Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 090: The State of the Union

Transcript

Ep. 090: The State of the Union · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: severely bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening. Don't
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: eat podcast. You can't predict anything presented by first light.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Go farther, stay longer, down to our main thing. Uh,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: what I have heard? I feel like I've even heard
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you say your last name differently on different occasions. That's
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: probably not true, I hope not so, Fosberg, So you
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: do do the Z. Most people probably stay Fosburgh, Yeah,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: because you know, there's sometimes you got the s and
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: sometimes to see Yeah. So with Fosberg respond to both.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: You you don't, you don't correct, you just roll with it.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's why I feel like I hear different versions
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of UM. You've been with Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership for
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: sometimes seven plus years two thousand, so from that perspective,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and you had if you right now had to grade us,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: if you had to grade us as a nation at
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: this very moment, not not the history and all that,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: but just like this very moment as a nation, how
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: we're doing with UM wildlife and wild lands conservation. What
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: would the grade be pretty good, really actually would be yeah,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: because you know, jeez, let's just let's just put these
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: microphones down. Yeah, yeah, nothing to talk about. Think about
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: where we are compared to any place else in the world.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: And it may not be as good as we wanted
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to be, and it may be sliding a little bit
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: right now, but in the big scheme of things, you know,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: we managed wild life better than any other nation in
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: the world. We got more public lands to hunt and
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: fish and play on than any other nation in the world.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Our water is cleaner or air is cleaner. So I mean,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: there's a lot to be thankful. I mean people always
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: look at the dark excited and think that, you know,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: climate change, think you know, with the public land development,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever the issue is, that the sky is falling.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: But and we can serveainely, you know, drift back where
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: we've been. But let's not lose the fact that, you know,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: we got something great here, you know. I in my
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: better moments, I find myself telling people that, um, that
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: you live in the good old days right now. I'll
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: tell hunters a fisherman that, because I'm like, the thing
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: you want to imagine is you may like look at
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: your dad right and be like, oh, it's not as
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: good as but nonsense, Yeah, it's way better. My dad
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: came into My dad came into hunting coming out of
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: World War two and the forties, and it is way better,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: way better. I mean, you think about backt the time
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: when you know Theodore Roosevelt created the modern conservation system.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: You know, there were barely any white tail deer left.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: There were almost no black bears, you know, elk or
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: a fraction of what they are today. Bison, We're basically
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: being decimated. You know, I never saw a wild turkey
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: growing up in up state in New York, and all
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: was in my thirties and I'm fifty five now, so
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we have things today that we've
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: never had before. Now there are some big challenges, but yeah,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: we got a lot of good stuff. What I kind
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: of want to what do I want to do mainly
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: is sort of one. I want to imagine like a
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: stroll around the country and hear from you what things
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: you're looking at, what things you're concerned about, you know,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: from from from just sort of like I said, just imagine,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: like however you want to do it, like the east
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: to west or a circular walk around the country. And
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: then I want to ask you just about some specific
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: issues that are big issues that are just things that
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: seem to never go away. UMI, which is those which
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: which those you want to first do, Well, why don't
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: we do the you know, the stroll across the country
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: and what do East west? You know? I think that
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: there are you know, some you know, pretty significant issues
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: and we're facing the east, and we talked about some
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of them at dinner. I mean things like, you know,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: on the Upper Delaware system, the invasive not weed that's
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: coming in there. This, you know, just change that entire landscape.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: So we sort of take invasive species for granted. Sometimes, Yeah,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: you have things like you know, in my upstate New York.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a beach blights killing all the mature
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: beach and pretty much all the mature beach are gone,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't kill him enough to get rid of
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: you all together. Instead, you have these immature, young beach
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: coming up every place, and the deer don't like them,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and they outcompete all the other hardwoods. So you don't
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: like them because they're not producing mass. Well, they don't
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: produce mass, and they don't eat the buds. I mean
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: they will if they're starving, but they like everything else better.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: So we're having as this sort of conversion of our
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: forests in the Northeast to this beach diseased, immature beach monoculture.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: And the only way you're gonna deal with that is
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: get in there and actively manage it. And we're not
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: doing much of that. The outer ondecks where I you
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: know hunt is, you know, much of that is forever wild,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: hasn't been cut since the eighteen eighties and uh, you know,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: which is beautiful and it makes for a really cool
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: habitat and sort of the mosaic of private land and
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: public land. But the downside is over time those four
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: sort of convert, and when they do convert, you're gonna
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: have this immature beach you know, nests that comes up
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: that's not ecologically rich in anyway, and we're gonna have
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: to deal with that. So you have these forest management
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: long term, and they really relate to these invasive pests
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: that have come in that are changing the ecosystem up there.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: We have more time talking about non natives and invasives.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's just like it's everything's everything is undersult
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I think the only tree in the Northeast that does
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: not have some sort of invasive parasite coming is a
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: red maple and you know everything else see, and we're
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: losing our an ash forest because the emerald ash borer.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a hemlock, you know, the woody a
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: delpha or whatever it is. You have a white pine
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: blister rust, you know. So you have these things which
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: have come over from Asia or Europe or you know,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the species have evolved with it, but over here we haven't.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And so it's gonna have big impacts. And so I
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: think that's one of the challenges we're seeing in the northeast.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: If you move a little bit further south, well, let's
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: let's back up to that government just because, uh is
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: it known? Like is there a thing we could do
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: if we had the motivation and money to do it?
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, any one is you know a lot of
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: it you don't have to deal with right now because
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: it's when the four start to convert, you know, that's
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: when we're gonna have the problem. But like, you know,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: we have a property there are we hunt we've had
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: been in the families to eight hundreds and it's about
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: five thousand acres and you know a bunch of the
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: families own it together. But yeah, we're you know, any
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: when we do a lot of timber harvests there, but
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: we are basically, you know, anytime we're cutting beach, and
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: we're cutting a lot of beach, you know, we're hitting
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: it with you know, herbicides afterwards to try to knock
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: it down and give the other hardwoods there are softwoods
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: a chance to come up and and and we're having
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: some pretty good success with that. And there's a lot
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of research going on at you know, Syracuse and Cornell
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and some of the other institutions in New York about
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: how to deal with us. But in everyone hopes it
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: over time you'll have sort of the beach will figure
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: out how to deal with us themselves, but that hasn't
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: happened yet. You know, the same thing with you know, chestnut,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: which was once the dominant hardwood in the eastern United States,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: and they're gone and you know we're probably never gonna
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: get them back. Yeah, there's been a lot of research done.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: There's a chestnut foundation that's developed a what appears to
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: be a resistant strain, but you're just never gonna have
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: it the way it was in the old days. So
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I think that you know, the forest management the in
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: devasive species issues is a huge one in the Northeast,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: and you have obviously have a sprawl equation there. There's
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: so many people and it's just tougher and tougher to
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: get outside and find places to hunt and fish. I mean,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: one of the exciting things is in the Farm Bill
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: there's a program called the Volunteer Voluntary Public Access Habitat
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Improvement Program and it's also known as open Fields, and
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: it essentially pays landowners, private landowners to open up their
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: properties for public hunting and fishing. And a lot of
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: that was sort of started in place like Kansas, in
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the Midwest, Montana or they have pretty aggressive walk in
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: programs the same thing. But since the Farm Bill programs started,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: is encouraged states like Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania to create those
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: programs and uh, you know, just great because now those
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: are all stay areas that have you know, it's a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: real struggle to find you have public lands in those places.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: It does it pay them in the form of tax
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: incentives or is it payment the form of cash cash,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: So it's a competitive grant to go to the states
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and stays negotiated with landowners and it gives them cash,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: and it gives them a wave of liability if somebody
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: steps in a ditch and breaks their leg or something
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: like that, so the state assumes that liability. And it's
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: been uh, you know, it's I mean, I think in
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: the first farm bill, the two thousand and eight farm
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Bill where we was put in, it opened about three
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: million additional acres to public hunting and fishing. It's gonna
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: be a lot more in this one because it's expanded
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: in the two thousand and fourteen Farm bill. And so
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I mean there's some positive stuff that is happening to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: but access in the Northeast is a huge deal. Yeah.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Can I can I interrupt your your walk around the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: country again to ask about the farm bill because I
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: know that and looking at materials at t RC, TRCP
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: puts out and here and you talk in various ways.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: You spent a lot of time, like like conservation is
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: very tied to the farm build You spent a lot
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: of time talking about what's in the farm bill, what
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: needs to be in the farm bill? How did how
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: is it that the farm bill has such wide reaching
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: implications for people to hunt and fish. Yes, of the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: land in the US is privately owned and the majority
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: of that is an agricultural production, and so that is
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: a huge swath of land. And the Farm Bill is
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: the nation's single largest conservation program. Is five or six
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: billion dollars annual or in the over the course of
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the Farm Bill that goes to private landowners to do
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: the right thing for conservation. And uh, you know, it's
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: been tremendously successful. I mean, originally, a lot of these
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: programs are created, you know, when farm prices are really
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: bad back in the nineteen eighties and they you know,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: you needed farmers, they needed some money in order not
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: to farm, and so that things like the Conservation Reserve
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Program were created at that time as a way basically
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: a price support program. Well since then it's really become
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: an incredibly important conservation program. So it wasn't known the
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: effects of CRP fields like, it wasn't no one was
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: pushing that aspect of that bill for what it would
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: do for wildlife. They were looking at some people are
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: pushing at sure does this forever Folks like that. They
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: knew that, they knew it would be good, even though
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: the main goals taking land out of production to stabilize exactly.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: And but the Qal the benefits that have had addition
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: to producing a ton of pheasant and you know upland
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: birds and waterfowl and things like that, is you know,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: it is an incredibly important water quality program too, because
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of these you know, CRP strips are along
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: you know, streams and ravines in these areas that are
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: just not as productive to farm. So it has ancillary
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: benefits for that too. And the problem is that in
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the you know, the last farm bill, the last farm
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: bill was done in two thousand and fourteen, and when
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: farm prices really high, you're talking about seven dollar corn,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and it was just very hard for conservation programs to compete.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: And you were we were seeing millions of acres being
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: moved out of c RP and put into row production.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: So the cap on c RP was reduced to twenty
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: four million acres. It had been at thirty six million
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: at one point. And now we have the exact opposite situation.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Farm prices are low, farmers are clamoring to get into
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: programs that they've so they can you know, having some
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: additional revenues so they don't have to you know, sell
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: off the farm or whatever. And so now we have
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a program that is woefully inadequate to meet the demand.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Whereas we we couldn't fulfill that. There was way more
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: program there was demand five years ago. So so five
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: years ago people looked at it and they're like, well,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: let's take some of the money out because people don't
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: want to use it, right exactly. So I told that
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: was going to be the new normal, right and uh,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: you know so, and and that money was reinvested in
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: other programs like the regional conservation partnership programs and the
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: other things that are sort of longer term conservation you know,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: wetlands type programs. You know EQUIP which is does a
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: lot of water and retrofitting of irrigation systems. So it was,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: you know, the money was put into other places. But
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: conservation reserve program right now is you know, not nearly
