{"id":22421,"date":"2025-06-12T21:50:30","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T01:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/?p=22421"},"modified":"2025-06-13T10:14:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T14:14:05","slug":"merkley-trump-firefighting-reorganization-plan-literally-playing-with-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/es\/merkley-trump-firefighting-reorganization-plan-literally-playing-with-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Merkley: Trump Firefighting Reorganization Plan \u2018Literally Playing with Fire\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br>Washington, D.C. \u2013 Today, Oregon\u2019s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the subcommittee that oversees funding for the U.S. Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service,&nbsp;released&nbsp;the following statement after President Trump issued an executive order directing the agencies to reorganize and consolidate wildland firefighting efforts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cInstead of focusing on preparing for fire season&nbsp;and directing all energy to&nbsp;actively respond to wildland fires on the ground\u2014like the Rowena Fire in Oregon\u2014President Trump is telling the agencies responsible for keeping us safe to instead make it their top priority to move ahead with a&nbsp;hasty,&nbsp;poorly planned reorganization of their agencies. Congress has not authorized or provided funding for this consolidation and telling the agencies to do this in 90 days, at the height of summer fires, is literally playing with fire that will only burn our communities.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cAs Ranking Member of the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, I\u2019ve been sounding the alarm over&nbsp;moving forward on&nbsp;this proposed consolidation with the heads of the Interior Department and Forest Service, urging them to work with Congress as the law requires. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had even promised to do so, and his complete and total failure to do just that raises legitimate questions about his commitment to keeping our communities and public lands safe&nbsp;versus enlarging the department he manages.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cThe Trump Administration is once again acting with a blatant disregard for the law and constitutional separation of powers.&nbsp;We cannot trust an Administration that is jeopardizing our wildfire preparedness by firing staff, threatening to cut funding from state, local, and volunteer fire departments, and intentionally managing by imposing chaos and fear, to improve federal wildfire response,&nbsp;and I\u2019ll keep pushing for Congressional oversight over these reckless actions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">###<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, D.C. \u2013 Today, Oregon\u2019s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the subcommittee that oversees funding for the U.S. Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service,&nbsp;released&nbsp;the following statement after President Trump issued an executive order directing the agencies to reorganize and consolidate wildland firefighting efforts: \u201cInstead of focusing on preparing for fire season&nbsp;and directing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":18847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[105,36,110],"class_list":["post-22421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases","tag-appropriations","tag-natural-resources-and-rural-development","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - 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