Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Cal of the Wild Ep. 392: A Public Lands Update with Mark Kenyon

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Cal of the Wild Ep. 392: A Public Lands Update with Mark Kenyon · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: is Col's Week in Review with Ryan col Kallan. Here's Cal.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Hey all you Col's week in Review listeners, Cal the wild.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I feel like there should be like a hour hour
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: there or maybe at this point in time with the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: state of current events. Uh, what's the last last song
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: that they played on the Titanic?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Uh?
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Anyway, Celindian, Oh God.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: A hero for women of a certain age. That buttery
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: smooth voice is Mark Kenyon of the Wired to Hunt podcast.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: And you are probably paying attention to Mark these days
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: because he's putting out a lot of really fantastic, well
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: researched conservation news through all of his channels. It's much appreciated.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon is currently residing in the Great State of Idaho,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: working on a full time move over there. But Mark
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: and I just got done with a really spectacular trip
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: to the Alretic National Wildlife Refuge. We're like crazy, spoiled
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: kid stuff asked to join a trip up there. Literally
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the job was just to come see it. And spoiler alert,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: if you want to start an extractive business, you shouldn't
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: go see this place, because if you do you wouldn't
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: do it like it's just it's it's a hard landscape
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to walk away from and think it doesn't matter. But
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get into that. We're gonna talk about the
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: roadless Rule, We're gonna talk about where we are right
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: now with the public lands, fight in the Senate, and
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: probably a bunch of other stuff. So Mark Kenyon, happy
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: to have you on the show. What's happening? Man?
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I'm happy to be here too, And you're right,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: there's no shortage of stuff to talk about. It seems
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: like every day there's some big new piece of news,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: there's some twist in the story. So so yeah, we've
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: got our hands full here, as does everyone who cares
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: about these things.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: And everyone is caring about these things. I one of
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the most. I was full, so like riddled with anxiety
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: on that trip. I tried to give that trip away
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: to everybody we know, even though I my sales pitch
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: is like I desperately want to go on this trip,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: but I just can't swing it. Please go on this
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and tell me all about it, And nobody took me
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: up on it due to you know, family re unions
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and I don't know, kids being born and things like that.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: So but I was so riddled with anxiety over the
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: state of the potential loss of public lands that I
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: didn't want to be disconnected from the world for a week,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: which is the exact opposite of how I am all
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the rest of the time.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: I think what we learned, though, Kel was that maybe
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: you and I need to take off for these trips
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: more often, because in the five days between when we
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: left and went off grid to when we came back,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: a lot happened that was, you know, largely positive, wouldn't
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: you say?
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean it was like a light switch all
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, like flipped and that feeling of like
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: shouting into the void like hey, this is happening. You
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: can make a difference. You got to get active. This
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: is real, and people being like, well, it's a nice
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: day of fish. That kind of switched over to like,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: holy shit, it's in my backyard. Wilderness Society released those maps.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: That was a huge, huge catalyst, I believe, because all
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, people were like, oh my god, hunters
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: love reading maps, right, They're like, this is real. I
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: recognize some of these spots. We just came out of
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: a BHA board meeting, one of our board members, James
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Brandenburg from Arkansas, was like the spot where I learned
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: about public lands. They were on a family road trip
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: to Colorado. The kids needed to stretch their legs. They
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: went out and they were hiking around. They kept seeing
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: these signs being like your public lands, your public lands.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: And one of his kids was like, Dad, what what
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: is public land? And he had to google it?
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Right, And ever since then he was like, I cannot
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: believe we have this and have access to this, And
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: ever since then has been like kind of an evangelist
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: for public lands. That spot is up for sale, right,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: and thousands and thousands of stories like that, because the
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: sales pitch had a Senator Mike Lee is like, oh,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: these these places aren't iconic landscapes. They don't matter. They're
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: low bounden variety, garden variety. Right. And to somebody who
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: doesn't leave DC and only cares about the machinations of
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: the federal government and how to divest people of something
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: so valuable to the rank and file of America, they
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: don't matter, right, And that's that's like a hard thing
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: with certain people. Is this particular individual Senator Mike Lee
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: out of Utah, like he is a true believer in
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: the fact that land is only valuable once it's lost
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: its ecological value, like the things that people who care
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: about hunting, fishing, wide open spaces care about. Once those
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: things are gone, then that land is living up to
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: its true potential, which is, you know, producing income. But
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: you know it's like where the where do we get
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: our food?
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so many, so many questions there. I felt the
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: same way that when I saw that map, because I
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: saw a mountain that was right next to the mountain
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: that I killed my first elk. I saw a piece
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: of national forest where my kids had their first backpacking
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: trip ever. I saw the place that I went for
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: a trail run the day before I saw that map,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: So that definitely hit home.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: For me too.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: It's amazing the breadth of possible lands that were, you know,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: up for grabs in that sale. Now it does sound
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: like things are changing now, hopefully, but I'm sure we'll
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: cover that in more detail. But there's a lot in
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: flux right now, and largely because of I mean, there's
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: some rule type stuff that's dictating some of this, but
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: then there's also no doubt about it, like public pressure
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: is making a difference right now.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're seeing the things that we know to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: be true, but for whatever reason, we'ren't being talked about
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: out in the open, which is this stuff belongs to everybody,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: It matters to everybody. And what I'm seeing is the
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: belly of the bell curve of America sometimes pot bellied
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: belly of the Bell Curve of America is saying, oh,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: that stuff matters, it's ours, It is benefiting America as is.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: And as we talked about a lot, right like, this
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: is the stuff that families can access, that people can
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: access before after work or over their lunch hours. It's
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the stuff that you can quickly get to for a
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: short weekend. And what happens when all that front country's gone?