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: big enough as it needs to be. So we're trying
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: to get that back up to like thirty two even
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: up to thirty six million. Who was in the next
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: farm bill, And there's people waiting in line to get
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: it waiting in line. Yeah, there was, you know, any
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: equery you open up, people will sign up for it immediately.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: So but it's just not happening. And that has to
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: be done on the Farm Bill, but that costs a
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: lot of money, and uh, but I would argue that
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the benefits and this especially if you're not going to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you know, take a regulatory approach to things like clean water,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: you better be doubling down on the voluntary approaches. And
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: that's you know, that's the Farm Bill. So that's when
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: may challenge we're faced to come up here. But that's
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: a national program. So even if we're doing the regional
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: walk around the country. You know, that program is huge
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: in the farm built in the prairie pot holes states,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: but it's a big deal even in place like New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: They all have pretty significant agricultural economies. So it's a
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: it is a program that really impacts everybody. So that's
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the main program for private land conservation there. And it
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: has that public access component of it too, So that's
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: a big deal. I think if you sort of you
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: we wandered down towards the southeast. Yeah, we're dealing with
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of you know, pretty significant water
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: quality issues, which you know stem from things like you know,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: too much fertilizers and pesticides on fields. But you look
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: at the dead zones have been created off the coast
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: of Florida the last couple of years. And we had
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: sort of the dirty water coming out of Lake Cocechobee,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and you know, that really impacted the recreational fishing industry
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: both the east and the west coast of Florida. And uh,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: you know, and you get down to Florida and it's
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: after these hurricane especially, I mean, at some point folks
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: have really got to bite the bullet and do us
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: necessary to restore it as every glaze, because that is
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: the natural sponge for that entire system. And if we
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: don't have that working, you're gonna exacerbate the flooding, the
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: pollution problems, runoff problems. Yeah, that we're seeing there, and
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: we're not just seeing it there. We're seeing you know,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: record dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico because all
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the crap is coming down the Mississippi River. So we've
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: seen dead zones in you know, Lake Erie. You know.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So the dead zone is just get too much essentially nutrigen, nutrients, nitrogen,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and phosphorus in that water and it comes down and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: you get these algal blooms, kill off everything underneath them
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: coming down from chemical fertilizers and animal waste. Yeah, exactly.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I mean it also could be from the people putting
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: it on their lawns. They could be from septic tanks.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, we rent a lot of Florida right even
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: around the Chesapeake Bay. You know, the issue is you know,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: septic tanks. So but you know, we have just this
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: water quality pro problems, especially in the eastern part of
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the country, which is so much more a lot more people,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: uh that we're gonna have to you know, get and
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: get a handle on. And that doesn't even think about
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: things like Flint, Michigan, where we have you know, major
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: water quality problems with drinking water. So I'd say that
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: is a major deal. And then we even get into that,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of Midwest and the farm country, and
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: we've talked about the farm bill, but you know, that
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: is a place where you know, we I think we
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: really need to invest in terms of the next farm
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: bill and habitat for wealth, source of species, but awesome
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: water quality. We moved out to the West, I mean obviously,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: then we're talking about the public land states, and that's
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: been a lot of our focus for the past seven
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: years since I've been there. Uh is sort of one
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: knocking back this notion that for some reason we ought
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: to be getting rid of our public lands, either selling
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: him off or transferring to the States, and that was
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: you know, those ideas been kicked around forever since the
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: time of Theodore Roosevelt. But they gave some traction back
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties and the sage Brush Rebellion. But
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: it was kind of can you stop stop on all
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: these to explain a little bit like sure, like like
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: talk about how it was, how controversial it was in
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt's time, I mean, and then and explained the stage
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: brush rebellion and then the new iteration. So you know,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: think about, you know, what Roosevelt was doing. And you know,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: and Roosevelt obviously was not a guy who was shy
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: about taking on controversy, I mean, trust busting and all
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the rest. But you know, he had been out to Dakota's,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: he had been you know, around the West, and and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: he had you know, really sort of credited the you know,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the wild lands of this country to make him the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: man that he was, and that was hunting in Maine
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: in the Adirondecks. It was his time was spent in
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: North Dakota after his wife died, and he wanted all
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Americans to have that experience. And so what he did
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: was we had that time, we were still in the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: process of getting rid of public lands, had the Homestead Act,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and you know, there was no real you know thought
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: at that time of conserving him. But it was really
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: what he saw back in New York State when he
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: was you know, even before he was governor. You know,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: they created the Adirondack Park. The Catskill Park wasn't because
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: you know, just the preserve of open lands at that time.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: It has had a lot to do with the fact
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: that you know, that was a drinking order system in
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: New York City, in Albany and you know a lot
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: of the municipalities in New York and they recognized it
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: as being clear cut and you were getting fires and
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: you know, huge erosion that you know, it was impacting
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: folks way downstream. So they created a six million acre
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: park called the Adirondack Park in New York, of which
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: half of it was you know, public and the other
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: half was private. But then heavily regulated within that the
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: blue line as they call it, and you know, that
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: became a model that Roosevelt, you know, saw it could
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: be done for the rest of the and so at
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: that time you were getting the you know, he would
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: have gone out there. He had seen it. You were
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: getting you know, you all of Stone had been created
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: back in the eighteen eighties, so they were starting to
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: be this burdening, burgeoning conservation movement to protect these special places.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: And Roosevelt recognized they passed the Antiquities Act back then,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: and he set aside two hundred and thirty million acres
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: during his presidency for the people in perpetuity and the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: guys that he had to fight, where the timber barons,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the mining you know barons. I mean, it was all
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: these sort of captainets of industry who had planned on
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: making a lot of money off these lands at some point.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: But you know, basically, through sheer force of personality and
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: you know, his political skills, he was able to accomplish that.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: And you know, that sort of set the standard you know,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: for you know, what was carried on for generations. We
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: now have about six d forty million acres of public
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: lands in this country. A lot of that was added
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: in when Alaska came into the nation, but it's you know,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a remarkable resource. Yeah, there was so much opposition to
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt's designation and of national forest, Like, you know, a
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: lot of the terminology was different. You know, he had
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: preserves and other things and timber preserves. But there's so
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: much opposition to what he was doing that at one
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: point he had a bill coming that would prohibit the
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: president's ability to to do this, and he thought about
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: vetoing it, but he knew that his Vieto would get
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: over ridden. So there was like, like it's rare to
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: get that kind of consensus that you can override a
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: presidential veto, and that's how unpopular. What he was doing
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: was amazing. And I was like the point out that
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: they then went carved his face into a giant mountain.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Yes they did, So he was onto something. But well
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and he was you know, I mean obviously, I mean
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: it was controversial of the time, but I think that
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: you know, the legacy he created back then has been
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: carried on, amplified, you know, presidents ever since. I mean,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you had a tremendous amount of you know, new parks
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: and you know, forests were created under FDR, and he
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: created the whole c C C to put people back
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to work doing conservation projects. You know, we had the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Interstate Highway Program under Roosevelt, I mean the Eisenhower which
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: really allowed people finally get out and see a lot
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: of these places. And then you know, under Johnson's administration
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixties, you have things like the Wilderness Act,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: land Water Conservation Fund Act, you know, which you know
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: was you know, these seminal parts of you know, the
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: modern conservation fabric. We get to Nixon, who probably never
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: went outside his whole life, but he arguably was the
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: greatest environmental president since Roosevelt. Mean e PA was created,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: to Clean Water Act, NIPA Dangerous Species Act. All these
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: came during Nixon's time, not because he thought it was
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: something he was passionate about, but he saw it his
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: way of healing the country after a Vietnam you know
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: race riots, yeah, Watergate at that time, and this was
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: something that could bring the country together. So I mean
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: that was the sort of public lands and the environment.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: You know, we're not a partisan issue at all. At
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: that time. The Wilderness Act in the US Senate had
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: nine votes. The dissenting vote thought it didn't go far enough. Imagine,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I mean land and Water Conservation Fund Act had basically
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: the same vote count, you know. So, I mean these
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: things were incredibly popular, and uh, you know, it wasn't
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: until you really it was sort of in the beginning
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: of the nineteen eighties, but the nineties got amplified and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: he's all of a sudden became partisan issues. So what
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: happened with the stage Brush Rebellion, I mean it was
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: you know, it was Reagan, you know, sort of paid
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: homage to it. You know, he as he was campaigning
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: for office, you know, he's expressed support for the folks
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: that wanted the federal government off their back. I mean,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: it was sort of political rhetoric. Rhetoric for him. He
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: ended up and adding about ten millions of acres of
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: wilderness during his tenure as president. Part but and at
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: that time, it was easy to write it off as
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a bunch of kooks. And then you had, you know,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: a look at later he had the shovel Brigade and Elko,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: where the four Service is going to close this road
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: to an outhouse, and you had the local was rising
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: up in a national shovel brigade to go and open
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the road back up. I mean, it was easy to
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: write off this whole movement as cookie and since then,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: as you know, a lot of money has gone into it.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: And the same people that vote fought Roosevelt back in
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the nineteen teens, you know, same industries. You know, we're back,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: you know, doing the same thing, but this time it
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: was much more sophisticated. They've been funding things like the
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: American Legislative Legislative Exchange Council ALEC, too craft model legislation
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: for states demanding that the Feds turned back their lands
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: to them. You have you know, nonprofits created to do
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: nothing but lobby against public lands, all funded by industry.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: And you know, so you have a much more sophisticated
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: effort to chip away at that federal state, which you
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: also had starting with Reagan and David Stockman, there was
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: a whole theory of shrinking federal government known as you know,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: starving the beast, that if you keep systematically denying the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: agencies the funds they need to operate, eventually you shrink
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: government to the size and over North with his famous
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: quote was to the size where you can drown it
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: in the bathtub. It's eloquent. Yeah, and it hasn't done
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a great job in terms of you know, entitlement spending,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: defense spending, anything like that, but did pretty darn good
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: job of cutting back the authority and the ability of
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the agencies to do their jobs. And what that did
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: is just continually breed discontent locally that you know, the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Forest Service doesn't manage this forest and we're getting these
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: big fires, which is all true, and you know, so
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I think there's a you know, so that's been a
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: well orchestrated campaign to sort of keep the agencies from
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: getting the resources they need to operate. You know, well,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: I mean the Forest Service today I think has something
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: like eighteen hundred campgrounds that are closed because they can't
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: afford to keep them open. And you can take you can,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: you can complain all you want about you know, the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: agencies priorities and they could do a better job with
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: this and that, and you know that's probably legitimate debate
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: to have. But you know that the idea that they're
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: going to do more with less, you know, they're not.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: They're gonna do less with less, and they have been
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: for years. Yeah, it's a cynical approach. And and you
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: know there's that reason. I don't know where it ended up.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: You I'm sure you know the answer to this, the
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: I think it was, was it six to two? That's
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: gonna be the one that stripped law enforcement and that
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: that's just the case. That's the case of just like
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: you said, like shrinking until you can draw in the bathtub,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: to strip law enforcement capabilities from the Forest Service and
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: the Bureau Land Management. Rob Bishop has another bill right
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: now and they had a hearing on it last week. Um,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: you know, I can't remember how the you know what
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the title is, but essentially what it does is turn
