the BLM, saying that resulted in many staffers leaving who had valuable years of management experience. The group said this could end up hollowing out the Forest Service.
Many regional offices will close in the reorganization, and their services will shift to hubs in New Mexico, Georgia, Colorado, Wisconsin, Montana and California. Instead of maintaining multiple dispersed research stations with their own leadership, the agency will anchor its research at a single location in Fort Collins, Colorado.
The Forest Service said it did not yet know how many workers in regional offices will need to relocate. A spokesperson did not answer whether the transition would involve layoffs.
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, a New Mexico Democrat who sits on the House’s Natural Resources Committee, echoed the idea that it’s the wrong time for upheaval as the Mountain West is facing historically low snowpack, extreme heat and the prospect of a dangerous fire season.
But she expressed cautious optimism that the Forest Service reorganization could be positive if leadership and jobs are ultimately brought closer to New Mexico and other states.
A Republican on the committee, U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy of Utah, welcomed the move to her state, saying it could improve responsiveness to wildfires and ensure decisions are informed by on-the-ground realities.
The Forest Service’s deputy chief of fire and aviation management, Sarah Fisher, said on a podcast Tuesday that there will be no changes to the agency’s operational firefighting workforce.
Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The U.S. Forest Service is relocating its headquarters from Washington, DC, to Salt Lake City, Utah, by 2027, the Agriculture Dept. announced.
March 31, 2026, 8:48 p.m. ET
The U.S. Forest Service is moving its headquarters from Washington, DC, to Salt Lake City.
Officials state the move will place leadership closer to the Western lands the agency manages and improve its mission.
The restructuring will also relocate about 260 positions to Utah and establish 15 state directors.
The Sierra Club expressed skepticism about the move, questioning if it will lead to more effective land stewardship.
The U.S. Forest Service is relocating its headquarters to Salt Lake City, citing the move as a “sweeping restructuring” of the agency, the Agriculture Department said.
The agency’s move from its current location in Washington, DC, to Utah’s capital city is part of a broader strategy to place the forest service closer to the Western states that comprise the majority of the 193-million-acre forest system, the USDA announced March 31.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement that the relocation will improve the Forest Service’s mission of managing its forests, saving taxpayers’ money and boosting employee recruitment.
“Establishing a western headquarters in Salt Lake City and streamlining how the Forest Service is organized will position the Chief and operation leaders closer to the landscapes we manage and the people who depend on them,” Rollins said.
“This includes supporting our timber growers across the country, including those in the Southeast, by prioritizing a regional office and promoting policies that boost timber production, lowering costs for consumers,” Rollins added.
The Forest Service’s move come after the 2019 relocation of the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado, during President Donald Trump‘s first term in office, which led to a vast majority of the staff leaving the agency, only for the BLM to return to Washington. The BLM manages public lands in several Western states, performing activities such as oil and gas and agricultural leases.
Forest Service jobs also face relocation
About 260 headquarters positions will relocate to Utah, while 130 will remain in Washington, the Forest Service said. Additional phases of the reorganization, including the formal elimination of regional and station office structures and the full transition to a state-based model, will be implemented over the coming year.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox praised the Forest Service move, thanking Trump, Rollins, USDA Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden and Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz.
“This is a big win for Utah and the West. With nearly 90% of Forest Service lands west of the Mississippi, moving the U.S. Forest Service headquarters to Salt Lake City will put leadership closer to the lands, communities, and challenges they manage,” the Republican governor said in a March 31 post on X. “It also means hundreds of jobs coming to Utah and better, faster decisions on the ground for the people who rely on our public lands, from ranchers and timber producers to families who work and recreate there.”
As part of its restructure, the Forest Service said it would establish 15 state directors to oversee its operations, the USDA said. Each state office will include a small leadership support team responsible for functions such as legislative affairs, communications and intergovernmental coordination.
“This approach is intended to simplify the chain of command, strengthen local partnerships, and give field leaders greater ability to respond to conditions on the ground,” the USDA said.
The Forest Service will also begin transitioning to a “state-based organizational model” to shift authority closer to the field, a goal the administration has been emphasizing since the beginning of the second Trump administration, the USDA said.
Additionally, “operational service centers” will be formed in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Athens, Georgia; Fort Collins, Colorado; Madison, Wisconsin; Missoula, Montana; and Placerville, California. More service center locations may be added as the transition progresses, the USDA said.
The Forest Service said research operations will also be consolidated as the agency has previously mentioned. Research facilities now located in multiple regions will fall under a central research organization based in Fort Collins, the agency said.