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: What happens to the back country. We just penned a
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: letter on behalf of hunting specif Businesses that release today.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I think we're calling it like the Hunting Brands Hunt
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Brands Coalition, just stating like the clear economics of what
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: will happen to hunting industry brands, This includes firearm ammunition
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: manufacturers if we lose access to places, right and it's
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: like every season is somebody's first season and somebody's last season.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I put in terms of bird dogs, like you're bringing
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: on a new puppy and you're doing that last retirement
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: hunt with an old dog. Then that happens every season.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Every season is critical and when we remove access, like
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: we know, this is not hyperbole, it's an absolute fact.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Access is the thing that brings people in to hunting
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and fishing, and it's the thing that closes people out.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: It's the thing that makes people hang up their waiters
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and shotguns straps and say, you know what, it's too
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: much of a pain in the ass anymore. So it
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: impacts all around man.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: And I think that's that's a big part of why
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: this has been you know, this is broken out of
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: some of the usual patterns that you see when it
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: comes to some issues related to public lands or wildlife
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: for the environment. We're starting to see people speak out
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: on this, but maybe traditionally haven't. We're seeing some brands
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: and some individuals who maybe have been you know, resistant
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: to criticizing some of the things happening in recent times
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden saying okay, yeah, this is this
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: is something we all need to speak out. And so
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: you're hearing pushback on this from you know, Republicans, Democrats,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: and everyone in between. I mean, this is as bipartisan
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: of a pushback as you could ever ask for. And
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: I view that despite a lot of the stuff being
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: really concerning, the one silver lining I see out of
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: this is that it's showcasing the influence and the impact
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: that we can make when it comes to you know,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: standing up for public places, wildlife, wild places. That the
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: impact we can have when we do this across the
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: party divide. When when when we can kind of bridge
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: the gap between left and right or hunt and fish
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: and you know.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Ari I crowd.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: When these parties and groups come together on some stuff
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: that we have shared interests in, you know, we can
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: change things, We can move the needle. And that is encouraging.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: It is and I think you know, Republican elected officials
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: are starting to understand that if they sit back and
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: let Mike Lee represent the entirety of the Republican Party,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: that's not a winning strategy. No, that's a losing strategy.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: And for everybody else there is a version of this
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: where if you didn't speak up over and over and
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: over again, we were going to lose something. Right, So
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the yeah. I mean there's a lot of versions of
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: this right, And we talked in the conservation space, and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: that's like conservation organizations as well as individuals, motivated individuals
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: who are willing to speak out about this stuff and
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: catch some heat for it. Right. It's pretty funny how
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: this conversation turned from like an anti Trump conversation to
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: a pro hunting, fishing, public land, public access, outdoor recreation argument,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: which big shocker. Everybody across the political spectrum is in
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: favor for right, like we need our access, we need
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: our open spaces. It's it's been interesting to see how
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: this this ball has moved, right.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so kil do you think you do you want
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: to get folks up a speed on what has just
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: come out as of last night or this morning, at
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: least as of us recording this, because you know, while
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: we were in Alaska, the you know, the Senate version
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: of the bill became wildly understood by folks. That's when
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: really the opposition became kind of viral when we came back.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: When we got back, we.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Got news that senators from Idaho were coming out against it,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: you know, some continued public comments of opposition from your
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: senators there in Montana somewhat. And then just last night
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: slash earlier this morning, we got another piece of big news.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Is now the time to kind of explain that.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we we can do that. We need to talk
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: about like the fun, amazing stuff of the Arctic National
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Wildlife Refuge too. So yeah, very succinctly, the Senate is
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: in the balls in the Senate's court as far as
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: like the budget game. So all your state senators are
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: working on their individual pieces of this budget pie. How
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Senate Energy Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Mike Lee had
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: put together a plan Mike Lee slid in his public
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: land sales provision, which was dumping gasoline on a raging fire.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Very divisive. It's becoming more and more clear that there
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't room for compromise on this. It also turns out,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: as of last night, it was determined to be in
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: violation of the bird rule, which it is the bird rule,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: but I think just for fundsies, it's when things are
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: subject to the bird rule, it's referred to as the
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: bird bath. And you know, I'm not an expert on
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: this one, but essentially what it is is when one
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: party controls the House and the Senate, you need fewer
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: votes to get things done. It's like a easy ticket
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: to ride. The Bird rule comes in to make sure
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: that things can't be passed because there is this concentration
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of power that aren't specific to the budget process. So
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: it's super efficient because the Republicans in this case have
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the House and the Senate. But that's not like a
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: ticket to steal type of thing, right, can't just jam
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: everything in because you're conveniently passing something like the budget.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: So in this case, Mike Lee's public land sell off
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: was found to be in violation of the bird rule
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: and that as well as Ambler Road were removed. It
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: was leaked that they were removed last night. It was
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: confirmed early this morning, and that's great. However, it's not
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: done yet. None of the language is set. We haven't
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: seen the text yet. Yea, And right now Mike Lee
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: is running around like his head's on fire and his
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: ass is catching as the man one said to try
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: to make as many allies as he can on revised
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: language of land selloff. So he kind of went for like,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: to any reasonable person, what would be like the whole Enchilada,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: millions of acres of public land being sold to a
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: much smaller version where he's trying to make possibly primarily
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Bureau of Land Management lands only for sale within a
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: certain radius of previous or previously existing infrastructure, towns, municipalities,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: which is a more reasonable approach, so reasonable in fact
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: that through FLIPFA and flip MA, those types of land
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: sales are already provided for YEP and FLIPFA and flip MA.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to bog people down in acronyms,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: but the big thing that you need to know is
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: these are small documents that are basically put together to
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: tell the American taxpayer what the value is of that
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: tract of land, so we know if we're getting a
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: fair deal by selling it off. And then in those
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: provisions that cash the revenue generated from those sales would
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: go back into finding land replacement land, possibly not of
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: equal acreage, but of higher strategic value. So Mike Lee
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: is just trying to get his dream accomplished at the
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: expense of the American people. What he says this is
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: for is already provided for in a way that the AMA,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: our con taxpayer, has already voted on. We've already signed off,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: stamped on, it's been subject to public approval, and it's
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: one of those things. It's not perfect for everybody, but
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the American voter approved of this, and it passed, and
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: it exists. The legal framework exists, and it is not
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: in this budget process where revenues do not go back
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: to the American people, they go into this empty freaking debt,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: void bucket that not a single person on the planet
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: or in the United States of America will ever feel
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: it is gone and we will not see the benefit
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, certain words, I know, but I mean,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it's it is just the freaking reality kids, A little appropriate.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: I gotta ask you this question, though.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: So in the tweet that likely sent out recently overnight,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: I think it was talking about the changes he's going
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: to try to make in his new version to try
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: to pass the bird rules. Yeah, he mentions, as you
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: alluded to, he's going to remove all of the Forest
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Service lands from the sale.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, Mark, you missed some key language there. He said,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I won't sell our forests. And when the hell did
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Mike Lee start considering any of this public land as ours?