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: over wail and gas permitting and development authorities to the
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: states and away from the Feds. And oh, by the way,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: you don't have to comply with NIPA or the Endangered
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Species Act or the Administrative Administrative Procedures Act. So essentially
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: waves all the federal requirements. You know, the states you
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: know oversee it all. Yeah, but we're the ones, you know,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: still paying for everything on those agencies lands paying for
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: a short term long term. Can we set up something
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: where maybe if you live in those states where they
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: let that happen, and then like ten or twenty years
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: down the line, when all those people want to move
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: somewhere else, that we can somehow be like no, no, no, no,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Now you're living in Utah when you let all that happen,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: so you don't get to come up here to Montana
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: or maybe living Okay. Oh so anyway, the public lands
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: issue has been a big one, and I think that
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, listen, you guys were you know, Steve,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: you were instrumental in this sort of pushback against Jason
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: chafets an HR six one. The whole idea of just
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: selling off lands to quote balance the budge, which I
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: feel like that idea is starting to fade though, and
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: it's becoming a different now. It's like, I feel like
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: that idea is starting to fade, and what the new
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: idea is is you'll be like, Okay, well maintain the
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: ownership structure that we have, but we'll just strip away
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: all the protections we have for those lands so that
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: they become like industry playgrounds. Right, So you're you're saying
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: this the change in tactics now to you know, just
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the chipping away at the federal authorities, and you know
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: that's gonna be the next battleground. In fact, we've just
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: launched a whole new site called sport some this country
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: dot Org. You know that basically the mantras is not
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: enough just to keep it public and we need to
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and it as sort of a group of tenants that
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: we ought to demand from our public lands. They need
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: to be well funded, yeah, they etcetera. I mean the
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: things that you know we need, no they need. You know,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: it's not enough just to keep the public and then
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: not getting the resources they need to manage them. That's
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: not the way it works. Okay, so not I'll let
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: you continue on to other parts. Imagine you're gonna want
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: to jump over to California, maybe the desert southwest. I
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, you know, it's uh, I mean, what
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: we're seeing right now is all the fire and stuff.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: And you know, obviously California is a little bit different
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: situation because that's mostly private lands out there. But you know,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: in the Northwest where you had you know, I mean
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: obviously you spent a lot of time in Montana in
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: that state. You know that burned a lot of acres
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: this year, twenties some odd different major fires over the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: course of the summer, and you know we're going to
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: be seeing probably a lot more of that. One the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: climate is changing, but two is you know, we've just
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: have been a senate su poor job of managing these
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: lands for so long that we have this you know,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: big fuel burden built up at that just is not sustainable.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: And yeah, we've been trying, and of course you know
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: that feeds right into the narrative while we need to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: go in and clear cut him, and that's not the
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: that's not the goal. I mean, sure someplaces maybe you
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: want to do that, but we just need to do
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: is just basic sensible forest management, especially you know near
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the net urban interface, you know where a lot of
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the problems are. And you know, again that requires some money,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: and there are different ways of doing it, and there
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: are some really you know, sort of cool models of
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: groups like Turkey Federation and others going in there and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: actually doing the sales for the forest service and returning
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you know that what they called stewardship contracting, returning a
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: lot of that money back into improvement of the resource.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: So you can get creative in this stuff. But because
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: people people don't want to spend the money preventatively, they'd
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: rather just have catastrophic financial losses after big fires. Yeah apparently, Yeah,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: so I mean you cynically again, that sort of pays
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: into that narrative that Jesus FEDS can't be trusted with
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: any of this stuff. But the fact is that, you know,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: if they were, you know, they weren't. The way we
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: treat fire overall as budget issue is crazy. It's the
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: only national disaster that's not considered a natural disaster, so hurricanes, tornadoes,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: any of that is comes out of FEMA, and UH
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: fire has to come out of the core agency budget.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: So as a result, I think in the nineteen nineties,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the agency force er is suspending about seventeen percent was
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: budget fighting fires. Today it's in that fifty five to
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: sixty percent range, which means they literally have no money
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: to do anything else like preventing future fires. So it's
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: just an insane you know, the way we do this,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And there's we may actually get that past this year
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: to change that, and you know, so you have you know,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the catastrophic fires then get paid for in emergency funds
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: so they don't have to come out of the agency's hide.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: But it's just insane the way we deal with this.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Right now, I was gonna ask about that, like how
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: have people always been trying to work to to change that,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: to make it tourn them into well, I mean hasn't
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: been an issue until the last twenty years when these
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: sort of catasty profit fires really started cutting down. So
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: but since then, yeah, um, and we thought we had
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: to deal several times. And during the abadministration that got
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: killed the last second, and largely got killed because of
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of the radical environmental community not wanting
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: to sort of you know, see a return to the
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: old days of major clearcuts, which is not what this
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: would do at all. And because it was always sort
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: of combined with the the way you change the budgeting
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: with some modest forest reform to make it easier to
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: actually go in there and do some of this management.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know, because part of the issue too
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: is that anytime a timber sales proposed, you know, you're
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: gonna go three years of litigation. You had to get
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: you before you actually get in a cutney wood. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: the meantime, a bunch of mills are already closed in
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the West, so it's much harder to do. So we
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: we gotta get this thing fixed and fixed pretty fast,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: and nobody wants to go back to the old days
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: of just you know, sort of way over harvest and
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you know the spot at owl controversies and all that,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: but there's a happy median in their some place and
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: if you do, you're good. Forest management is good for
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: wildlife generally, you know, good for all sorts of things.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: You know, there's an area where forest fires and the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: public lands debate came together. Maybe you can touch on
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: that real quick, where some states had looked at just
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: ran models to see what the world would look like
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: should all this land fall into the states. Are you
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: familiar with this? No, I haven't seen that. And remember
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: some stuff came out of Wyoming where they looked at
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: just the forest fire costs because states don't. States need
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: to run on a balance budget, well right, and they
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: when they were and I don't know, I don't even
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: know whose offices came up, but someone just took a
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: look at it and they're like, you know, as far
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: as US assuming control of this massive amount of federal
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: land banks, but no thanks, we couldn't even pay for
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the firefighting. Well, I mean that's and you have governors
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: like Matt Meade in Wyoming just saying we couldn't afford
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: to take over these lands. And people have to remember
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: too that you know, state lands and federal lands have
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: very different end dates. Seeing a lot of the states,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: you know, the state lands are used to maximize revenue,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: largely for education in the state, and they don't have
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: that multiple use mandate that the federal lands too, so
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: it would be a very different management. But you know
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: the point about fire, you just you couldn't pay for it.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: So if you're a Republican you know, Western governor legislature,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you have a catastrophic fire,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: or in your projections about oil being a hundred dollars
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of barrel, it's only fifty dollars a barrel, and you're
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: gonna run a deficit. You have a couple of choices.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: You can either raise taxes or you can sell off
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: an asset. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: you know what, they probably do the asset in the land. Yeah, exactly. Um, Okay,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: what's next in the walk around the country. Well, I
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: mean I think that uh we can you move up
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: toward Alaska, and I mean, obviously you've got a lot
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: of experience up there. But Scott Pruett, the director of
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has just opened
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: up you know, basically given the green light to the
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Pebble Partnership to proceed with permitting for the Pebble Mine
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: in Alaska, which would be potentially you know the world's
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: largest open pit copper or gold mine, you know, right
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: at the headquarters of the new Segak and Queejack rivers,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: which are the most predictive salmon rivers in the world.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: The ABA administration had you know, sort of laid out
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: some very high hurdles in any mind in that area
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: would have to clear in order to get permitted, and
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: essentially you know, doing a veto of that mind before
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: what every even got applied for permits because the company
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: had laid out in his sec filings you know what
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: it intended to do, which was to create a massive
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: mine up there. And as reason it's called the pebble
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: deposit is that's it's not just one deposits scattered all
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: over the place like a bunch of little pebbles. So
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: there's no way to go in there and do a
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: little bit of mine. It wouldn't be economical. The only
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: way it makes sense is to had do a really
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: big mine, which then requires really big infrastructure and it
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: require eternal mitigation because you have to create the world's
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: you know, probably the world's largest tailing pond, and uh,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: you know, you have to make sure that doesn't fail,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: because it fails, it takes out you know, those rivers,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: and that would require literally mitigation and basically remediation forever.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: It's hard to understand who is for Pebble Mind except
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: for the people who stand to run the business, because
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: it's one of those few issues where the commercial fishing industry, hunters,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: recreational fishermen, the tribes, tourism, no one wants it. I
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: mean even you know, the former Senator Ted Stevens, you know,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: very Republican conservative senator, you know, said that this was
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the wrong mind and the wrong place, which it absolutely is.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't even have the sort of traditional political
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: allies that most development projects in Alaska do. But that
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: has not stopped the proponents from going to the Trump
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: administration and getting them do very quickly without even look
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: talking to their scientific team. And there's a great piece
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: that CNN did on this, you know, just last week
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: or the week before, you know, I decided to green
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: light the mind again and literally not even talking to
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: their scientific team, but the public comment period has ended
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: just recently, is that that's probably not gonna matter. But
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: that's not gonna matter. I mean, listen, I mean that
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: we're gonna still beat this mine because you know why
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: it'll get beaten, because you go ahead and I'll tell
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: you why I think it'll get beaten. Oh my god,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: I love to hear your theory. First. I think it'll
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: get beaten because it will become a it will become
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: maybe one of the biggest standoffs. I mean, like literally
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: a standoff. I think that there's people are so vested
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: in saving that area that I think that you will
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: see a you will see a mass gathering of such
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: disparate types of individuals who are interested in wild lands
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: and wildlife physically there on the ground. I just think that,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: like I think that if it came down to like
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: breaking ground, I just don't think it will happen, because
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: it has just it's just gotten. I mean, that area
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: has gone from being a place that few people really
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: knew about to becoming almost a household term. And it's
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: one of those I think it's gonna be one of those,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and like those environmental or conservation fights that really motivates
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: people to get involved on the ground, and I don't
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: think it will ever be like oh they beat us legally,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: we give up. Never, it won't be like that. And
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: but the problem is that you know these you know,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: it's it's hard to kill these mining proposals like zombies.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Every time, if you think it's dead, it pops up
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: by some other name. And we saw that in the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Blackfoot in Montana, which we finally managed to kill, but
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: it was twenty years. Different mind proposals come up, you know,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: up there with the McDonald you know mine. But no,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I mean what I think the public partnership, the conventional wisdom,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: what they're trying to do now is to give it
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: enough you know, legs, enough momentum that you know, they
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: can get some investors and then sell out. And because
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that there's I think it's gonna
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: be a very hard lift for this thing to be developed.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: But uh, you know, I think it's something we ought
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: to try to, you know, kill once and for all.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Now with the you know, the steak through the heart,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: it was it was trying to remember the year I
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: didn't even like, I didn't even have a kid yet. Okay,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: my kids, my oldest kids seven, I didn't even have
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: a kid yet, and I was at the thing about
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: pebble mind um at a fundraiser for you know, to
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: fight pebble mind. And I remember saying then, I'm like,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: they'll never build this mind. What are you talking about?
