Tom Schultz is the first Forest Service chief in the agency's history who never worked there. Before his appointment, he was president of the Federal Forest Resource Coalition, a trade group representing companies that buy federal timber, and vice-president at Idaho Forest Group, a major lumber manufacturer. Now he is leading the effort to rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, a 2001 policy that limits development across roughly 45 million acres of national forest — precisely the outcome his former clients have lobbied for over two decades. The administration frames the rollback as wildfire management. Schultz called it "the best way to restore the balance, reduce wildfire risk, and secure the long-term health of our forests." The American Forest Resource Council — a trade association whose members include Idaho Forest Group — argued in formal comments that the "one-size-fits-all" policy blocks "active forest management." Schultz's official announcement used the same phrase. The Forest Service spokesperson cited studies showing thinning plus prescribed fire reduces wildfire severity by more than 60%, and up to 72% compared to untreated areas. The wildfire argument has a problem. A recent analysis of the Forest Service's own data, published in a peer-reviewed journal, found that wildfires were nearly three times as likely to start near roads. The Congressional Budget Office notes that wildfires on federal land average five times the size of those on nearby nonfederal land — but critics argue that reflects management differences, not road access. The AFRC counters that "millions of roadless acres have burned across the west since the rule's adoption in 2001" and that federal lands burn more than private lands, which typically have more roads. The lobbying trail is direct. Since Schultz joined the Forest Service in February 2025, the AFRC has spent more than $210,000 advocating to expand harvesting in national forests. Idaho Forest Group increased its lobbying spending in 2026 and reported advocating to support "efforts to advance forest management" — including with the agency now run by its former executive. AFRC spokesperson Nick Smith said the group's lobbying spending is "dwarfed in comparison to the many anti-forestry NGOs." Schultz is not an anomaly. He is one of at least 43 former fossil-fuel employees and 29 former corporate executives placed in Trump administration positions, according to an October analysis by Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project. Energy secretary Chris Wright was CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy. Interior official Tyler Hassen was an oil executive. The pattern is systemic: install industry insiders to dismantle the regulations their former employers spent years lobbying against. The stakes are ecological and irreversible. Studies suggest the rollback could put 400 threatened and endangered species at risk. Idaho already has its own roadless-area regulations and is exempt from the federal rule, but the proposal extends to the entire National Forest System. In July 2022 testimony before Congress as head of the Federal Forest Resource Coalition, Schultz argued that "nearly half of the National Forest System [is] off limits to management" — framing conservation as economic waste. What makes this case structurally distinctive is the closed loop. The industry lobbies for a policy change, funds the trade associations, places its executive in the agency, and the executive delivers the policy using the industry's own language. The wildfire rationale may have legitimate components — thinning does reduce fire severity in certain conditions — but the primary beneficiaries are timber companies gaining access to 45 million acres of previously protected land. The question is not whether active forest management has value. It is whether the person making that decision should be the industry's former lobbyist.