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: That is funny, that's funny.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: He's conveniently trying to become a user now, right, which
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: there's an amazing This is a total of off topic,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: but there's a great article that does a deep dive
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: into how the state of Utah hired a PR firm
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: to help them develop their language in their strategy for
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: pitching the land sale or land transfer movement, and part
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: of it was using language from Randy and other people
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: in the hunting industry and nbha yeah, and like analyzing
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: it to learn Okay, this is how they're talking about,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: how do we use their language and kind of co
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: opt that language to get those same people to believe
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: us instead.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: Can you believe that shit?
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean we've been talking about
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: it for a long time, right, So, I mean we
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: got to remember, like the Utah part of this started
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: with a case that they tried to expedite to the
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court, Yeah, to steal our BLM land.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, so.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but let me get to this.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, So he says they're going to get rid of
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: the Forest Service lands in the sale, they're going to
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: significantly reduce the amount of BLM land to just lands
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: within five miles of population centers. But here's the one
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: that gets me that I'm just curious about if you
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: know anything about this, He says they are going to
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: in this new version, they're going to establish freedom zones
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: to ensure these lands benefit American families.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: But the hell are freedom zone?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: So freedom zones come from this like tech world. God,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: there's kind of like some libertarian notion here, there's kind
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: of some yeah, I mean, it's kind of like rooted
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: in anti government, but like freedom cities were a buzzword
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: under the previous Trump administration, and that that's where that
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: language comes from. So basically it's like an autonomous zone.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Ask the city as Seattle how that worked out for
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: tech folks with big money to come in and do
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: whatever the hell they want. But their pitch is it's
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: going to be like, you know, the ultimate city because
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: it's built, you know, by tech oligarchs. Basically they use
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: different words, if you can imagine that.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: So that sounds terrific.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And and what's amazing to me, right is I
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: you any contractor any contractor in any of these states
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: could sit down and write a reasonable affordable housing development plan.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: And that is one thing we have not seen this
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: dude do. So if it's about affordable housing, where is
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the affordable housing plan like it is doesn't exist because
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: that is not what this is about. Why because that
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: is already provided for. Like Biden sold off some big
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: chunks that actually got sold ultimately sold under Trump, but
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: that was something that was rubber stamped under him, you know,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: back in Oh gosh, I want to say the seventies,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: we have the another Nevada version of flipfah, and then
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: you know what, a lot of folks because it is
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: political and therefore full of screw us and rage is
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: you know, part of Harris's plan had she been elected,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: was to continue some sales in Nevada. Right, However, those
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: are done under the legal framework that already exists in
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: a way that has way that actually has benefit to
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the American people.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: And some guardrails.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Right, Yes, yep, absolutely.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: A lot happening right now and a lot still TBD
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: right like we're waiting to see the real final language
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: of whatever this new version is. We're waiting to see.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: You know, I know that Ambler supposedly struck out of this,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: but there's possibly new language around stuff from the Western Arctic,
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: and if we still don't know about Arctic National Wildlife
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Refuge stuff yet, all sorts of news on so many fronts.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is the the thing. It's it's
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: a game of whack a mole political strategy, Like you're
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: not going to be able to get them all. The
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: reason that we bring up boundary waters, Artic National Wildlife Refuge,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or what is it, National Petroleum Reserve, National.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Control Reserve, Alaska, Yeah.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Alaska, Yeah, Oak Flat. All you know, all these places
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: is because they're incredible and specifically where you and I
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: were at, Man, Like, where the hell is ducks unlimited
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: on that? Oh?
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: I know, I mean there's Yeah.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So the Arctic Plane is a giant nesting ground and
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: literally birds from all over the world. And when I
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: say all over the world, every place other than Australia
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: will come and stop over on the Arctic Plane. All
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: fifty states, in all fifty states. This is a duck
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: and goose production factory. It's one of those places that
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: is so far flung, it's it's out of sight and
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: out of mind. However, like my observation is, man, pretty
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: damn easy to get there. I left Missoula, Montana, like
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: seven to fifteen pm and was up in the Brooks
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Range at like three pm, Alaska time the next day. Yeah,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: so it's inconvenient, but it's right there too, like you
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: can get there fast, and it's staggering, it's beautiful.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Would it be helpful for me to give like a
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: very fast rundown of like what this place is history
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: wise and scale?
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man, because I feel like even the man with
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: the folder.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: The man with the full I literally do have like
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: a forage thick binder that we got on this trip
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: that I'm very excited about. But yeah, so so this place,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: the Arctic National Wilafe Refuge, it was established.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: In nineteen seven.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: Can you hear that?
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Dog?
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: I can't here snort?
