Late Tuesday afternoon, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball and the morality of a foreclosure notice, the Trump administration announced the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the agency’s 121-year history. Not a budget cut. Not a policy shift. Not a “reorganization.” An execution.

They’re ripping the headquarters out of Washington and shipping it to Salt Lake City, Utah — the beating heart of the anti-public-lands movement in America. They’re shuttering every single one of the ten regional offices that have governed this agency since Gifford Pinchot built the system over a century ago — and with them, the career professionals who spent entire lifetimes earning the expertise and the authority to push back when politicians came calling with bad ideas and worse motives. They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable long-term science, the kind you literally cannot restart once it’s gone. And they’re replacing all of it — the offices, the scientists, the institutional knowledge, the professional independence — with fifteen political appointees called “state directors,” embedded in state capitals alongside the very governors, legislators, and industry lobbyists who have spent their careers demanding that the Forest Service log more, protect less, and get out of the way.

  • fox2263@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Don’t these things require congressional approval?

    Oh yeah I forgot they just ignore everyone and do what they want

    • Yuccagnocchiyaki@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Except it tried to minimize what these pieces of crap are doing.

      As stated above, “They’re ripping the headquarters out of Washington and shipping it to Salt Lake City, Utah — the beating heart of the anti-public-lands movement in America. They’re shuttering every single one of the ten regional offices that have governed this agency since Gifford Pinchot built the system over a century ago — and with them, the career professionals who spent entire lifetimes earning the expertise and the authority to push back when politicians came calling with bad ideas and worse motives. They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable long-term science, the kind you literally cannot restart once it’s gone. And they’re replacing all of it — the offices, the scientists, the institutional knowledge, the professional independence — with fifteen political appointees called “state directors,” embedded in state capitals alongside the very governors, legislators, and industry lobbyists who have spent their careers demanding that the Forest Service log more, protect less, and get out of the way.”

      This follows the same old conservative playbook of sabotaging and defending an agency that they hate (because it actually has enforceable rules for the rich) and then complain about it’s ineffectiveness while trying to convince you rules to close it down.

      Then they can buy our protected forest lands and put in data centers and taco bells. You guys are SO dumb

      • CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca
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        2 hours ago

        Considering the rhetoric of the story, and the misinformation, I don’t put much stock into it. Yahoo has never been a source of biased information and I have no idea who the other source is, or who their sources are (Facebook?).

        • turmacar@lemmy.world
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          15 minutes ago

          The yahoo article is talking about a facebook post. The main article is talking about the USDA press release.

          The press release is talking about shuttering research facilities and “consolidating” them as if forestry research is the kind of thing that sits on a table and can be moved easily.

          It goes on to talk about reorganizing base on state level instead of regions and how this “strengthens federalism”. Those regions aren’t as arbitrary as state borders. The forestry service mission was split up like that because those regions have different needs. Colorado and Wyoming do not need separate forestry offices.

          Repeating points from a press release does not make a source unbiased, it makes them have the same bias as the source.

      • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Agreed.

        I’m wondering, when will your country stop using the dummy dollar for international trade? When will your country stop buying dummy weapons? Why do the dummies have a UN veto?

        When will your country stop enabling the dummies? That doesn’t seem all that smart to me.

  • kescusay@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    Not that it makes any difference anymore, but the Forest Service was created by several acts of Congress, and the president has zero authority to dissolve it.

    Since we live in a fascist dictatorship run by a dementia-riddled orange pedophile, I guess it doesn’t matter. But I still felt the need to point it out.

    • aquovie@lemmy.cafe
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      10 hours ago

      If you read the article though, it’s not as simple as being dissolved. They’re just massively reorganizing how it’s run so it’s dysfunctional and the original mission is lost. They’re letting states (industry) have dominating access and control over USFS policies and shutting down long running and irreplaceable research projects. Like RFK’s CDC, if you stop testing and gathering facts, you can then justify any policy you want.

      • quips@slrpnk.net
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        9 hours ago

        Can you provide a source for research being shut down? Only thing I’ve seen stated is research being moved to a centralized location, but nowhere has anyone stated whether any research is being shut down, and that would thus he speculation

        • aquovie@lemmy.cafe
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          9 hours ago

          They are closing the labs where the work is happening. You can’t just throw your experiment in the back seat of your car and drive to Colorado.

          And how can you centralize research when so much of it is location specific? It’s costs more money to fund “off site” long distance research on a temporary basis versus having something local and long term.

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        9 hours ago

        Luckily that reorganization is also illegal, and this will be reversed in the courts

        • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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          49 minutes ago

          and this will be reversed in the courts

          Eventually, after much of the damage is done and essentually irreversible.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          9 hours ago

          Yeah, but that will take months, and in the meantime, the offices are closed, people are out of jobs, research is interrupted and lost. 9 months from now, the courts will tell them it’s illegal, and they’ll just say, “So what?”

          They still get what they want anyway, so who cares if it’s illegal? It won’t stop until people start going to prison.

    • innermachine@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Let’s not forget it’s not all the orange baboons fault. He is surrounded by a gaggle of buffoons that itch to do his bidding, the checks and balances have been bought and paid for. This is a systemic failure of our government that has been guaranteed since big money got into lobbying. If not for big PACS and private donors trump would not be able to accomplish all the shit he has done. The wild dog has been let off the leash and any body that disagrees gets bit. Don’t give trump all the credit he’s not that smart, there are plenty of players in this game that makes it possible for us to get so utterly fucked. Remember this at the ballot box, and make damned sure every person you know does too. Let’s not forget voter complacency is partly to blame here, our country doesn’t fail us like this without our complacency.

      • timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
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        4 hours ago

        I like your last point. The American people long ago fell asleep at the wheel. We either gobble up propaganda and vote for his insanity or don’t think it matters and sit out. Chickens are coming home to roost.

    • Jiral@lemmy.org
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      11 hours ago

      Indeed, for that to matter, the US constitution would have to be enforced, against the executive.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    Comical at this point. Eventually people just stop following these “orders”.

    Rome fell when most of its population no longer saw its government as legitimate.

  • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Tired of this dystopian show. Can someone change the channel already?

    I hear the US has ~400 million civilian-owned channel-changers.