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: And then since then I've grown increasingly fearful. Yeah. No,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I mean when you when you can't kill it, then
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: it's you know, still alive, and it just keeps popping
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: back up, and you know the consequence is, yeah, of
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: it being built are just so dramatic that I don't
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: think any of us can get complacent on this one. Yeah. Well,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: you said, the most productive salmon fishery in the world,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: significant portion of all salmon in this country come out
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: of there, and his supports and entire economy up there,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: commercial fisherman, recreational lodges, you know, hunting industry is you know,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: phenomenal around there. And would you know, be totally changed
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: if that mind goes in. And plus you don't just
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: pop up a mind. You put in the roads, you
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: put it, you gotta build a power plant, you gotta
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: do the tailing ponds. I mean, this is major industrial development. Yeah,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: that's one of the biggest fears about the mind is
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: as you said, it has a large open pit. Is
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: so I have a large lit'll create a large lake
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: of toxic material. Correct in an active seismic Yeah, in
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: a in a volcanically or sorry, seismically active area, well,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of volcanoes. So you know those two go
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: hand and held back by an earth and damn I
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: think the one of the longest earth and damn held
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: tailor the longest earth and dam contained tailing ponds in
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: the world. It would become. I mean, of course, now
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the company is saying, no, no, we're just talking about
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: a little mine and we're not talking about what ignore
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: what we said in our SEC filings. This is gonna
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: be a little bit of mine. It's not gonna cause
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: me damage. And you know, just nobody's gonna believe that
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: except maybe Scott Pruett. Yeah, can you talk about how
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: how much are you? How much can you? Can you
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: talk about Scott pru It. I mean, I don't know
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: the guy, I've never met him, but everything he's done
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: has been anti conservation. I mean, usually there's a certain
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: amount of balance, even if there isn't, I mean, there's
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: a rhetorical balance, there's none now. I mean it's all
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: about you know, just giving industry. It's you know, green
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: light cutting back and regulations. Listen, nobody loves the e
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: p A and nobody loves you know, regulations, nobody loves bureaucrats.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: But you know, I'm I remember as a kid, you know,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: the Cuyahoga burning in Ohio, and you know, it's we
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: have come so far that I don't think anybody really
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: wants to go back to the battle days, but that
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: you go ahead. I was just gonna say that maybe
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: why because we don't have like a river that's on
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: fire right now, and that's why we're so complacent about
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: it and letting something like that happen. And I think
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: you're exactly right. And and listen, EPA has done all
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: sorts of stupid stuff over the years, like a lot
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: of overreaching. There's some legitimate there's some legitimate complaints, but
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that's ever caused to I got
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: complaints with my wife, right There's like legitimate complaints that
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: people have, but it's like you don't you know, yeah, no,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: it's burning damn house down. So now it's been really
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: really distressing to see but I mean there are some
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: bed rock environmental laws that still have to be unless
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Congress wants to go in and mental laws, which you
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: can't do. I mean they could do, but they can't.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: They can't even pass a new post office. Um. You know,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: it's it's gonna be very hard for Scott Prue to
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: get away with a lot of this stuff. So what
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: is it like? I know, you don't know him, and
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: and and I don't know him, and I'm sure that
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: he uh, absolutely convinced that he loves his family and
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: loves his country. What is the vision? Like, what is
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: the vision unfederal industry and unfederal sort of capitalism, thinking
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: that it'll just that they'll find a soft spot down
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: the road and and and and uh and retain some
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: semblance of clean air and clean water and wildlife. And
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: I guess that's fishing resource. I guess that's the thinking.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: I don't get it. I mean, sure, there are a
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: lot of you know, a lot of companies are doing
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: a good job out there, and they're good actors, and
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I trust some of them to do the right thing.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: But I also know that there's a place in this
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: country for actually a strong regulation because people don't always
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: do the right thing, particularly when a lot of money
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: is involved. I was having a conversation with you, Measure.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: I was having a conversation with Governor Mead from Wyloming
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: and UH and he was telling me something that that
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: kind of made me feel better about things in some
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: way where he was like some of like when it
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: comes to mineral and energy extraction in his state. He's
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: found that like some of the more forward thinking companies
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: working on the ground UH do are looking ahead, Like
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: like people in the mental mintal extraction industry, there are
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: some forward thinking companies that are looking ahead for environmental
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: issues and conservation because they're in there for the long run.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: And they realized that that creating trouble on the ground
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: causes a lot of problems for their business. And he
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: was speaking particularly to sage grounse issues, because the one
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: sure way to screw yourself for for doing business on
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: the ground and whelming was to push the sage grouse
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: down into such low numbers and habitat destruction that it
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: would need to be listed on the Endangered Species Act.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: So he was talking like a smart company, it's gonna
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: see that problem and whatever your motivations whether you love
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: the bird or not, you're gonna see that problem. It's like,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: what's good for that bird is gonna be good for
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: our business? At this point, what industry wants a certainty,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: I mean responsible industry. They want to know what the
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: rules are. They don't want to, you know, swinging back
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: and forth every four or eight year is when of
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: new administration is in place. And you're exactly right, and
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: you know that means right that you know, something like
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: the sage grouse is a long term play because it's
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: not just the sage grouse. And if the sage grouse
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: trust going down, there are three fifty other species that
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: fend on that same ecosystem, and you're gonna start have
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: this cascade of listings that potentially could shut down everything
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: or just to cause the undoing of the Dangerous Species Act.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: And I don't think anybody well, I mean some people do,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: but most people really don't want that to happen. And
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: I think that, you know, industry is I think actually
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: you're gonna start seeing industry pushing back pretty hard against
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: what the administration is doing on things like you know,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: water and air. And I think that you're already seeing
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: that in the climate front because the industries I think
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: recognize that, you know, climate change is real. You know,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: they've got to do something about it, you know, like
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: things like the Paris Agreement where you know, eminently reasonable
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and voluntary, and you know it does not help them
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: in their businesses to have you know, say, clean energy
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: technologies you know coming out of China and not out
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: of the US. So we're not going to go back
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: to the days of you know, West Virginia fueling the
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: nation by coal. I mean, it's just not gonna happen.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: It's not gonna happen because the reason is not because
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: of anything Barack Obama did. It's because you know, gas
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: is you know, so much cheaper than coal now ye
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: natural gas, and so I mean that's the crazy thing
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: here is we're kind of letting the tail wag the
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: dog on a lot of those things are being proposed,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know it's not the future. I mean,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: we need to be looking forward, not in the rear
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: view mirror all the time. M Can we move on?
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: And can you give me explain for people? Um, unless
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: you think this is boring, I don't think it is.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: The land like the land and water conservation fund and
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: why it's always in the news. So nineteen sixty five
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: there was a deal struck when oil and gas companies
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: wanted to start developing the Outer Continental Shelf. And uh
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: so that's the basically offshore oil and gas to fundment
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: and which the federal government regulates, so because it's in
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: our waters but not owned by any exactly, so it's
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: the sort of the three. It's outside the state waters,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: it's out in federal waters, and there was obviously Gulf
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: of Mexico off California. There are a lot of areas
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: that industry wanted to get and developed. And the quid
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: pro quo that was done at that time was in
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: terms of, in exchange for opening it up, you know,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: the industry agreed to pay you know, into a fund
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: nine million dollars annually that would then be used for,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: you know, to basically it's just developing a non renewable resource,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: to invest in protecting you know, natural resources, and so
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: that was used for a land acquisition for city parks,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: you know, for you know, basically outdoors things, boat launches, yep, yep.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: So they're you know, like you know, in Montana, I
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: think about you know, seventy of the fishing access sites
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: were purchased, you know, by Land and Water Conservation Fund,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: so it's you can be used for a bunch of
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: different things, you know, officuely, you know, use it to
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: buy in holdings and federal lands to sort of yeah,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: just you know, make management easier and better. So it
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: has you know, a huge variety of benefits. Um The
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: problem is that Congress didn't require that money to be spent.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: So instead of it just being like an entitlement, something
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: that automatically goes out after it comes in, it has
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: to get appropriated by Congress. So only one time in
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: the fifty two years of Land and Water Conservation Fund
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: has been fully funded, and every other year I'm not understanding.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: So basically they said, here, the oil and gas industries
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: pay nine million dollars every year into a fund for land.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: They're paying their they're paying their share, they're paying their share.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: That the problem is that instead of going out the
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: way it had been intended by Congress, Congress raids that
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: money for other things or deficit reduction or whatever it
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: might be. So it's not protected in the way that
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: like Pittman robertson money, it has to stay on task
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: and get spent within the window of time and precisely
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: so it is you know, so that is what the
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: fight has always been, is that there was a deal cut,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: but Congress has never lived up to this end of
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: the deal. Was it just a mistake or an oversight
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: that you didn't carry with it like a through plan.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, it depends on who you talk to. Um,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: probably not. I think they thought Congress at that time
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: listening past unanimously. Basically it wasn't controversial. Everyone thought this
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: was a good idea. I don't think there was really
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: an intent at that time. It had to be made
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: mandatory because you know, who's gonna fight, you know, doing
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: this stuff and just the you know, but then you know,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: things changed, So where does it stand now? Like so so,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: like why do you always why did you see that?