The Forest Service said its relocation to Salt Lake City will be complete by summer 2027.
Sierra Club questions uprooting of Forest Service HQ
One major environmental group is questioning the Forest Service’s pending relocation.
The Sierra Club, the nation’s oldest conservation organization, said in a statement on March 31 that it is skeptical about the USDA’s move.
“The Forest Service should be structured in a way that allows them to steward our public lands effectively and with robust public engagement. This administration has routinely pursued the exact opposite by gutting protections and the public lands management workforce,” Alex Craven, the Sierra Club’s forest campaign manager. “Despite continued appeals of ‘common sense’ management, it’s far from clear this latest reorganization will get us any closer to that.”
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration will move the U.S. Forest Service headquarters out of the nation’s capital to Salt Lake City as part of an organizational overhaul that …
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration will move the U.S. Forest Service headquarters out of the nation’s capital to Salt Lake City as part of an organizational overhaul that involves shuttering research facilities in 31 states and concentrating resources in the West, the agency announced Tuesday.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the move, which is expected to be completed by summer 2027, will bring leaders closer to the landscapes they manage and the people who depend on them.
“Effective stewardship and active management are achieved on the ground, where forests and communities are found — not just behind a desk in the capital,” Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said.
Nearly 90% of National Forest System land is in the West, though Utah is only the 11th-ranked state for national forest coverage, with about 14,300 square miles (37,000 square kilometers).
During his first term, Trump moved the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado, citing many of the same reasons, including a desire to put top officials closer to the public lands they oversee. But it wasn’t long before the Biden administration reversed course, moving BLM headquarters back to Washington, D.C., after two years.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been moving thousands of employees out of Washington over the past year and eliminating layers of management as part of Trump’s push to slim down the federal workforce and make it more efficient.
With the move to Utah, about 260 Forest Service positions currently located in Washington are expected to relocate, and 130 workers will stay put, the agency said.
Deschutes National Forest near Bend, Ore.Jenny Kane/Associated Press
Deputy Agriculture Secretary Stephen Vaden said Salt Lake City stuck out for its reasonable cost of living, proximity to an international airport and the state’s “family-focused way of life.” It’s a Democratic-led capital city in a red state with values rooted in the locally headquartered Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church.
The Sawtooth Mountains in the Sawtooth National Forest in central Idaho.Rebecca Boone/Associated Press
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, celebrated the move Tuesday as “a big win for Utah and the West,” while environmental groups viewed it as a precursor to the agency’s dismantling.
Taylor McKinnon at the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity described the move as “a costly bureaucratic reshuffle” that will put more power in the hands of corporations and states to log, mine and drill public lands.
“National forests belong to all Americans,” said McKinnon, the environmental group’s Southwest director. “Our nation’s capital is where federal policy is made and where the Forest Service headquarters belongs.”
Josh Hicks, conservation campaigns director at The Wilderness Society, predicted that the move will lead to less access to public forests and threats to wildlife habitat, clean water and air.
“At a time when wildfires are getting worse, and access to public lands is already under strain, the last thing we need is an unnecessary reorganization that creates chaos and confusion for the land managers, researchers and wildland firefighters who help keep our forests healthy now and for future generations,” he said.
The Wilderness Society also pointed to Trump’s prior attempt with the BLM, saying that resulted in many staffers leaving who had valuable years of management experience. The group said this could end up hollowing out the Forest Service.
Many regional offices will close in the reorganization, and their services will shift to hubs in New Mexico, Georgia, Colorado, Wisconsin, Montana and California. Instead of maintaining multiple dispersed research stations with their own leadership, the agency will anchor its research at a single location in Fort Collins, Colorado.
The Forest Service said it did not yet know how many workers in regional offices will need to relocate. A spokesperson did not answer whether the transition would involve layoffs.
Tom Schultz, US Forest Service chief.VALERIE PLESCH/NYT
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, a New Mexico Democrat who sits on the House’s Natural Resources Committee, echoed the idea that it’s the wrong time for upheaval as the Mountain West is facing historically low snowpack, extreme heat and the prospect of a dangerous fire season.
But she expressed cautious optimism that the Forest Service reorganization could be positive if leadership and jobs are ultimately brought closer to New Mexico and other states.
A Republican on the committee, U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy of Utah, welcomed the move to her state, saying it could improve responsiveness to wildfires and ensure decisions are informed by on-the-ground realities.
The Forest Service’s deputy chief of fire and aviation management, Sarah Fisher, said on a podcast Tuesday that there will be no changes to the agency’s operational firefighting workforce.
Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
