President Donald Trump is set to open the new office of the US Forest Service, which manages land in the American West, with a $150 million budget to support the growth of the timber industry.
Trump has already set aside money to help revive the timber business and has promised to revive the logging industry to meet the needs of a growing middle class.
The president announced in December that he was seeking to open up a $3 billion office in Idaho, Utah and Nevada to support timber production in the West.
The White House said the office would include the office of senior forest policy adviser and deputy assistant secretary, which has been the responsibility of the previous office of secretary.
The office is slated to begin operating by the end of the year.
Trump announced a year ago that he would give the Forest Service $1 billion to help expand logging in the US, according to a February press release.
The Forest Service is responsible for managing and maintaining land in western states such as Montana and Wyoming.
The agency has been in a state of disarray since Trump took office, with the resignation of the former secretary, Kathryn Cramer, and the resignation last week of the acting director.
The bureau has struggled to meet a projected budget of $12 billion, the second highest in the nation, according an analysis by the Environmental Working Group.
The administration has proposed $1.6 billion in additional spending, according the Sierra Club.
The Office of Forest Management was created in 1921, when the federal government established a national forest management program that gave the Bureau of Indian Affairs the authority to set and manage national forests and streams, according a White House release.
In an October press release, the agency said it was looking to modernize and expand its services, including to help timber producers and to address the needs and priorities of American timber producers.
The new office will be responsible for planning and managing land for timber production.
A spokesperson for the office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In December, Trump appointed former Forest Service administrator and former US senator Mark Meadows to head the office.
The announcement came after a flurry of recent news about timber industry layoffs and the collapse of a major lumber industry contract.
The company that runs the Idaho Logging Company has announced that it is moving the production of a 1,000-foot-long and $15 million-dollar timber dam on the Missouri River from Washington State to the Oregon coast, according reports.
The decision follows a long-term effort by the company to move its entire production from its current location in Idaho to Oregon, where it has invested in a new timber processing facility.
A decision to move the timber production to Oregon was made in December, according Reuters, and there are plans to start production of the dam by early next year.