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: You're always hearing about it? Well, let's see, it's is,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: you know, in terms of our community, the hunting and
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: fishing community is probably the single most important you know,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: sort of access program we have in terms of providing
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: new access because you know, those areas and there's you
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: know a lot of them are used directly for I mean,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: let's think about how the demographics have changed. In the
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Western United States, you have the Forest Service a owns
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: all the mountaintops and the more productive river bottoms owned
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: by private individuals. Old days, you can knock on anybody's door,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: cross the land and get to the forest, go hunting
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: and fishing. You know, that's changed. You know, so you
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: have a lot of posted signs, you have a lot
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: of that lower lands least, it's just shut off a
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of access. So Land War Conservation Fund is
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: an incredibly important tool for sort of reconnecting the public
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: with a lot of their public lands. And it doesn't
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: all just outright acquisitions. It could be just you know,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: buying an easement on some property that includes an access
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: easement or includes a conservation easement, and you know, so
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: it can be used in a lot of different ways.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: You can be used to know, maintain traditional forest management
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: practices on forest lands. But what it does is it
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: opens that land up to the public. So what's not
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: being done that needs to be done, Well, Congress needs
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: to appropriate the money is one, and so that's you know,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: the first thing, and then there's a huge backlot of projects.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: So I mean, if Congress were ever to kick out
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: you know, nine million dollars like they're supposed to, or
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: even four dred and fifty. You know, there are plenty
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: of projects in the queue waiting that are not controversial,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: they're just waiting to be done. And it's also things
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: like historic battlefields and you know, things like that that
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: you can be purchased with this. So what needs to
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: happen is that Congress needs to you know, I mean
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: I think at this point it needs to go off budget,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: and you know, maybe maybe not the full you know,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Mike Simpson's got a bill in the House that would
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: you know, basically, you know, take four hundred fifty million
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: off budgets so it automatically goes the agencies every year
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: for these programs, and then the other four h fifty
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: mill end is dedicated to basically the maintenance backlog we
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: have on our national national parks, national forest, blm lands, refugees,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: and one of these bills would make it take care
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: of itself for some number of years. Yeah, I mean,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: it depends on the way the bill is written. It
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: could be forever. It could be five years, could be
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: ten years. I think you know, Simpsons is a ten
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: year program if I recall because it wasn't there. There
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: was previously a long there's like a long quiet period, right,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: but then it expired. Yeah, so it was its expired
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: two years ago. Congress did a three year reauthorization. Okay,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: that's why that when I said, like, why you always
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: hearing about it, I guess because it's just they're they're
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: doing short term renewals instead of long term rewal. And
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: the idea was to a short term renewal and then
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: try to find a longer term fix because I think
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: nobody was happy with the fact that it wasn't getting
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: the money that it needed. But that hasn't happened, and uh,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to happen, So we'll see.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: But in the meantime, you know, it's supposed to expire
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: next year. Know, even if it expires, is not the
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: end of the world, because there plenty of federal programs
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: that have been expired and Congress still puts money into them.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: So but it's it just makes it much more as
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: you know, tenuous, and I think that it's just bad
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: government too. I mean, you want, if this program is important,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: you know, reauthorize it and make it work, but don't
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: play these games. Can you um do a similar thing
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: and break down on on clean water rulings and headwater
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: rulings and explain that. Yeah, so the whole issue is
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: and there were two Supreme Court decisions in the early
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: two thousands that you know, play you basically put into
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: question what is and what is not under the jurisdiction
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: of the Clean Warter Act. And in particular, you know,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: wetlands will back up and even just just break down
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: the Clean Water Act. So Clean Water Act was passed
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: in the early nineties seventies, and it had to focus
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: on navigable wars. That was the term in the bill,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: and it was all is interpreted until the two thousand's
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: as navigable waters include even unnavigable like headwater streams that
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: are critical to making that headwater, making that main river function,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: because you you, if you screw up you know the upstream,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: you know those headwaters, you know those you know, the tributaries,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: is going to screw up the main stream stream as
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: well as you know scientifically, you know, accurate interpretation. Same
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: thing with wetlands. Yeah, you may not be able to
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: flow to both through that wetland, but as you know,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: hydrologically connected to the river, it plays an important filter
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: system and hence this under their jurisdiction. The Clean Water
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Act that was thrown into question and by these two
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court decisions that basically told E. P. A. In
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Congress to go back and do a better job of
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: defining what is and what is not in because there's
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of ambiguity and confusion. And you know, as
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: a farm pond, you know, a part of the Clean
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Water Act is an irrigation ditch. They are all sorts
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: of examples you can throw out, are that or ambiguous
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: at the time, and so Congress of course didn't get
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: his act together to you know, sort of revive and
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: it's just like an annoyance that festered, like, yeah, so
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: what are we talking about when we talk about what
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: are these what constituency waters? And you had this ambiguity,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: you know, from the two thousands on about what was
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: covering what was not covered, which basically meant that you know,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: if some you know dude wanted to go and you
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: know dredge his you know, wetland in order to put
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: in a parking lot, he could probably do it because
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: you know, this this ambiguity under the courts. So the
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: administration comes in and they you know, say, okay, if
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: we're gonna settle this, we're gonna do what the Supreme
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Court asked us to do. And they did several years
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: of science that define you know, what isn't what is
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: not hydrologically connected, and then produced a new rule called
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: the Waters of the US. And it was controversial right
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: from the bat because you know, obviously the developers and
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: you know, supposially especially the developers that have gotten sort
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: of comfy with the ambiguity. So so the bo administration
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: reduced a new rule. They did a several years of
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: scientific study that you know, showed very clearly that headwater
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: streams and adjacent wetlands were you know, hydrologically connected and
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: hence you know, part of the Navigal waterways. And they
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: released the rule, which immediately, you know, the developers, you
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: know especially came out you know, sort of really hard
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: against it. And uh, you know, in addition, they got
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of the farm groups to come out against it. Two,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: even though the rules specifically exempted literally every agricultural practice
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: you could think of, farm ponds, ditches, everything else were
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: specifically exempted by the rule. I think the real estate
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: guys and developers are smart enough to know they should
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: not be the face of the opposition, so they got
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: the farmers out there to be the face of the opposition.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: And as a result, it became you know, super controversial.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: A ton of lawsuits you know, were filed, and Trump
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: administration or Trump when he was running for a Senate
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: of the President excuse me, railed against it as you know,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: government overreach, which it isn't um And then so now
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Scott Pruett and E. P. A has taken the first
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: steps to reverse it. Now it's not that easy just
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: immediately reverse or rule like that, because there is a
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: long rulemaking process and the abodministration went through in order
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: to put that rule into place, and they've got to
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: unwind that through a similar type process and involves public
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: comment and all the rest. So it is uh, I mean,
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: it's going to be in the courts. It's gonna be
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: you know, fought administratively for the next few years, and
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: there's just still gonna be a lot of ambiguity over
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: what is and what is not covered. In the meantime,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: E p. A is probably not going to enforce many
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: of these, you know, laws involving headwarter streams and wetlands.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we'll see it's uh, you know, gonna be
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: a big battle for several years to come. But that's
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: one where you know, I think the people really need
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: to stand up and you know, really talk about the
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: importance of clean war. Yeah, and it also have huge
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: implications for fishing and waterfowl and and I mean every species.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I mean and listen, I mean we have lost so
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: many wetlands in this country. And uh, I mean the
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: notion that you continue to keep draining wetlands and getting
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: rid of them and you know, not have an impact
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: on say waterfol hunting is just ludicrous. I mean, you've
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: seen the flooding we've had this year, you know, and
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: you know, if you sort of restore wetlands, you take
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: care a lot of that without having to build more dikes. Um.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: You know, we've talked about already about the clean water
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: problems off the coast of Florida and the Gulf of
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Mexico and Lake Erie. I mean, those are all you know,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: coming from not you know, a pipe someplace, but from
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: runoff you know, coming off of fields and you know,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: coming off of pavements and parking lots. And people's lawns.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: So I mean that's where you know, there really needs
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: to be something done here. And I mean I thought
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: that personally what the administration proposed was not triconian at all.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: It was common sense. And uh, but now we're throwing
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: back into this limbo because the you know, the changes
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: coming out of ep A right now. So it's frustrating,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: but yeah, hopefully it will. We'll stick with it now,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: um the last one I want and then you then
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: you can do whatever ones I have and a hit.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: But these are just things that I feel like people
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: know there's something, but they don't really know what. Right.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: He was hearing about it all the time, the interpretations
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: of the Antiquities Act and how it applies to monument
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: designations and what's going on right now. Can you do
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: like a bit a little bit of a deep dive
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: on that, okay, thank you? Um So, Antiquities Act was
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: the vehicle by which Theodore Roosevelt used to protect two
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: thirty million acres and it allows the president to you know,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: basically create monuments out of you know, the federal estate.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: And it's been used and the way the law was
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: written originally it was for historical artifacts and unique places,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: and it was supposed to be a size you know
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: equivalent to protect those special resources like battlefields, archaeological sites,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: and you know, but that's been interpreted very broadly seen
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: by Roosevelt himself, you know, to you protect you know,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: the view sheds and you know watersheds and you know
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: all the rest. That's what surprised me that you said earlier,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that he was using it for that.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: He used it for things that weren't like cultural sites.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Grand Canyon got you know protected. It was one of
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: you know, was his national monuments and you know that
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: was a big chunk of land and yeah, yeah, there
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: were a bunch of you know, cool cultural things in there,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: but it was basically the grandeur of the place that
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: moved Roosevelt. And it's been your presidents to use it
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: ever since, you know, to you know, set aside you
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: know parcels big and small. And then you know, in
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: the nineties seventies, you know, the BLM, you know, finally
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: had his own organic act to the Federal Land Management
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Policy Act to Flip Month and it was you know
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: that sort of you created a real agency for what
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: had been basically the Bureau of Lands before, whose job
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: had been to dispose of lands largely. And you know,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: since then, you know, there has been a variety of
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: other monuments. You know, part of the problem here is that,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: you know, first of all, there's a lot of misconception
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: about how the Antiquities Act works. First of all, it
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: doesn't take private land. It only changes protections on federal
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: lands that exists. I think that a lot of people
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: don't understand that. So it's you know, this whole notion
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: that it's a land grab is you know ludicrous, um.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: And it can be changed by Congress, and Congress has
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: gone and changed them many times, sometimes adding protections. Generally,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: you know, they've taken a monument turned into a national
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: park and you know, so Congress, you know, first of all,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Congress can go back and if they don't like the
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Grand Staircase Monument or bearers ears, they can go back
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: and fix it. But you know, the Utah Delegation doesn't
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: have the votes to do that. And uh, in there
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: are other places like in you know, Idaho, there was
