When you think of the USDA, what comes to mind? Beef, the Food Pyramid, and other items of a consumable nature, but we bet trees weren't on your list.

Unlike its sister agencies in the Department of Interior -- Fish and Wildlife, National Parks Service, Bureau of Land Management -- which all manage federal land, the Forest Service was placed under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture when it was created over a century ago.

But these days the Forest Service (don't let the name fool you, it handles grasslands as well), is more focused on conservation than logging. So this month, the House Appropriations committee -- which is responsible for approving the budgets of both departments -- asked the Government Accountability Office to see if it wouldn't be more efficient and economical to put all of the land management agencies under one roof.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy. There is concern that the move would send the message to logging companies that, "national forests are to be preserved and enjoyed, not harvested and developed." Gosh, yeah, that would be a horrible idea, we wouldn't want Weyerhaeuser to think they couldn't log endangered owl habitats anymore.

This isn't the first time such an idea has been proposed. Since the 1970s there have been calls to consolidate the Forest Service with other agencies throughout the government to create a Department of Natural Resources.