A new effort to force states to affirm the Trump administration’s views on DEI, transgender athletes and immigration when signing contracts with the U.S. Forest Service is threatening millions of dollars in wildfire grant funding and fire reduction projects on federal lands.

Some liberal states can’t sign the documents because the policies clash with state law, forestry experts say.

Already, at least one state is reporting that the new rules have stalled work to reduce wildfire risk and assist with projects on national forest lands. Other states say the requirements are so vague that they don’t know how to follow them. And some timber industry leaders believe the standoff could cut into their revenues.

“We’re kind of at an impasse,” said Washington State Forester George Geissler. “It’s already starting to slow down or shut down work.”

The update to the requirements governing federal partnerships comes even as many Western states brace for a brutal wildfire season, following a winter that brought record high temperatures and a paltry snowpack.

On Dec. 31, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins with little fanfare issued new general terms and conditions governing partnerships for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Spelled out in dozens of pages of fine print are new restrictions that require partner organizations to pledge compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

The new conditions apply to all USDA agencies, but the department hasn’t yet said whether it will enforce them for food assistance programs.

The agency, in a news release announcing the changes, framed the new terms as an effort to streamline regulations, protect national security and “eliminate radical left ideology.”

The Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service did not grant Stateline interview requests.

At the Forest Service, which is housed within USDA, the new policy applies to a wide range of grants and contracts aimed at reducing wildfire risk, restoring forest health and boosting timber production.

Forestry veterans say the new conditions have created an impasse with some Democratic-led states.

“It is significantly disruptive,” said Robert Bonnie, who served as undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment during the Obama administration. “It’s clearly targeted at Democratic states and Democratic partners.”

A coalition of 20 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in March, claiming that the restrictions are unlawful. The lawsuit has largely focused on federal food assistance programs provided by the agency, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program.

In an April court filing, Rollins said the new conditions had not yet been applied to food assistance programs, and that the agency had not made a “final decision” to cut off nutrition funding for states that don’t comply.

Forest Service programs

But the policy is already having an impact on some programs managed by the Forest Service.

Washington state has been unable to issue the latest round of Community Wildfire Defense Grants, a federal program that helps neighborhoods and towns reduce fuels and fortify homes in wildfire-prone areas.

Geissler, the state forester, said roughly 10 communities in Washington were set to receive large grants under the program, but the federal funding has been held up by the state’s refusal to sign the new terms and conditions.

“This is another example of the federal administration cutting off its nose to spite its face,” said David Perk, coordinator of the Washington State Lands Working Group, a coalition that weighs in on state forestry policies. “To add the additional layer of denying wildfire funding, that’s insult to injury.”

The stalemate also threatens work that the U.S. Forest Service increasingly relies on states and other partners to do in national forests. The agency has leaned heavily on tools, such as the Good Neighbor Authority, that enable state agencies to carry out wildfire mitigation, restoration and timber projects on federal lands. Many observers believe the recently announced Forest Service reorganization signals that states will play an even bigger role in the years ahead.

But now those partnerships are in jeopardy. According to Geissler, Washington state can’t sign new Good Neighbor Authority agreements due to the new conditions.

“We’re trying to sign off on agreements for another chunk of work, and we can’t get it signed,” he said. “If you are looking for work to be done by the state on federal lands, we’re not doing it. If we’re not able to sign, both sides lose.”

Washington state has spent millions of dollars on projects to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health on national forest lands. With the new ideology requirements, the feds are essentially turning away free help, said Bonnie, the former natural resources official. That’s especially damaging, he noted, because Trump’s cuts to the Forest Service’s workforce and budget have further diminished what the agency can accomplish on its own.

The Trump administration is “damaging their own constituents,” he said. “There are a lot of conservative voters in rural Washington who want to see partnerships that reduce the probability of extreme wildfire. This will stop that. It makes absolutely no sense.”

Washington state is still working on Forest Service projects signed under previous agreements. But without new agreements, work on the ground could stall in six to eight months, Geissler said.

State responses

Nearly 20 state forestry officials contacted by Stateline did not respond or declined interview requests, citing the ongoing litigation and the need to maintain a working relationship with the Forest Service.

But one timber industry leader said Oregon was facing similar disruptions that prevented the state from signing new agreements with the Forest Service.

“This will lead to reduced revenues for (state forestry agencies),” Nick Smith, public affairs director with the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, said in an email to Stateline. “As partners, our industry will be impacted if it disrupts or cancels current or future timber sales under these contracts.”

While most state forestry officials have been unwilling to publicly comment about the situation, several have filed legal declarations in support of the multistate lawsuit challenging the new terms and conditions.

Scott Bowen, director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, wrote in a declaration that his agency has more than $87 million from active grants with the Forest Service. Those grants cover wildfire response, forest health, invasive species, urban tree canopy and revegetation, among other issues.

“If these funds were withheld, DNR would have to shut down critical capabilities to assist rural communities with fire preparedness and response,” Bowen wrote.

Bowen added that the Forest Service has already said one program, a grant to protect environmentally important forests from being converted to a nonforest use, will be subject to the new terms and conditions.

In the lawsuit, many state officials said that the new compliance requirements are so vague that they’re nearly impossible to follow. Several of the legal declarations note that the new conditions do not explain what it means to “promote gender ideology,” a practice the Department of Agriculture now seeks to ban.

Many states also objected to the agency’s requirement that no one in the country illegally obtain “taxpayer-funded benefits.” Josh Kurtz, secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, noted in a declaration that it would be impossible to confirm that grants to reduce wildfire risk, expand urban tree canopy and improve forest health do not benefit Marylanders who lack legal immigration status.