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: you know, the there was a you know wilderness bill
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: that Mike Simpson had been pushing for years, um. And
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: you know, and he hadn't been all to get it through.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: And then finally he heard that the Obaministration was the
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Boulder White Class Wilderness, you know, the bombed he you know,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: was going to come in into a national monument there,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: and that was a galvanizing force for you know, the
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: folks in Idaho to come together and pass their bill.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: And so there's no need for the Obaministration to do
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: anything there. And that's the way it's supposed to work.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: But the problem is that Congress has been so broken
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: now for a long time. They're not really doing lands
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: bills anymore the way they used to, you know, wilderness bills,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: wild and Scenic river bills, things like that. And you know,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: in their absence, I think that the Obamaministration felt, probably correctly,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: that it had to go in and protect some these
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: areas like beer Azers, which are getting kind of looted
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: and you know, beat up, and you know, just there
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: was a lot and there was a lot of pressure
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: on the abadministration from the tribes come there and do
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: something to protect this area, which everybody agreed need to protecting,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: even the Utah delegation. And uh, I think that the
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: problem was that the you know, there's a lot of
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: the politicians out there didn't like the process by which
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: had been done, to which I would respond, going there
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: and past your own bill. I mean, that's the way
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: it's supposed to work. If you don't like what they did,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: go back and fix it. And the notion that we're
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: going to just be undo the Antiquities Act and go
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: back or use to come back in and have President
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Trump go back and undo a bunch of monuments are
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: done before. I mean, I think it's allows you precedent
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: because you know, we then that opens up basically any
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: monument that's been created since the beginning of the Antiquities
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Act was used back in Roosevelt's time potentially for any
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: administration come in and say I'm gonna undo that one
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: or that one, and all of a sudden, it's you know,
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: open season on these lands. And over time, most of
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: these areas, I think probably all these areas, you know,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: I think local communities learned to embrace them and really
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: like the fact that there's something special. I mean, you've
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: hunted up in the Missouri breaks in Montana, and that
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: was that was created by Antiquities Act. As in the
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: monument designation It was highly controversial at the time, but
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: now I think there are very few people up there
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: that think that's a bad thing. And I think a
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: lot of folks really like the fact that it has
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: been protected and it brings some notoriety that Ariam brings
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: some tourism in. So with people now like like, now
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: you hear that just reviewing the last thirty years worth
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: of monuments. So can you explain like how this review
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: idea came from, where the review idea came from, how
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: they carved out that window of time, and and what
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: the review process is revealing. Well, you know, I have
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: no idea why they picked you back to you know,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: the Clinton administration. So it was Clinton administration, George W. Bush,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush, um in Obama and Obama and
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: you know, so that was the time period. I guess
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: it was Grand Staircase, you know, which was Clinton did
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: back in the nineties. Was probably the impotitional why they started.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: That was the time frame. And you know, but you know,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: and then how they did the review process. If he
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: read the report, it was leaked by the you know,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: Washington Post, and to say that it is austere would
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: be in you know, understatement. It is really skimpy, and
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: it has minimal facts, and a lot of the facts
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: they put in there are just flat out wrong. I mean,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: they tighted two of these national monuments under one review
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: in New Mexico, you know, Rio Grand del Norte and
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: another one, and uh, you know, I've talked with Martin Heinrich,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: as have you, and basically they claimed that there were
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: road closures when there were none. They claimed that you know,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: they were funding and fishing had been disallowed, which it
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: hadn't been. So I mean, it was just replete with
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: these factual inaccuracies. And this was a report that was
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: sent to the president and Heinrich was grilling the deputy
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: director of BLM, you know, John Rouse, in a hearing,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: you know, a couple of weeks ago and basically saying, yeah,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: none of this is true. I mean, how did you
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: come up with this stuff? And you know, Ruse basically says,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: you know, we were never asked to look at it,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: so I can't really say. So this thing goes out
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: of the Secretary's office to the president without the career
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: people who actually knows something about it having reviewed it.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a you know, in a pretty
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: crappy way to you know, sort of you know, do
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: policy in my mind, and and kind of detail what
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: some of the recommendations might be. Well, some of the
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: you know, they've excited I think, you know, up to
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: six there would be boundary reductions. They didn't say how
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: much it would be, but they just said it was
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: too big and ought to be reduced. And those are
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: things like bears ears in grand staircase. Other as, they
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: said management needed to be changed and to allow more development,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: more hunting, fishing, whatever. I mean, I was with I
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: was up in Maine yesterday and with you know, the
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: guy who was the proponent for the whole catad and
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: Woods and Waters, which is the monument that was donated
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: to the federal government by you know, a family up
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: there acres and then turned into a monument. So one
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: of Zinkie's recommendations in the review that went to the
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: president was that the management plan be changed to allow
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: more hunting, fishing and timber harves. Well, there is no
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: management plan. It was just created. There's three year process
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: to develop a management there's gonna change. So, I mean,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: this is the sort of you know, amateur hour. We've
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: be kind of dealing with on this thing, is that
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of these recommendations have gone to the White
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: House just don't make much sense. So what are the
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: hunting and fishing restrictions, But there are some timber restrictions.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: So part of the way they did that one part
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: of his awful inn September. The other part is open
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: for you know, limited timber harvest and uh yeah, but
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: it's just sort of you know, pandering to some of
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: these voices that want me to return to a timber
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: economy that's never going to return to. I mean, yeah,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be some but you know, it's again, this
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: was private property that you know that nobody had any
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: right to do anything on it before, and it was
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: donated to federal government for everybody, and it has some
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: minimal stipulations as to what had to be respected. So
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: I think we got a pretty good deal out of that.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: And I'm not sure why we're going back and looking
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: at it all. Right, are the things that I haven't
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: brought up that you wish I had brought up, or
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: that you want to bring up, like like a little
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: issue things, you know. I think that you know, one
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: thing we probably talked about is just the whole broader
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: issue of you know, funding for conservation in this country.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: Because we talked about a little bit in terms of
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: the Forest Service, and yeah, the agency is not having
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: the budgets they need to do stuff. But you know,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: we you know, we think back all the way to
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies and you know, at that time, you know,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: the investment in conservation in this country and that is
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: sort of e p a. The land managing agencies, it
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: was about two and a half percent of the federal budget.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Today it's less than one and so we've had this
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: sort of gradual erosion and uh, you know, and that
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: has seen and you know, not only in just things
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: like campgrounds on the Forest Service lands, but justin you know,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: much other ways and a lot of otherwise. I mean,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: right now, the states, you know, are sort of required
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: to carry the burden on a bunch of things like
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: you know, managing non game species, and hunters and anglers
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: basically pay for conservation the states through exercise taxes, through
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: license sales, through stamps, and to excent about of the
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: state's fishing game budget are paid for by you know, sportsmen.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, they use those dollars,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: and we understand to manage monarch, butterflies and you know,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: owls and a lot of other species that are not
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: game species. And that's okay, but at some point, you know,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: especially given the erosion of funding over time, we gotta
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: find some new revenue sources. So there is a you know,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Blueberd panel was put together that was led by you know,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: Johnny Morris and as pro Shops and some others that's
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: sort of laid out, you know, almost a land water
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: conservation fund model for much broader non game and they're
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: going to take you a much bigger chunk about one
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: point two billion off budget that would go to the
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: States to basically pay for non game management and well
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: and gas injury strict supportive of this. You know, Shell
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: was on that panel. You know a lot of feather
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: folks are. But the problem we're going to have is that,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: you know, again it's just additional spending in a time
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: we already have these big deficits, and you know that's
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: going to be the problem because it's not new money.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: If this is money, it's already going to the general
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: treasury that now gets being dedicated non game management as
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: opposed to just you know, paying for whatever the government
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: pays for. So, I mean, I think that's we're gonna
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: have to get creative over time about you know, funding
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: of conservation because at some point, particularly with you know,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: some of the trends we're saying in hunter numbers, uh,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: the money is not always going to be there that
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: has in the past, So we've got to find some
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: additional sources of revenue. And that's another thing we want
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: to probably talk about too, is just sort of those
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: numbers that came out of the Fish and Wildlife Service,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: which show that you know, sort of a decline from
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: about hunters down to about eleven million. But it's weird
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: because they kept saying that everything was statistically insignificant. That
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: sounds pretty statistical statistically significant. I don't know if it
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: meant because they're they're counting it differently. I don't think
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: even in the report, it keeps saying like statistically insignificant,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: even though it's like like a couple like millions more
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: fishermen less hunters, but it called all it called those
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: numbers statistically into significant in the report, which I never understood. Yeah,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: and I don't get that either. I mean but because
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: I think that everybody in the industry thinks it's significant.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: And you know, the folks was after like a and
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: it was coming on the heels of an uptick. Yep,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: we've had an uptick before and now we got a downtick.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: And it could be tied to so many it's so
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: hard to suss out what it's coming from. Well, I
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: think it's a combination of things, because the economy always
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: factors into it. Yeah, it does. But you know, think
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: about you know, first of all, there are some broader
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: sociological demographic changes. I mean, you know, I think you know,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: the guys like yeah, me, fifty five year old white guys.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: You know, we're starting to you know, and you know
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: my you know, father's generation. You know, they're not hunting anymore.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: And you know, so you have that sort of cliff
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: of these guys that are sort of carried the industry
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: for a long time, there aren't going to be there.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: And so I think that's one thing that we're dealing with.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: I think that you know, just how we've you know,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: done look at the fishing versus the hunting. The fishing side,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: you know, Pittman Robertson, is you know that is the
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: hunting side. Dingle Johnson's YXT side tax for the fishing side,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: Dingo Johnson allows the states to use a small portion
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: of those money as they get for recruitment, reactivation, retention,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: the three RS, and so that's what funded the whole
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation has just done the take
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Me phishing campaign that you've probably seen the sort of
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: a similar program for the Spanish speaking folks of almost
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: auspice Car. I'm not a Spanish speaker, so I said
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: that probably wrong, but they've done really aggressive outreach promoting
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: fishing and boating that has, I am positive, has driven
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: a bunch of those fishing numbers up. Hunting side. They're
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: not allowed to use the excise tax for any you know,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: the three R activities, so you don't have an equivalent
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: program on the hunting side that you do on the
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: fishing side. There's no take me hunting campaign out there,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: and we're trying to get you know, there's a bill
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: in Congress right now that we're pushing called basically the
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: PR Mockertization Act to allow the States to use the
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: small portion of those PR funds for recruitment retention, reactivation,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: which you've got to do if they're going to stay
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: ahead of this curve, because you know, it's just you know,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: the people that have basically been funding you know, hunting