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, trace, Oh no, keep this in phil That's called discipline,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: all right.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: So the Arctic National Wilife Refuge.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: It was originally established in nineteen sixty by the Eisenhower
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: administration by way of many years of folks advocating for it,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: folks like Oloffs and Marty Mury, who are well famed
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: in Wyoming. In many parts across the country, Eldo Leopold
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: advocated for Bob Marshall advocated for it. A whole bunch
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: of folks that are pretty well known in the conservation
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: world still to this day. But nineteen sixty was officially
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: created and it was made about about nine million acres
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: were established as a refuge at that point to be
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: protected for wildlife habitat. Fast forward another twenty years and
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty the Carter administration had this huge bill passed.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: It was the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act, I think,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: and that is what established many of the national parks
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: and wildlife refuges and willderness areas in Alaska. And what
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: that one does, it doubled the size of the refuge,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: so it was now about nineteen million acres as of
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: nineteen eight But they had to make a kind of
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: a little compromise concession there to get that bill passed
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: on that front. And what it did is that it
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: set aside a big chunk of the refuge is wilderness,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: but a one point five million acre section of it,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: known as the Coastal Plane, was to be studied for
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: future decisions on whether it should be preserved as wilderness
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: alone or if it could be open to oil extraction
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: in the future. And so that one point five million area,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: the Coastal Area, or some people referred to as the
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: ten oh two. That is what I'm sure we'll get to.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: That's this kind of contended part of the refuge. And
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: to your point, you know this nearly almost twenty million
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: acre piece of public land, it's i think the second
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: largest piece of public land in the nation, second to
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: only the the Western Arctic. That National Petroleum Reserve Alaska
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: that's the largest. This is I think the second largest.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: As you mentioned, the Coastal Plane is a duck and
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: bird factory, migrator birds from all over the world. The
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: largest caribou herd left in the world is here. There's muskos,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: there's polar bears, the largest inland denning site, the most
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: inland denning sites in Alaska exist here for polar bears.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: There's grizzly bears.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Wolves, muskos, dimensioned muskos, and lord knows how much else.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's vast, it's huge. There's the Brooks Range
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Mountains as you mentioned, and then this Coastal Plane ecosystem,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: so several very different kind of landscapes that provide this
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: diversity of habitat that leads to the vast wildlife. And
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: the final thing I'll say is that people often refer
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: to this as the American serengetty, like, this is our
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: version of the African serengetti. This is this vast ecosystem
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: where there are huge, sprawling herds of wildlife still migrating
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: across the landscape. This caribou herd moves something like twenty
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: seven hundred miles a year as it travels across the
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: refue huge into Canada and back. So you know, we've
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: got something on scale here, on par here with anything
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: else in the world. And it's pretty amazing that to
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: your point, that that's here in our country, that's you know,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: to some day accessible to us as Americans and man,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: like you said, we were just spoiled kid lucky to
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: get to see it and experience it ourselves. But it's uh,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: it it met and maybe exceeded all expectations I had
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: because it's somewhere I've I've read about, I've watched films about,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: I've dreamed about for years. To finally see it in
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: the flesh was.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: A transformative I had, like two you know, very like
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: emotional points, like I have literally constructed my life with
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: many sacrifices relationship wise, uh, financial wise, uh, over the
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: course of my life to stay outside as much as
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: possible and and be in wild places. I'm easily impressed.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: But the Brooks Range I was told ahead of time
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: by a good backpacking buddy of mine, Old Brad Brooks,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: that it was one of the most impressive places he's
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: ever been, possibly the most impressive place he's ever been.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: And I was really blown away. But there are two
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: times where I literally had, you know, knots in my
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: guts and just like a heavy emotional thoughts. Which one
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this in reverse order. One was flying
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: from our first camp, which would be in general terms,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: would be on a southern portion of the Porcupine caribou
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: herd migration. We flew literally on the same path as
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: the caribou that we're coming through camp, over several mountain
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: passes to what I would call like the Gates of
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: the Mountains, where a short hike from Camp number two
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: brought you onto the coastal plane. And if anybody's been
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: in eastern Montana driving west towards like Glacier National Park,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: we talk about the rocky mountain front or the front,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: and it's this severe landscape where it is high prairie
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: and then it just hits these wall walls of mountains,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: and this is is similar that not the same, but
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: very similar. And on that flight, following these ancient caribou paths,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I just didn't expect the valleys to keep going. Like
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the scale and complexity of the landscape was so much,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: so immense that you know, when I've spent a ton
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: of time in the frank Church and the Bob Marshall
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: here in the lower forty eight, and they're hemmed in
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: by like man made boundaries. Right, It's like, got Highway
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: ninety three on the east side. He got Hell's Canyon
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: on the west side, but there's all these highways and
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: dirt roads in between. Highway twelve to the north. You
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: got you know, civilization, Stanley, Idaho is like the little
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: tip of the frank down there on the south end.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: And then the Bob Marshall Wilderness has just like a
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: brutal complex checkerboard of private land on the east side
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: that's getting worse and worse and constricting access. You got
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Glacier National Park on the norst west side, Mariah's Pass,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: you got the Mission Valley that's populated. You got the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Blackfoot Corridor that's a huge recreation corridor, essentially like it's
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: rung with people, right, And I can look at those
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: maps and be in those places, and I spent a
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: ton of time in there, and they're they're beautiful and
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: immense on their own, but they are peopled. They're way
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: more people than we were. And I can look at
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: those maps and be like, oh, yeah, I can hoof
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: it out of here, I can hunt it this way,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I can break it up in these ways, flying through
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: those mountains and looking at the way that each valley
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: didn't end like it it kept turning and twisting and
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: going on out of sight or culminating in this giant
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: glacial ice cap in a mountain to climb that led
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: to another valley. It just kept opening up and getting
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: bigger and bigger and bigger. And it wasn't rung by civilization,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: like there's points of contact, there's airstrips and small communities
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: in an ocean, but you couldn't walk out of there.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: And where I started to just kind of get panicky
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: and sad is the fact that I looked at that
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: stuff and it was so it was calling me right,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: like I wanted to go there. I wanted to explore.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: I wanted to see it all, and as a forty