Kevin Hood, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a nonprofit that advocates for public employees, said the new terms are aimed at directing a greater share of federal funding to Trump’s political allies.

“You’re going to see a bifurcation where you’ll have red states getting grants and blue states won’t,” he said.

‘More questions than answers’

In March, the National Association of State Foresters sent a letter to Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz expressing concerns about the new terms and conditions. Jason Hartman, the group’s president and the state forester of Kansas, described a chaotic situation.

“To date, the (Forest Service) has not provided adequate guidance or interpretation of the new (terms and conditions),” he wrote. “National-level meetings between State Foresters and the Forest Service have resulted in more questions than answers. State Foresters around the country have been given differing instructions and interpretations in different geographic locations.”

Hartman noted at least one instance in which a timber sale totaling 80 million board feet was held up by the new conditions. (That’s enough to build roughly 5,000 homes.) He asked the Forest Service to delay the effective date of the new conditions until the agency could provide more clarity.

He also outlined another set of issues causing problems for states. One major complication, he said, is the requirement that states receive federal approval before issuing any subawards or contracts. That has created a massive bureaucratic hassle, he wrote, in “direct conflict” with the Forest Service’s reliance on state partnerships to cut red tape.

The new terms also require environmental reviews for projects to be completed before partnership agreements can be signed. But Hartman noted that states often assist in those very environmental reviews, which they won’t be able to do if they can’t sign the agreements first.

Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris also noted that issue in an email to Stateline, saying she expected the Forest Service to update the environmental review section soon.

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

The U.S. House approved, 224-200, a five-year farm bill Thursday as members of Congress attempt to update major agriculture and nutrition policy after three years of extensions.

The bill would authorize subsidy and nutrition assistance programs through fiscal 2031. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated an earlier version of the bill would not meaningfully affect discretionary federal spending over an 11-year window, and would add $162 million in mandatory spending over the next six years.

Most Democrats opposed the bill, but 14 voted in favor. Three Republicans voted against. Six members did not vote.

The Democrats in favor were: Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Jim Costa and Adam Gray of California, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Sharice Davids of Kansas, Donald Davis of North Carolina, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Kim Schrier of Washington, Josh Riley of New York, Darren Soto of Florida and Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico.

The Republicans who voted against were: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Andrew Garbarino of New York and Harriet Hageman of Wyoming.

Few policy changes

Because Republicans’ massive spending and tax cuts law last year made major changes to some U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, mainly the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that helped about 1 in 8 Americans afford groceries in 2024, the farm bill passed Thursday was a “skinny” version and relatively short on major policy updates.

The bill would still have to pass the Senate, which has not yet introduced its version. 

Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, cheered House passage Thursday and said a Senate text would be released “in the coming weeks.”

“This is an important step toward updating long-overdue policies that support our farm families and strengthen rural communities,” he said of the House vote in a statement. “We’ve put more farm in the farm bill through the Working Families Tax Cuts (the GOP spending and tax cuts bill), and this legislation builds on that success.”

New authorizations needed 

Farm bills are typically written to last five years. But Congress last approved a version in 2018. Extensions of the 2018 version were enacted in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

House Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, said the measure would still meaningfully update farm and food programs.

“It is more evident than ever that rural America needs a new farm bill now, not next year or next Congress,” he said. “Producers are operating under the third consecutive farm bill extension and the simple truth is the policies of 2018 are no match for the challenges of 2026.”

Agriculture Committee ranking Democrat Angie Craig of Minnesota opposed the bill, saying it did not address any of the pressing issues that farmers and SNAP recipients face. The bill does not help alleviate the rising costs farmers face from President Donald Trump’s tariffs and “locks in the $187 billion cut” to SNAP in last year’s spending law, Craig said.

“It doesn’t fix any of the underlying policy choices by Republicans and this administration that caused the problems in the first place,” she said, adding that  continuing the SNAP cuts put “more pressure on struggling Americans at a time when the cost of groceries and healthcare continues to grow.  

Craig said Thursday morning that the measure could have helped corn farmers by including a provision to allow gasoline made with 15% ethanol available all year. The product, known as E15, increases demand for corn, but has been limited in summer months because of the pollution it can cause in high temperatures. 

Thompson responded that the committee would consider a separate measure on year-round E15 in mid-May.

Local food, foreign food aid oversight

The bill does include some new provisions.

It would authorize $200 million for a new local food procurement program, to be used largely by food banks. 

It would move authority for foreign food assistance programs under USDA from the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development. 

It would raise the limit that individual farmers could borrow from USDA and expand rural development programs that fund substance abuse and mental health services.

Members voted Thursday morning for an amendment that removed a controversial provision to shield pesticide producers from legal liability to warn users of a risk of cancer. If it became law, the provision would have mooted a case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this week related to a Missouri jury’s award to a user of Monsanto’s popular Roundup weedkiller who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“Going to make hunger worse”

Several Democrats slammed the bill, but seemed to take more issue with the “big beautiful” law Trump signed last July 4. The farm bill, Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern said, would not counteract the changes in that law.

“We are considering on the floor a five-year farm bill that, quite frankly, does nothing for our farmers and screws over poor people and maintains the nearly $200 billion in cuts to SNAP,” the top House Rules Committee Democrat said on the House floor Thursday. “It is going to make hunger worse in this country.”

Thompson said Democrats were too focused on what was not in the bill, rather than the provisions that enjoy bipartisan support.

“Today, you will hear some opposing comments made that this is a partisan bill and even more on what’s not in the bill,” he said at the outset of floor debate. “This bill is filled with good policy that is also overwhelmingly bipartisan.