Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #207: Why Should Hunters Care About the Farm Bill?

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #207: Why Should Hunters Care About the Farm Bill? · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This is episode number two oh
0:19
Speaker 1: seven and tan the show, I'm joined by Wit Fosburgh
0:22
Speaker 1: of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership to discuss possibly the
0:26
Speaker 1: largest private lands conservation bill in America and how it
0:30
Speaker 1: impacts hunters, and that of course, is the Farm Bill.
0:46
Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
0:50
Speaker 1: to you by sit Ka Gear. And today on the show,
0:53
Speaker 1: we're talking about private lands conservation. You know, we we
0:58
Speaker 1: hear so much about these big cons servation initiatives related
1:01
Speaker 1: to public lands, but of course conservation is important on
1:04
Speaker 1: private land too, and for most of us white tail hunters,
1:08
Speaker 1: especially those of us that are hunting east of the Mississippi,
1:10
Speaker 1: it's private land really that most of us depend on.
1:13
Speaker 1: Public land, of course, is still super important, but to
1:16
Speaker 1: be honest, I think the numbers do clearly show that
1:19
Speaker 1: most of us whitetail guys are private land hunters the
1:22
Speaker 1: majority of the time. But you just don't hear a
1:24
Speaker 1: whole lot about the stuff that's going on to protect
1:27
Speaker 1: and improve and conserve those areas. But that doesn't mean
1:30
Speaker 1: there's not stuff going on. And that's why we're doing
1:32
Speaker 1: today's podcast because there is actually an absolutely huge private
1:37
Speaker 1: lands conservation bill that's up for debate this year, and
1:40
Speaker 1: we hunters and our voices we're gonna be needed to
1:43
Speaker 1: make sure this bill positively impacts fish and wildlife and
1:46
Speaker 1: wild places. And this bill is the Farm Bill. You
1:50
Speaker 1: probably hear of it, but if you're not kind of
1:52
Speaker 1: deeply tapped into the conservation world, you may not really
1:55
Speaker 1: realize that the Farm Bill doesn't just have to do
1:58
Speaker 1: with farmers. It actually covers vast array of different issues,
2:02
Speaker 1: including a whole lot of stuff related to habitat and
2:05
Speaker 1: wildlife and hunters. So today, to help make sense of
2:09
Speaker 1: this massive bill and all of its implications on hunting
2:12
Speaker 1: and wildlife and habitat, we're gonna be joined by Witt
2:15
Speaker 1: Fosberg of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. And I know
2:19
Speaker 1: what you're thinking, the Farm Bill, This this sounds like
2:22
Speaker 1: a snooze fest. And yes, I mean this isn't gonna
2:26
Speaker 1: be quite as as fun maybe as a deep dive
2:28
Speaker 1: conversation into hunting strategies or some big you know, white
2:32
Speaker 1: tail or Alaskan adventure. We're not going to have that conversation.
2:35
Speaker 1: But as we have talked about many times here in
2:38
Speaker 1: the podcast, we hunters, we do have a responsibility. You know,
2:43
Speaker 1: Hunting is a consumptive activity, meaning that we take from
2:47
Speaker 1: the landscape that we recreate on. And if we're gonna
2:49
Speaker 1: take something from these wild places and wild animals, whether
2:52
Speaker 1: that's taking a life or a week's worth of rest
2:55
Speaker 1: and relaxation, or a lifelong memory, or maybe just a
2:58
Speaker 1: pile mushrooms or antlers, if we're taking something, it's our
3:01
Speaker 1: responsibility to give back to and it's it's not always
3:03
Speaker 1: gonna be fun, it's not always gonna be easy, it's
3:06
Speaker 1: not always what we want to talk about, but it
3:08
Speaker 1: is on us to give back and make sure these
3:11
Speaker 1: places and animals and opportunities are available in the future.
3:15
Speaker 1: And so that is why I think these kinds of
3:17
Speaker 1: conversations and issues are so important for us as a
3:20
Speaker 1: hunting community, and even just as like our little tight
3:23
Speaker 1: podcast family here, it's it's important for us to spend
3:26
Speaker 1: some time on this stuff. I believe too. So today
3:28
Speaker 1: that's what we're gonna do. And and I commend you
3:31
Speaker 1: and if I could, i'd high five you or shake
3:33
Speaker 1: your hand for taking the time to dig into this
3:35
Speaker 1: one with an open mind and some curiosity. The farm
3:38
Speaker 1: Bill is jam packed the programs that can positively impact
3:42
Speaker 1: US hunters if they're funded and approved, and we've got
3:45
Speaker 1: that opportunity this year to make sure that happens. So
3:47
Speaker 1: stick with me here today, learn a bit about the
3:49
Speaker 1: farm Bill, maybe make a few calls or emails, and
3:52
Speaker 1: then we can get right back into big rutting, stinky
3:55
Speaker 1: bucks and wild adventures in the great outdoors and all
3:58
Speaker 1: that kind of good stuff. Does that sound good? Good? All? Right?