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: and hunting and fishing in the future. I mean, we're
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: coming to a cliff, you know, as these baby boomers
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: you know, start of get out of the game and
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: we don't have those young generations coming up behind them,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: and so it's not gonna happen organically. We got to
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: make a real effort to push for that. And then
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: I think in the hunting side too, you have things
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: like you know, I've man, I I'm going off script here,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: but you know, things like the hunter Education program, which
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: is you know, I think is you know, kind of
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: a twentieth century you know program, and we need to
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: be thinking about the way kids learned these days. You know,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: my kid, my son who's twenty now, you probably took
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: hunter education six or seven years ago. We had to
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: do in the eleven hours of classroom. And we know
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: you had to spend a whole in when I took
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: it as a kid, you have you spent the whole weekend. Yeah,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: and your kids and kids nowadays you've got you know,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: soccer practice, swim practice, you know, study halls, you know,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. There's a super scheduled and busy and
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: as especially around Washington, d C. Where I live, it
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: was not easy finding a class. We find them down
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: in Fredericksburg, Virginia, like an hour south of DC. You
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: could do the whole class in like eleven hours. And
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: he said, like it's the worst day of his life.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: He said it was just so incredibly boring, and he
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: was he wasn't allowed to do it online. I mean,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: it sort seems to makes sense to me to BUI
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: allow kids to do it online, that's how they learned
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: these days. And then you have them go out in
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: the field with somebody who who has a hunting license,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: who knows how to do it, who can basically certify
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: they've taken them out and been a mentor to him.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: And uh, I see, I see both sides of this issue, man,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: Like I definitely where you're coming from that it shouldn't
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't be coming in and making it hard for
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: people to go participate in the activity. On the other hand, um,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: I see that it's like a serious discipline, sure, and
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: it's it's like a real thing. You're out there, you're
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: out there dealing with You're out there trafficking in life
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: and death. And I totally agree with you. But think
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: about I mean, a lot of the online classes now
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: are really good. There are a lot better than some
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: old dude standing in a VFW hall, you know, sort
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: of you know, droning on about something, kids space and out,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: you know, not paying attention anyone. You know, you're right, yeah,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: because that's the thing I'm not looking at, is like
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: it's almost yeah, you could probably put you could probably
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: put something together. Not probably, you probably surely put something together.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: It's equally educational, I think doesn't require parents like changing
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: their work schedules around and taking like days off work
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: in order to make it happen. And plus, you know,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: just the kids are so scheduled these days. I mean,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: you'll get to this point soon with your kids, but
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: you know, they have so much stuff going on. Is
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: you know, tough to do. And partly if you're especially
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: if you're in an urban area, there's just no place close.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: At least there wasn't, and that was a huge deal.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I think there has to be a
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: sort of an outside component the whole thing. They need
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: to go out with somebody. They have to have that experience,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: They have to have somebody to explain to him how
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: it's done, because I mean, the classroom is not enough
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: by itself. But one of the good things that the
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: States have done is they created his apprentice programs now
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: and you know that's suming. I've taken a bunch of
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: people out with that, and you know, that's a huge
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: step in the right direction. Make sure to get them
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: interested before they have to sort of sink that investment
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: of you know, going through the whole process. Yeah, I
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: think I do like those programs a lot um And
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: that seems like a really that seems like a good
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: solution to go through it. And I'm sure it's not
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: something that probably gets abused too much, but it has
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: been nice to see that that allowing people, Uh, there
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: was no Verton when you know, when I was younger,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: there was no version of that at all. You know,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: I think you if for firearms deer, you're fourteen years old,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: but if you got your I think that if you
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: got your dead uncle neighbor sitting in the blind with
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: you focused on what you're going on, I don't see
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: any reason you need to wait to be fourteen. No,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: totally agree. I mean, my other pet peeves just how
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: compa the licensing systems are. And you have every state
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: has their own system that's different than the other states.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: And you have, you know, a bunch of states don't
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: even have mobile friendly. You know, I went out in
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: Wyoming a few weeks ago, and you know their site
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: it's not mobile friendly. So you're you're trying to like
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: buy a fishing license and you're expanding it and trying
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: to find the right button, and it's just a total
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: pain in the ass. And you know the notion that
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: you mean, you can go to Amazon and I can
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: type of my information. I can buy anything anywhere in
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: the country with just a click of a button. I
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: ought to be able to do hunting a fishing licensees.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: I probably buy a dozen every year, and it's everyone.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: Some states do it really well, others don't. I mean,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: there are a couple of states that will send me
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: email reminders that I gotta get my hunting license, and
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: I do, but most don't. And uh, you know, so,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the states have got to come
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: into the twenty one century in terms of marketing and
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: making it consumer friendly. And plus it's just if you
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: look at the rigs for you know, you you hunt
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: all over the place. I mean just going through those
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: rags and figure out what you can do, where you
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: can do it. What the limit is here is so complicated.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: We gotta figure out a way to But I fetishize
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: those things. I agree that they're complicated, but I do
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: but you know how to read them. But imagine if
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: you because I hear the thing, I don't. I know
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: how to read them. But I still find myself like
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: we have a great like we have a great network
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: of people around the country who are very enthusiastic hunters
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: and fishermen. So every time I'm going somewhere, I still
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: will get the rag, look at it, and I'll still
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: don't have to call somebody and be like, hey man,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: I'm like, am I looking at this right? Like you
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: can do this and not that, Because even after a
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: long time, after decades of looking at a lot of rags,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: I still look at rags and like, I don't understand
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: what they're talking about. Yep, I rest, I rest my
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: case and I call and that at that point, I
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: like call buddies. We're doing that all the time, all
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: the time trying to figure out like so what now,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: But you're right, and like it just thinks the As
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: an example of how hard is to get a license,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: I was trying to get licenses here from Maryland a
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: few days ago online and uh, I get to like
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: the final stage. I'm supposed to make a password, you know,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: to set up some accounts that I can have a license,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: and all it says is one, um Uh it has
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: to be alpha and numeric characters. Right, Well that's not true.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: It actually also has to have a special character, except
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: it's not written there. So I'm calling that all my
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: connections here like dude, what is going on? Pulling my
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: hair out, and it's just like yeah, we almost just
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: showed up here with no licenses and how to do
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: the Walmart thing at midnight? You know. Yeah, so I
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: mean we gotta do a better job with things. Like
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: here's the thing that I think is doing it. Uh.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that the licenses are pain and yeas is
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: a factor. I'm sure that UM restrictions are a factor.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: But they I noticed two things go on. One, if
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: you go and talk to a hunter, who isn't just
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: who isn't concerned about conservation, like just hasn't had been
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: engaged in those conversations, has been exposed to like kind
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: of like long term thinking about the well being of fishing,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: wildlife and hunting and fishing. They're not going to tell you, like, man,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: the one thing this world needs is more hunters, because
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: they already know that they're in like bad competition for
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: hunting spots, so it's hard to get someone. I would
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: think that most people look and they're like, oh, it
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: is you know, some percentage less hunters and fishermen than
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: they were five years ago. Great, because that means more
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: spots for me. And I think the other part of
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: it is is that it's still for people getting into
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: it who didn't grow up around it. It is hard
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: hard to find a place to hunt and fish unless
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: you're just unless you're an obsessed person. Yeah, access is
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: a huge issue on this because you know, you know,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: look around d C. I mean, a guy who works
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: in our office, you know, talks about he was when
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: he was a kid hunting Quail and False Church, which
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: is ten miles outside d C. Whether I can tell
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: you right now there are no Quail and Falls Church.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: You walk down the street with a shotgun, you're going
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: to jail. And uh, you know, it's just gotten harder
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: and harder to get to those places. And when you
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: do get to them, there are a lot more people
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: there because we have left places to go and you
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: know the end and that's not going to change. What
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: we have to do is just you know, things like
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: that Farm Bill program I talked about that encourage private
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: land ords and open up their land. You know, things
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: like Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is actually creating
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: new you know, hunting territories, fishing territories. Yeah, so I
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: think there has to be a major push on access.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: And listen, I'm gonna give Zinkey a little bit credit
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: here because you know, I think Interior if they've done
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: a bunch of the pushed down a bunch of stuff
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: on access, which is good, and I think that's part
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: of the equation. And I think we can't ignore that,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: but also have to have conservation you know, that goes
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: with that, because again, you can't just sort of open
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: up access if there's too many people there, if there's
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: no game there, if it's been industrialized, you know, what
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: good is access for that? So no, we just need
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: to be thinking you know, much bigger on all these levels. Yeah,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: it's uh, can you can you go back to the
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: first part when you're talking about how good everything is. Listen,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: the fact that we're able to have a lot of
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: these arguments is luxury because you know, you can go
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: to a bunch of Europe You're not gonna have these
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: arguments because there's no opportunity. So, I mean, listen, we
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: have a lot of challenges and we need you know,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: all the meat eaters out there engaging and you know,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: making their voice heard because you've seen what they can do.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: But you know, listen, we don't get I mean, you
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: can't get too bummed out because you know we've got
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: it great. I mean, this is an amazing resource we have.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: No I know, I appreciate it, man, I I appreciate
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: how you framed. The thing is that you framed to
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: be acknowledging, uh, the great treasures we have, but then
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: taking the threats to them very seriously. Yeah, because I
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: think that if you aren't in all aspects of life,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: if you are aggressively looking at what's coming around to
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: screw you, you're you're messing something up. Absolutely. If I
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: don't know this one I don't know if you're comfortable
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: with this one. Um, we're so new into the new
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: administration UM and a lot of changes and you know,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: personalities emerging and and you know, procedure starting. What are
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: some of the like if you had if you had
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: a thing where you could list out three things or
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: four things that you think the new administration and various
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: secretaries and in pointees um could be doing. It's not
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: too late. The political risk isn't gray, Like, what are
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: some just good common sense slam dunk things that we
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: could expect that we might hope to or expect to
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: see out of our the current iteration of our federal government.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: And if if I were advising over there, and you know,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: they had the goal of being you know, the legacy
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: of being a good conservation administration. I mean, there are
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: a few things I think you can listen. I mean,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: development and conservation are not necessarily opposed. I mean, you
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: can do smart development, you can target it. You know,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: whether we've been What's been frustrating so far is the
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: absolute failure of you know, Interior, for example, to articulate
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: any sort of positive conservation vision. And they've done a
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: good job articulating an access vision, which I appreciate and
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: I think is important, but there has to be that
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: commenced a conservation vision. And it doesn't have to be
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: you know, it can be things like, you know, how
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: do we do how do we get more oil and
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: gas out but at the same time do it smarter?