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: two year old man, it was just smacking me in
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the face that I could spend the rest of my
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: life up there and not scratch the surface. And the
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: reality is I could be born up there and live
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: it and breathe it every day and not scratch the surface.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: But it was conflicting because I was like, Oh, I
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: shouldn't even start, I shouldn't even be here. It's too good,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: It's it's too awesome. I you know, it was like
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: it was just just a lot to take in and
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I just haven't had that feeling before. And then the
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: other time that like I just had a what the
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: hell type of moment. Was we hiked up to that
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: peak above Gamp and I and we were aware of
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: this gimmick, right, this this for sale sign that Lily
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: and our crew had brought up specific for this point,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: but she was pissed about having to haul it up there,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: and and nobody liked the idea, and it was a gimmick.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: And and we climb up onto this peak and we're
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: looking around at this onspiring landscape and I throw up
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the binoculars and I look down at camp and I'm like, oh,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: the for sale sign is up and she had brought
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: like your cookie cutter white vinyl for sale sign, Property
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: twenty one, Remax name, whatever real estate company you can
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: think of. They use those signs. They're ubiquitous, you know them.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: You see it, you're like, oh, that is a for
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: sale sign. That's a real estate sign. And she has
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: got this thing staked out, and I just, you know,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, Lily's got the for sale sign up.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: And then I kept looking at it and I was like, Oh,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: that really makes me feel something here, and it's I
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: think for me, it was like a mix of betrayal
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: and certainly pissed offedness, but I think mostly like betrayal,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: and maybe that comes from like a lifetime of of
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: underappreciating public lands. And then all of a sudden you're
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: slapped in the face with like, oh, yeah, they're gonna
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: take it away. You just saw this briefly, but we're
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: gonna sell it, right. And then we hiked off that mountain,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: got back to camp and that for sale side still up,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: and those feelings didn't go away. If anything, they got
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: more complex and stronger. But it was just like an unexpected,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: very visceral, real reaction to something that wasn't a surprise,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Like we knew that the gimmick was going up, we
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: packed it with us, but then seeing it on the
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: landscape was horrifying.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: What made it feel a whole lot more real. I mean,
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: this proposed all these and it's.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Not like this is new.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Different versions of this have been proposed repeatedly over time,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: but now this latest one seemed even more threatening than ever.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: And then to see a place that's so amazing, and
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: then to see that physical representation of this god awful
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: idea right there. Yeah, I mean it's like hits you
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: in the face, attention grabbing. And I don't like it either,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: that's for sure.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: I did not, you know, the.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Emotional moments scale. I had one of those two, and
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: I felt the same two things you mentioned. But I
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: had another really strong moment for myself, which was when
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: we got to camp too, which is the one that
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: you described there that was near the coastal plane, and
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: we all set up our camps and then kind of
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: people went off in their own direction. You went off
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: looking for a moose paddle to the south. I headed
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: to the north, and I climbed up on top of
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: this knob that was right on the edge of the
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: coastal plane, and I'm up there by myself, about three
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: miles from camp and got to really see the coastal
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: plain for the first time. And so you could see,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: like you mentioned this like big wide, open grassy plain.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: You can literally see twenty twenty some miles all the
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: way to the Arctic Ocean. You can see the pack ice.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: It's like all this huge frozen white pack ice expanse
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: across the ocean there and then to either side, to
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: the east and west, you're just seeing this never ending
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: grassland and you can literally see I mean, I don't know.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: I knew it was like twenty two or twenty five
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: miles to the ocean to my north, and I could
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: see at least maybe three times that far to the
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: east or west, so I don't know, sixty seventy eighty
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: miles maybe more to the east or west. And as
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: far as you can see it is this unbelievable wild
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: expanse that you know is populated by caribou and muskos, bears,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: all the things that we talked about the beginning. And
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: I remember just sitting there and just being so in
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: awe of that landscape, so appreciative that we still have
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: a place like this, but then also so simultaneously struck
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: by the very real possibility of that changing in the
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: relative short term. And this is the first time in
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: my life that I've been somewhere where I could see
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: something so tangibly that might be dramatically different in a
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: number of years. Because this coastal plane, as I mentioned,
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: that's the one point five million acre section that they've
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: debated over the over decades about whether or not to
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: open that to oil leases. And in this reconciliation bill
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: right now being debated, if it were to pass as
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: the language is in there currently, it would mandate opening
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: the refuge to oil drilling. It would fast track that process,
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: and it could lead you know, as we talk to
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: these people who have you know, deep experience with us,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: it could lead to in a matter of a handful
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: of years, this wide open, incredible wildlife habitat becoming vastly different.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: In five years, maybe if this passes as it's written
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: right now, we might go back there in five years
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: and see instead industrial quarter built across the plane. You know,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: oil rigs, gas flares, you know, housing for workers, semi trucks.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: Lord knows what else. I mean, this just unbelievable. Wilderness
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: resource could be dramatically different. And I sat there on
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: top of that mountain looking down on that thinking, number one,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: this is amazing. Number two I want my children and
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: other future generations to be able to experience this, and
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: number three the real slap you in the face reality
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: that that might not be possible. And as I sat
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: there and contemplate all that, I had very real, a
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: very real emotional response.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: Daunting.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: It was it was both inspiring to see what's there
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: now and really discouraging to consider what might be there someday.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: And I've never seen that contrast so starkly and in
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: such a real way right in front of my face
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: like I did then.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: It was It's almost like, you know what I was
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: saying about Every hunting season is a little puppy bird
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Dogs first season or old bird Dogs last season, and
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: it's like we were having both of those seasons at
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: the same time.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: That's a great one.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: It's like, here's this place. Even if you come back,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: you'll never see it the same way again if this
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: development goes through. And folks, I'm a total realist. I
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: burn a shitload of gas, so much of my life
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: comes out of the ground in one way or another,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: as does yours. The fun fact is is we don't
