FEBRUARY 28, 2025|
Photo – Tom Schultz – Courtesy USDA
In Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that Tom Schultz will be the next leader of the U.S Forest Service.
A University of Wyoming graduate, Schultz will oversee 193 million acres of forests and publics lands, including 36.6 million acres of wilderness. Schulz will replace Randy Moore, who announced his resignation as the agency head earlier this week. Moore will exit on Monday, according to his official announcement.
Schultz served as vice president of resources and government affairs at Idaho Forest Group, where he led timber procurement operations and managed relationships with government officials. He also served as the director of the Idaho Department of Lands, facilitating mineral extraction on millions of acres of the state’s public lands.
Wyoming’s congressional delegation welcomed the appointment while environmental groups expressed concerns.
“Schultz is the most recent industry lobbyist picked by the Trump administration to lead an agency entrusted with stewarding public lands,” the Sierra Club stated.
U.S. Representative Harriet Hageman described herself as “optimistic” about the appointment, saying that Schultz will put “local leadership over D.C. overreach.”
Wyoming Senator John Barrasso said he’s confident that Schulz “will be a strong leader to help restore our national forests.”
In the 1990s under President Bill Clinton, the Forest Service produced 12 billion board feet of timber annually with 30,000 employees. By the Biden Administration era, the same forests produced only one-quarter of that timber (3-billion-acre board feet) with about the same number of federal employees on the job.
Wyoming’s junior senator Cynthia Lummis also supported the decision saying that Schultz “will bring back balance to the Forest Service.”
The Sierra Club was clear in its unhappiness with Thursday’s appointment.
Anna Medema, Sierra Club’s Associate Director of Legislative and Administrative Advocacy for Forests and Public Lands, said in a statement on Thursday, “Schultz is the consummate logging industry insider. He’s not going to turn over a new leaf with this role but will continue to serve the interests of that industry as the head of the Forest Service.”
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Rollis took the opposite position, saying Schultz “will fight every day to restore America’s national forests.”
In addition to a master’s degree in political science from the University of Wyoming, Schultz holds a bachelor’s degree in government from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in forestry from the University of Montana.