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, how do we do things like, you know,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: protect migration corridors, which are you know, sort of iconic
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: big game, you know, areas that are incredibly important. It's
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: a ribbon cutting every time it crosses a highway. And
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: I think there are things that you can articulate that
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: are very positive for conservation that aren't anti industry in
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: any sort of way. And I think that there was
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: a bunch of that stuff that if they were to
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: think about and if they cared, they would artcirculate those
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: sorts of strategies. If if you don't like you know,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: regulatory approaches to clean water for example, I mean, as
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: I said before, you better be doubling down on the
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: voluntary approaches things like the farm built. But we have
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: not seen any of the rhetoric that connect those dots.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: It's just a been about getting rid of regulation, unfettered capitalism,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: you know, and you know, not even any thought about
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: how are we going to achieve our clean water or
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: sidal goals with that, or fisher wildlife goals. And I
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: think there are things we can do, you know, any
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: administration could do if they really wanted to, and if
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: that is the legs that they want to leave, you know,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: to be strong in development would also be strong in conservation.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: And the frustrating part is just we haven't even seen
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: the rhetoric being strong in conservation. I've noticed that absence. Yeah,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: I mean in in technology has changed. I mean we've
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: done a lot of work with the oil and gas
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: companies about in surround you know, trying to do it
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: smart and you know, if you go I mean I
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: remember one oil and gas executive showing me a picture
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: of the Jonah field in Wyoming, which is basically his
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: quarter acre pads as far as the eye can see,
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: and he says, using today's technology of your diagonal drilling,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: of reservoir mapping, you know, we can develop that exact
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: same every ounce of oil and gas in that field
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: under with ten of the surface impact. And by the way, yeah,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: we can do it more cheaply because that's less pipelines,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: less roads, less pads and you know, but you know,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: industry is you know, like you know, a lot of
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: industry is not progressive. They're going to keep doing it
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: the same way they've always done it, you know, just
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: punch holes as they move along, because that's the way
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: they're used to do it, and they've made money doing that.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: But if you have a government that says, you know what,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: this is the public's lands, we're gonna do it a
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: little bit smarter than that. You're gonna minimize your footprint,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: We're gonna help you do that, they can do it.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: And so you could be really good on development and
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: be really good on conservation. But we just haven't seen
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: that yet. No, I think that that's the kind of um.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: I think that that's the kind of approach and the
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: kind of language to be using, though and thinking about
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: it and stepping away from this this sort of like
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: this this this adversarial all one way or all the
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: other approach, which winds up being kind of crippling. Yeah,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: I agree. I mean that's been you know, just the
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: debate has been so shrill and so polarized. That doesn't
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: need to be. I mean, you know, smart people can
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: disagree about you know the way to approach some of
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: these things, but you know, there ought to be some basic,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: you know, bottom lines. You know, we want a strong economy,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: we want energy independence, we want protected land. Yeah, we
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: want robust hunting and fishing, and U you know, just okay,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: how do we do it achieve all that? And you're
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: not gonna do it by administrative feat You're gonna get
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people in the room and you're gonna
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: figure out everybody's gonna compromise a little bit. So I
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: was talking to a politician recently who was describing his
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: decision making process, and he described this point at which
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: the radical environmentalists you measure their anger and then sort
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: of the radical fringe of the extraction, you measure their anger.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: And when you feel that they're both kind of equally
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: angry at you, you've probably found your path forward. As
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: you you you you feel it, and then you know
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: that you're maybe somehow coming in out of compromise that people.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right, and I think that you know, unfortunately,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: you know that you know that we we see the
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: tail wag the dog sometimes on this stuff, and that
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: you know, squeaky wheel get in the grease. You know,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: the loudest screamer intends to get the attention. And and
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: what's really frustrating is that you know, you know, you
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: you think about you know, even just the way the
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: press handles a lot of these issues, it's not sort
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: of a thoughtful discussion about you know, this middle ground.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: It is, you know, the so polarized. I mean, it's
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: the you know, drill everything, and it's the you know,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: lock it all up, and there is no discussion about that,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: you know, that in the middle And that's you know,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: the space that we try to occupy because I think
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: the hunting and fishing communities country has always sort of
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: been that sensible center, I mean pragmatic. I mean, we
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: use the land, we drive cars. But at the same time,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: you know, we have a legacy we want to maintain
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: and pass on to our kids. So what is the
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: what does t RCP need and what's how do things
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: look with TRCP going forward? Well, how should people follow
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: what's going on and get involved? What do you need
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: from people? Yeah, you know, we uh, you know, we
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: we're sort of a coalition of a lot of groups.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: We fifty six formal partners range from you Ducks Unlimited
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: and we will do your foundation to a f l
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: c i O and you know, the Outdoor Industry Association,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know that's always a delicate balancing act.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: But I think that we've always probably that keeps you centered,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: that keeps a centered because you know, we have you know,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: sort of various you know, extremes on all sides, and
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: you know, we park a lot of things at the
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: door and we just focus on the stuff we can
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: all agree on. And uh, but you know what, I
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: think that the fault of the hunting and fishing communities
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: over time, as we've become complacent, we've become checked out.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: We haven't let our voices be heard, as we sort
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: of fractured into you know, our little species groups fixing
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: up our little wetland or our stream or whatever it
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: might be. And we've been you know, sort of more
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: interested in doing that than engaging in some of these
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: you know sometimes you know, sort of nasty political conversations
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: that you know, people get mad at you, but you know,
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: people got mad at the Order Roosevelt a whole lot.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, if we're gonna sort
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: of keep what we have in this country, you know,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: sports him to gotta be willing to speak up and
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: not just about you know, when somebody they perceived some
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: has gonna come and take away their gun. They got
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: to talk about when somebody's gonna take away their land too.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: And uh, you know that's where I think we've we've
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: failed over time is as a community from really standing
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: up with that. And so it well, we need is
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: people to get engaged. We need people, they think, come
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: to our website rsp dot org. You know, sign up,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: you know, send a check. That's great. But we're really
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: trying to do is just sort of you know, re
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: established that voice of the hunter and angler in federal policy,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: because it's not the voice of the radical environmentalists, it's
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: not the voice of industry. It is, you know, it's
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: that sensible center that I've talked about that we've yeah,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: we need in this country. All right, you got anything
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: you want? That was that was your end? But do
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: you have another end? No? No, I'm I've got all
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: sports hands. But now listen, Hey, thanks for all all
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: that you've done and when the meteors have done, you
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: guys have been great. Yes, anything you wanna any follow
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: up questions? No, I don't think so you can't tell
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: I'm in a good mood or a bad mood. Now
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: it is daunting, man. And there's the thing you just
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: said to that that um, the thing you said kind
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: of hit with like the species groups, because I like,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: I like a lot of that stuff. But it does
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: you know, when you when you focus in on that level,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: if you're like, oh, you know, I like the hunt pheasants,
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: I like, I like the hunt turkey, and and you
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: just get involved on that level of conservation, you can
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: plug along and sort of miss like big picture issues
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: that are going on. Well, I mean people come to
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: me messy issues. Yeah, they say, hey, what's your relationship
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: with the n r A. And I said, well, listen,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: we don't do you know, Second Amendment stuff. Those guys
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: don't need us. They do it just fine. I said, However,
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: I have nothing but respect for the fact that the
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: n r A and the gun community has made any
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: attack on a gun law any place, an attack on
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: everybody for us, as his act opposite, it was a
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: muleteer problem. It's not a trout problem. It's a trout problem.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: It's not to say it's not a grouse problem. And
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: we die this death with a thousand cuts because we're
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: so sort of vested in our own little critters and
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: we don't come together and recognize that, you know, the
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: water quality issues in Florida may not directly affect me,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: but we gotta stand together in terms of conservation in
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: this country. Yeah, I'm gonna close it on that thought
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: and go to TRCP dot org. You can also get
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: on your guys mailing list, which is great because that's
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: how I even know all. That's how I even know
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: what all is going on. We'll send out emails regularly
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: to you and you and you keep people apprized of
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: things when they need to do comments on things or
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: contact your representatives about stuff that they should be getting involved.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: It's nice. It's like, was it like usually three or
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: five report? Yeah, like what's up this week? Yeah, yeah,
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: that kind of half read it. Then I just make
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: wid explain to me later. You know, we try to
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: keep the good folks engage, but we tried to keep
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: it light and fun as well. And uh, because you
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: know that you've gotta have a little bit of you know,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: dessert with your vegetables. Yeah, I know. It's like a
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: good amount of hunting and fishing stuff in there, and
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: a good amount of how someone's gonna come screw you
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: on hunting fishing down the road. There we go, all
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: right with Fosburgh. Thank you very much for joining us. Uh,
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: you got to come back soon and do status updates
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: on this stuff. Good. Let's actually talk about like hunting
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: and fishing next time. Next time we will, all right,