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: need these resources, not right now. They are safely underground,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: and ultimately one of the most valuable resources underneath one
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: of the most valuable resources this planet has right now,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: which is wide open space that hasn't been developed, like
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: this is something that is only going to go up
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: in value forever and ever, and the world at large
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: is losing these landscapes at an incredibly fast rate, like
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: we don't understand the value of these places. Not in
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the context of our time here on this planet. I
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: can confidently tell you that I mean. Just one fun
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: fact to noodle on is once the snow and ice
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: melt has run off all the fresh water up there,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: of which there is an unbelievable amount, and it's tasty,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: it takes It's a thousand year old water by the
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: time it bubbles up to the surface out there on
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: the Arctic plane. So the water that seeps in, leeches
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: in to the tops of those mountains and gets down
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: into the aquifer is a thousand years old, thousand year
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: old snowflakes and rain drops by the time it bubbles
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: up on the surface of that plane, So you're literally,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: you know, drinking the water that fell on some poor
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: hunters shoulders a thousand years ago, got brushed off a
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: muskox back a thousand years ago, which is wild to
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: think about. And if you can put things in that context,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: there's so much more that we obviously do not know.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're dealing with timelines on landscapes that we
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: just don't quite have the capacity to understand right now.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: So I push back on the development of these places
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: because I think, or maybe naively want to believe that
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: if we keep working on our development technology that one
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: day we'll be able to extract from these reserves when
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: we absolutely need them and in a way that does
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: not impact the landscape, certainly not in a way that's
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: going to like quite literally kill off the last remaining
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: healthy caribou herd right or untold amounts of migratory birds.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: And that's the thing.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Cal's like, even if we were to, like to your point,
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: we have we need resources, we need these things. I
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: understand that, but aren't there some places where maybe it's
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: not the right place at the right time to do it,
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: especially these last pristine few places, which, to your point
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: are are one of the rarest resources left and will
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: only increase in that value. You know, as I understand it,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: there's somewhere between like six and ten billion barrels hypothetically
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: underneath the coastal plane, which I'm going to get the
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: SPECIFICUS here wrong, but I think I remember reading something
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: like that would only account for enough oil to be
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: used in the United States for six months to a year, and.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Those we don't know that, right, it is it's hypothetical.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: We don't know what those reserves are. The speculation is
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: that if it was really worth getting it already would
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: have been got at this point. And just the exploration
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: practice is pretty brutal on the landscape as far as
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: the impacts of the great term here thumper trucks going
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: across the tundra and doing the seismic readings to determine
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: what's in the ground. And so I mentioned the infrastructure
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: needed to support people doing the work, and then the
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: reality is like this stuff where it's at has got
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: to be subsidized by the US government in order to
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: make it profitable for the companies that want to do
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: the extraction. So it's it's like robbing Peter to pay Paul,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: and nobody has been able to explain this to me
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: in a way that it actually makes sense fiscal or otherwise.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: If you can man Guest number one at the top
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: of the show, I would love, love, love to learn
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: more and hear it. But that's the whole point of
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: doing these moratoriums. In my mind. The Boundary Waters moratorium,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: which is something we need to talk about too, is like,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: it's a twenty year moratorium. Show me use that twenty
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: years to show me a better plan that's not going
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: to have tremendous downstream effects that would negate any sort
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: of fiscal positive. You could pull out of this project
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk about it. Then.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: You know, well, because with all these things kel especially
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: up in the Arctic, it's it's a short term resource
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: extraction opportunity in this case hypothetically, but.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: A nearly forever impact on the landscape.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: So it's it's not one of those things that you
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: can like, well, yeah, we'll do it for a little
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: bit and we'll.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: Turn it back to how it was.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: That's just not possible, and so you're you're getting a
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: short term benefit at the price of an extremely long
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: term cost on those other fronts. That's that's a really
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: questionable swap as far as I'm concerned.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, man, Absolutely, the reasoning for the the time line
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: right like doesn't exist. I don't know what the what
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: the what the rush is for.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and it's funny.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: It almost seems like every every everything we've read so
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: far and talked to folks have, you know, said, they've
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: echoed what you just mentioned, which is that the economics
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: of drilling in this particular place right now are just
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: not there, Like, it doesn't make sense from a financial perspective,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: but politicians continue to pursue it regardless. And it almost
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: seems like it's become more of like a trophy, like
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: a political football thrown around, and folks just want to
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: open it up and make it happen to to say
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: they did it, or to spite the opposition, to inspite
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: the you know, the greenies or the environmentalists or whatever
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: you want to call anyone that supports this area. So
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: it feels almost spiteful in that way. Given all of that,
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: and like you said, like if they were to do it,
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: there's there's rumors and talk of well they're you know,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: if this gets past, the government will simply subsidize and
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: or you know, influence even foreign companies to invest and
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: do this kind of stuff just because they want to
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: get it done, even though it's not profitable. So yea,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: for so many reasons. It seems like a bad idea
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: to me, even more so now that we've actually experienced
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: what it's like now.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Absolutely and you know, it's those economic facts right of
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: that landscape is tremendously valuable. It's only going to go
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: up in value as is. There's already gosh, I can't
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: remember how many businesses. There's already already a lot of
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: businesses up on that landscape operating for different industries and capacities,
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: including what we'd call recreation, right like flying people in
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: to check birds off the bird list, hunt all sorts
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: of species, uh, climb ski uh, pack raft raft fish.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: And those dollars that are collected and then redistributed by
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: the local businesses are recent are recirculated on average between
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: three and five times. And whereas the extractive industries when
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: they go in there, the bulk of that wealth is
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: is literally shipped off with the oil like it's those
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: are extractive dollars that do not circulate over and over
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: in those communities. And when you you try to balance
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: out the wreckage that landscape is going to cause and
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: the timeline in which the profitability will be in effect,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: I guess you'd say, it just paints like a really
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: bleak picture of like what the hell of our goals are?
