Democrats sound alarm on Interior reorg's impact on wildfires, land management

Plans to consolidate federal firefighting will inflict harm both to fire suppression efforts and other operations within the Interior Department, congressional Democrats warned on Wednesday, as staffing and other resources are siphoned away to a new agency.

The Trump administration stood up the U.S. Wildland Fire Service earlier this year, creating a new agency within Interior that will subsume wildfire responsibilities from the department’s existing components. The administration is looking to further merge firefighting operations currently within the Agriculture Department’s U.S. Forest Service into the consolidated agency, but Congress has instituted roadblocks to the effort and the agencies have not yet announced a timeline for the change. 

Still, the Trump administration is pushing forward with its plans without the necessary congressional approval or funds to do so, lawmakers who serve as the top Democrats in the House and Senate committees that oversee and fund Interior said. They demanded that Secretary Doug Burgum immediately halt the creation of the new fire agency, saying the resulting reductions in staffing and lack of wildfire coordination could have “life-or-death consequences.” 

The administration has failed to share with Congress how decoupling land management agencies from wildland firefighting will enhance communication or better protect lives and property, the lawmakers said. 

Agencies like the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will see their operations dramatically impacted, they added, and the administration has yet to detail a plan to address those disruptions. BLM, for example, has shed thousands of employees since President Trump took office, and removing all workers related to firefighting would mean an additional 3,000 employees leave the agency. 

“Further reductions in staffing, combined with improperly severing wildfire management from land stewardship, will undermine the agency’s capacity to manage landscapes proactively,” the group of 11 Democrats, led by Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said in a letter to Burgum, adding BLM relies on an “integrated workforce” of land managers, scientists and field staff. 

They said NPS could see a diminished capacity to protect park resources, BIA could fail to safeguard tribal lands and FWS could struggle to protect National Wildlife Refuges or animals in fire prone areas. 

All of those agencies have also pushed out significant portions of their workforces over the last year.  

“Mismanagement of fire management has life-or-death consequences and places billions of taxpayer dollars at risk,” the lawmakers said. “Suppression alone cannot be the sole strategy for addressing wildfire, and swift structural changes that undermine planning, prevention, preparedness, and recovery will only worsen outcomes.”

Trump last year issued an executive order tasking Interior with creating the wildfire agency by merging firefighting activities within that department and USDA. The president has since signed into law, however, a fiscal 2026 appropriations package that denied any funding for the new agency after Trump had requested $6.5 billion for it. Additionally, in a joint statement accompanying the bill, lawmakers specifically blocked the USDA-Interior firefighting merger. Congress instead required a study into the feasibility of Trump’s proposal, including how it would differ from the current leadership provided by the National Interagency Fire Center.

In their letter, Democrats reiterated that Interior must participate in the study and that any Forest Service transfer would require “explicit congressional authorization and approval,” regardless of that study’s findings. 

Elizabeth Peace, an Interior spokesperson, said last month the department “fully complies with all applicable laws and appropriations requirements" and it had so far only announced planning and coordination internal to the department without creating any new, independently funded agency.

“Interior is well within its authority to evaluate how its internal programs are organized and to take steps to improve coordination, efficiency, and operational effectiveness,” Peace said. “No new funding is being obligated, and no structural changes requiring congressional authorization are being implemented at this stage.”

The Democrats requested wide-ranging information on the changes, including what roles specifically will be shifted, whether any employees will be relocated and if their pay structure will change. They asked for information on branding for the new USWFS agency and how the department will pay for uniforms, equipment and vehicles. Agencies within Interior rely on “collateral-duty positions” that are partially funded by fire accounts and the lawmakers asked how those employees, and “the scientific, public engagement and land stewardship functions they support,” will remain funded and operational after the consolidation. 

They also demanded information on future reporting structures, who will make final decisions, how lines of communication will take shape and who will manage plants and materials on federal lands that fuel wildfires. 

"The department will continue to work with Congress and respect congressional direction as this internal planning effort moves forward," said Peace, the Interior spokesperson.

While Interior maintained no new funding was being obligated and no structural changes requiring congressional authorization were part of the announcement, Burgum in his order creating the agency provided USWFS with programmatic authority, positioned it within the Office of the Secretary and tasked his team with “taking appropriate steps to provide funding for USWFS.” He directed all bureau heads to take all necessary actions to transition their resources and workforces to USWFS, as appropriate.

Burgum is also overseeing another consolidation into his office: Interior is in the midst of moving thousands of back-end employees—such as those in human resources, contracting and IT—away from their bureaus and into the Office of the Secretary. In the appropriations bill, lawmakers instructed the department that any shift of more than 10 employees required Interior to go through the formal reprogramming process.