WASHINGTON — Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., challenged President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget request for the U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday, calling it “counterproductive” to the agency’s mission and a “huge blow” to forest health.

Overall, the administration’s budget for the Forest Service, submitted to Congress last week, remains relatively flat at $4.835 billion in discretionary spending, a reduction of more than $29 million from last year. Of the agency’s discretionary funds for 2014, $2.04 billion — roughly 42 percent — is dedicated to fighting forest fires.

By decreasing timber harvests and cutting the amount of hazardous fuels treated, the budget works against the Forest Service’s goal of sustaining healthy forests, Wyden told Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. By defending his budget before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Wyden chairs, Tidwell became the first administration official to testify before Congress on the president’s 2014 budget.

“My view is this (budget) will make it tough to get the timber cut up, restore the forests and set back the fight against wildfires,” Wyden said.

Congress enacted the Healthy Forest Restoration Act in 2003 authorizing $760 million a year for reducing hazardous fuels, but the administration’s budget only calls for $201 million in 2014, he said. This represents a 37 percent reduction from last year’s $317 million.

“Year after year, this work has been underfunded,” Wyden said. “It is absolutely key to work to reduce the severity of fires, and again the budget is moving in the wrong direction.”

Tidwell said the budget makes difficult tradeoffs between programs while focusing on a long-term goal of restoring forest health and supporting jobs and economic growth from the 193 million acres of national forests nationwide.

“I know you have some concerns about the amount of some of the budget’s line items, but overall, I believe this budget request is a good investment,” he said.

The amount dedicated to fighting fires represents the average annual cost of wildfire suppression from the last 10 years, he said.

Tidwell conceded that budget restraints have limited the Forest Service’s choices. Thanks in part to mandatory budget cuts contained in sequestration, the Forest Service will have 500 fewer firefighters, and will have to rely on more “call when needed” resources to fight large fires, he said. Those resources may come from other states, the military or Canada.

Since 1998, Forest Service staffing is down by 35 percent overall, including a reduction of 49 percent for forest management, he said. To make smaller budgets stretch further, the Forest Service has increasingly looked for ways to be more efficient. Now, when the Forest Service performs an environmental impact study, it does so for hundreds of thousands of acres at a time instead of small parcels of one or two thousand apiece, he said.

But Wyden noted the Forest Service has reduced its 2014 target for timber harvest to 2.38 billion board feet, a 15 percent reduction from the 2.8 billion board feet called for under the Forest Service’s restoration strategy. Wyden touted the collaborative efforts between communities, conservation groups, the timber industry, tribes and other stakeholders, such as the recent success in Grant County that kept open a sawmill in John Day. But overall, there have not been enough projects to increase the timber harvest, he said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the committee’s ranking member, said the Forest Service’s new budget seems better suited for the National Park Service, with its emphasis on recreation and tourism. From the outset, the country’s national forest system was designated for multiple use, which includes the utilization of the forests’ natural resources.

“Our national forests are increasingly being managed like national parks, areas in which no timber harvesting is permitted,” she said. “The Forest Service must return to its multiple-use mission. The economic viability of hundreds of communities located next to national forests depends on the responsible production of our timber resources.”

Murkowski wondered aloud whether the Forest Service had outlived its usefulness, and whether “multiple use” had become a catch-all phrase intended to mask the administration’s true intent to limit timber harvests. When describing its energy policy, the administration uses “all of the above” to hide its preferences of some sources over others, she said.

Tidwell said the national forest system contributed $36 billion to America’s gross domestic product in 2011 and supported almost 450,000 jobs. The use and treatment of the national forests proscribed by the president’s budget reflect what the American people want from their public lands, he said.