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, here's the thing kill I've you know, I
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: know you've dove into this a lot yourself, but I've
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: read like extensively into the history of our public land system,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: how we got these places, all of the conservation history
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: that led us to this point, and every you know,
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: every decade, every single year since we first established the
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: early parts of our public land system, every year since,
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: there have been debates and arguments over the same set
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: of issues. The same idea is, like we want to
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: take out resources or we want to conserve these places,
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: and the same general things have been argued over and
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: over and over and over. When you look back at
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: every one of the battles within this fight that conservationists
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: have won, every one of these places we have been
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: able to protect in some kind of way or conserve
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: in some kind Every single one of them. You look
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: back on it now, and folks look back on it,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: they say, repeatedly, oh my gosh, how did we ever
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: consider losing Mount Deinnali in that area. Oh my gosh,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: we are so lucky that we still have the area
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: around the tongus.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: They were trying to raise it to the ground. They
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: were trying to, you know, just cut every single thing that.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, how lucky are we that we have
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: the Bob Marshall Wilderness or Glacier National Park. Can you
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: imagine life without Yellowstone or all these different places. Back
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: at the time, there were so many business interests that said,
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: this is crazy to set this side apart, this stuff apart,
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: This is a land grab, this is nuts. You guys
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: are crazy. We need to take the resources. We need
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: to extract the oil, we need to cut the timmer,
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: we need to do whatever it is. And they painted
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: the conservationists or preservationists as nut jobs. But then fifty
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: years down the road, you look back and everyone says,
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: thank goodness, we protected this spot. It's so valuable, it's
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: so special, it's so worthwhile. And I think that's going
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: to be the case now. These last few places that
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: we have, like this, We're never going to get them
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: back if we sacrifice them now and fifty years from now,
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: when my kids are, you know, raising families of their own,
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: they're going to look back on this and they're either
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: going to say to themselves, man, I'm really proud of
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: my you know, my dad and his friends and his
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: you know, cohort of people in that generation who stood
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: up and protected these places that now in twenty seventy
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: we still have around and people can appreciate and value
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: is so so special and rare. Or they're going to
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: look back on this to say, geez, they they took
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: their foot off the pedal. They didn't live up to
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: Roosevelt and Pinchot and Grennelle and Leopold.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: I don't want that to be the case.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: No, no, And I don't understand why there's like this
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: attempted fire sale on our natural resources right now, when
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: it's evident, like the world over, so much of our
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: models of extraction, land use, and land management are so
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: highly regarded, and right now it's like we're trying to
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: tear them down. When you bring up the tongus, right,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: it's like we got to talk about the roadless rule,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: which you should probably take the lead on this one.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: But for folks who don't know, the roadless rule pertains
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: to like I think it's fifty eight or fifty nine
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: million acres of ground in the US, and that rule
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: has been an impediment to certain extractive industry, is mining
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: and logging being really like the top two. I will
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: point out that I had a buddy that used to
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: work at Mitas Gold. They're out of Yellow Pine, Idaho,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: and we used to roll up there for the Yellow
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: Pine Harmonica Festival. If you've never been, it's pretty darn sweet.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: Used to have a honor bar so you could grab
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: beers out of the fridge and stuff some cash. Anyway,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: they would they were in a roadless area that mine,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: but they would when the price of gold was high enough,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: they would just mine with helicopters so that they would
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: roll cruise in with helicopter, drop everybody off, do the work,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: and then take the or out and the personnel at
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: the end of the day via a helicopter. So rollless
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: rule didn't stop everything, but it did force industries to
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: to extract in other ways and sometimes much more costly.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: But Mark, do you want to want to tackle the
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: roadless rule.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So starting in the nineteen thirties, kil folks like
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: Elder Leopold and Bob Marshall started looking at our National
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: Forest Service lands and saying, wow, they are getting carved
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: up to pieces right now, the last few places that
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: we have. Even in the nineteen thirties, they were beginning
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: to realize this, these last few places that do not
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: have roads provide this unique value that probably should be
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: protected now because everything else is getting very quickly kind
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: of developed in one way or another. So starting then,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: they began a process within the National Forest Service of
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: inventoring the last remaining roadless areas, and they started designating them.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: There was like L two and L one lands within
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: the Forest Service were kind of like de facto wilderness.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: Those areas were kept track of and getting some special
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: protections until the sixties when the Wilderness Act came into play,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: and that is when some places within the Forest Service
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: and other public lands were designated as like Capital W wilderness,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: which meante no motorized vehicles, no development, et cetera. But
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: then there still were other lands, specifically within the Forest
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: Service that were inventoried as roadless but not yet protected
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: with Capital w wilderness protections, but they still were unroaded,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: which you know, roads bring with them a lot of
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: different detriments when it comes to like wildlife or experience
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: or ecosystem impact, stuff like that. The Forest Service has
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: nearly four hundred thousand miles of roads that it has
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: created so far, which I believe makes it one of
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: the largest road managers in the world, I think is
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: what I remember hearing so tremendous amount of road construction
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: they've done to this point. In two thousand and one,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: a rule was created called the Roadless Rule, which had
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: been advocated for a whole bunch of decades leading up
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: to that, basically saying, all right, these last chunks of
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: forest lands that we have national force that do not
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: have roads yet, let's keep those last places unroaded because
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: we already have four hundred thousand miles of other roads
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: crisscrossing and carving all this other stuff. Let's leave these
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: last few places in a slightly more protected place, so
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: that yes, there are you know, hundreds of millions of
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: acres of lands that are accessible by road, that are developed,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: that are utilized for resource extraction or easy access recreation, hunting, fishing,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: all those kinds of things. But this sixty million acre
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: chunk we will have in this state will let this
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: area remain in this unroaded state so that you do
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: have that kind of experience and those places still, you know,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: available for wildlife that do not respond well to roads,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: typically like you know, grizzly bears, elk, all these things
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: would prefer to be in unroaded areas. So since two
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: thousand and one we've had that, and it is you know,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, these are the places that many of us love.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: These are the places that many of us hike into
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: for elk hunting or backcountry fishing trips.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Or yeah, specifically four on the map.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, these are these spots like if you
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: are a diehard elk hunter or a mule deer hunter
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: or anything like that, I mean, these are usually.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: The best of the best.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: And as of yesterday now, the administration has announced that
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: they are going to roll back remove the roadless rule
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: and open up this nearly sixty million acres to new
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: road development and all the other things that come with that.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: It's a huge it's a huge deal. I don't think
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: a lot of people understand that. But this is this
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: is not that this is almost like saying we're going
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: to roll back the Wilderness Act because the roadless Rule
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: has created to some degree a close approximation to wilderness
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: for sixty million acres and removing that is a massive
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: thing that I'm not sure the average everyday person is
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: aware of because it just doesn't get talked.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: About a lot.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: But I sure hope folks learn about it now because
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: this is a big one.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: It is a big one. It is a big one,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: And do you know where we're at on that. I
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: know there's gonna be like and already are a lot
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: of lawsuits on this announcement, but I'm not clear on
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: whether or not, like we have a chance to comment yet,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: other than you know, asking our senators and representatives to
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: push back on this again.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: So so I'm not one of this, but my assumption
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: would be that right the announcement came out yesterday, I
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: believe they're gonna have to put some text around this,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: which then will have to be eventually released to the
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: public register. And once it's released to the public register,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: I think it has to be open to comment. So
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: at some point there will be a public comment period
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: on this proposed rule change. We'll have an opportunity to
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: weigh in. Not to what degree they take our comments
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: into you know, account, you know, that's questionable, but at
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: least there will be a chance to weigh in on this.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: And then, yes, I think there's gonna be a lot
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: of litigation. I think there'll be some orgs suing on
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: this one. But because it is an administrative action, like
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: an executive administrative action, this isn't anything that you know,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: Congress can help us stop or anything like that. This
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: is this is a the administration wants to do this thing.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: They're going to start changing the rule. They're going to
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: propose that, they're going to put it out there, and
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: then unless you know, the court system can stop it,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: it'll happen.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, well, uh, Secretary Bergham and Secretary Rawlins I,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: I I'd like to see their plan, Like have they
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: thought about this one? Are they familiar with what it is?
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: Do they know the why? Like, tell me the why?
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: You know, obviously we use a lot of timber in
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: our lives too. I'm gonna need the math on what
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: exists in these areas, the juice and the squeeze argument,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: just to just put it in context. Right.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, you know, we've been down this road before.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: If you if you look at what happened in the
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds when there was no
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: there were no guardrails on you know, taking wildlife and
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: selling it or you know, developing mines or oil fields
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: or you know, logging timber or doing anything. When when
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: there were not regulations, when there weren't some kind of
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: guardrails in place, some kind of moderation in place, what happened.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: It's the tragedy of the commons, is what folks referred
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: to it as we just we use this stuff till
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: it's gone. Everyone races to get their peace, and it
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: ends up decimated. That's why we lost passenger pigeons, That's
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: why we almost lost buffalo. That's why so many of
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: our wildlife populations came just to the very brink because
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: a quote unquote wild West as we kind of know
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: of it now, like an unregulated you know, race to take, take,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: take that doesn't work in the long term. And now
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: what folks.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Seemed also to do in the nineteen sixties and nineteen
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: seventies when much of this four hundred thousand miles of
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: road was built. It was the government that built those
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: roads for the timber companies, right, in order to make
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: it profitable enough for the timber companies to go in
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: and harvest that timber. True, right, And here in the
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: era of Doge and something that we talk about on
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: fire management is we it's like, well, the free market's
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: going to take care of that. So is that is
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: the free market going to protect us from the fact
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: that you can't build, maintain a road into these areas
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: and extract the timber and make it pencil out. Because
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: we know for damn sure living here in Montana that
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: this idea of people taking unmarketable fuels out of the
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: forest in the name of wildfire management is something that
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: you pay for, not get paid to do, right, Like
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: there's no market here in the West for the products
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: that you get for timber that's under four inches in
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: diameter and brush. So yeah, I don't again, I need
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: need somebody to explain it to me. Mark, you got
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: you got time for one more one more thought? Yeah?
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you want my thought or you have a question
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: for me?
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: No, I want I want your thought here, Like, let's
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: let's uh end on positive. What do you suggest folks
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: do well.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: I think the one big positive from this whole thing
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: is something we talk towards the beginning, which is, despite
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: all of this news, despite a handful of knuckleheads who
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: want to tear this thing down that we have, it
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: does seem that we still have a voice, especially when
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: we work across parties, when we work across demographics, when
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: we work across you know, recreation type of choice, when
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: the hunters and the hikers, and the Democrats and the
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: Republicans and the environmentalists and the conservationists and the Montanans
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: and the Massachusetts folks, when we can, you know, realize
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: that we really care about ninety percent of the same things,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: and we work together towards protecting or advocating for the
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: those things.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: We do have.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: Some say, still we can, we can still be heard.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: We can put the fire to the feet of some
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: of these folks who continue to push some of these
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: you know, short term gain ideas that will hurt.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: Us in the long term.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: I think that it proves that our phone calls, our emails,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: our messages, our visits to the capital or to the
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: state capital, or our signs that we hold up in
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: front of the capitol building whatever it is, it all
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: can help, it all can make a difference, and we
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: just got to keep on, keep it on. This isn't
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: going to be like, oh we want it today. This
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: is going to be I think something we're going to
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: have to continue pounding on for a while. But it
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: is not fruitless, it is not hopeless. We can make
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: a difference and we are and we can keep on
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: doing so if we keep it up.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: Well said man, well said, we got to wrap it up.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: I'll just throw in if you're waiting to pay play
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: party politics. By weighing in on an election cycle, you're
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: basically saying that you're willing to give up everything until
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: that election cycle starts. So if you're not participating right now,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: you're just a bum in my eyes, and you're not invested.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: That's the reality where we're at. Like your conservation stamp
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: is a great thing, paying for your licenses and tags
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: is a great thing, But right now it's not enough.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: You got to use your voice too, show up, play
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: your part, make phone calls, make those staffers and those
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: senators and representatives' offices know your voice and like you
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: so they become an advocate for you. It's not that hard.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: They're real people such as you are, and start playing
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: in this game. You owe it to yourself and everybody
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: around you if you really really do give a shit.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: So also hit the old BHA Action Alert Center. We've got,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: as of this recording, over one hundred thousand people that
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: have clicked that button and either called or emailed their
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: representative or senator. And being able to point to those
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: numbers is tremendously valuable when you're up there lobbying on
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: the hill. So I appreciate you as per usual. Right
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: in to ask c A. L. That's Askcal at the
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: Meat Eater dot com. Let me know what's going on
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: in your neck of the woods. If you got something
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: good to say on this one for old Mark Kenyon,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: you can hit him up directly, or you can hit
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: me up and we'll have him back on this this
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: show to address those questions. Thanks again, We'll talk to
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: you next week. Thanks Mark,