4:01
Speaker 1: Then we're gonna take a quick break for our Sickest
4:04
Speaker 1: story of the day, and then I'll bring Wit on
4:06
Speaker 1: the line with me to dive into private lands, conservation
4:10
Speaker 1: and the farm Bill. For this week's Sitka story, we're
4:15
Speaker 1: joined by Don Vdosh, who tells us about an eye
4:17
Speaker 1: opening encounter he had in southeastern Kansas. Well Spencer. It's
4:26
Speaker 1: an interesting, uh. The sickest stories have been intriguing to me.
4:32
Speaker 1: I have a follower of podcast and and I've had
4:35
Speaker 1: a couple uh defining moments in UH in my own career,
4:41
Speaker 1: and one really was an eye opener for me. I'm
4:44
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and fifteen. I had a particularly
4:48
Speaker 1: large buck that I was after in Kansas, probably the
4:51
Speaker 1: biggest one I had ever chased, and had a lot
4:54
Speaker 1: of camera pictures of him, and Uh, I was really
4:57
Speaker 1: waiting him out and got down to Kansas just done
5:00
Speaker 1: a great cold front in November, and I got into
5:04
Speaker 1: where I thought he would be, and sure enough, around
5:09
Speaker 1: thirty am, he comes walking in, uh, into the field
5:13
Speaker 1: I was. I was sitting in with a few dos
5:17
Speaker 1: and UH, I snort wheezed at him, just trying to
5:21
Speaker 1: get aggressive, and he took one look over at me
5:24
Speaker 1: and just came charging in like a ball. Uh stopped
5:28
Speaker 1: staring at my head on at ten yards. Eyeball to eyeballs.
5:34
Speaker 1: Is one of those moments where you know your camouflage
5:37
Speaker 1: really gets tested. And and right about then he looked
5:41
Speaker 1: away and took one step and and that that was
5:43
Speaker 1: one of his last And for me, that was really
5:47
Speaker 1: one of those moments where you wonder, you know how
5:52
Speaker 1: things are working, and and I had the wind in
5:54
Speaker 1: my face and I just knew at that time that
5:58
Speaker 1: UM the camouflage was working for me. Uh. You know,
6:02
Speaker 1: as hunters, I think we always have questions, you know,
6:05
Speaker 1: is my when good? Is? Is my is my setup? Good? Is?
6:09
Speaker 1: Is my equipment solid? And in that moment I knew
6:13
Speaker 1: that all that was clicking on Dahn's hunt, which was
6:17
Speaker 1: a bitterly cold sit he was wearing Sitka's phonetic system.
6:21
Speaker 1: If you'd like to create a Sitka story of your own,
6:24
Speaker 1: or to learn more about Sitka's technical hunting apparel, visit
6:27
Speaker 1: sit gygear dot com. All right with us now? Is
6:33
Speaker 1: W Fostburg from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. Thanks for
6:37
Speaker 1: being with us, what Mark? Always great to be with you.
6:40
Speaker 1: Thank you? Yeah, I I I gotta tell you the
6:44
Speaker 1: work you guys are doing UM For me personally, I
6:48
Speaker 1: found it so beneficial when I first discovered what you
6:51
Speaker 1: guys are up to, maybe I don't know, five six
6:55
Speaker 1: years ago maybe UM, and I started following just the
6:59
Speaker 1: information and the resources you guys put out through your
7:01
Speaker 1: newsletter and your website. I don't know how people could
7:06
Speaker 1: could learn about this stuff and understand what's going on
7:09
Speaker 1: in the hunting and fishing conservation world. If you guys
7:12
Speaker 1: weren't doing what you do. So just big thank you
7:15
Speaker 1: for me right off the get go for for doing
7:17
Speaker 1: such helpful work. Well, we appreciate that. And you know,
7:20
Speaker 1: there's you talk about one of the problems, which is
7:23
Speaker 1: there are so many different things that are going on
7:25
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are so complicated that you know,
7:28
Speaker 1: the average hunter out there looks at it and they
7:30
Speaker 1: just you know, eyes glaze over and you don't pay
7:33
Speaker 1: much attention. And so that's what we get paid to do,
7:36
Speaker 1: is to work on to make sure that somebody is
7:38
Speaker 1: paying attention. And just so your listeners understand, you know,
7:41
Speaker 1: we're a coalition about fifty six different organizations from Mule
7:46
Speaker 1: Deer Foundation and National Deer Alliance to Pass Forever and
7:50
Speaker 1: Ducks Unlimited, but also out to Industry Association and a
7:54
Speaker 1: f l C. I oh, because the twelve million members
7:57
Speaker 1: hunting fish and what we tried to do is really
8:00
Speaker 1: bringing all those diverse voices together and to speaking a
8:03
Speaker 1: common voice on the big issues affecting hunting and fishing
8:06
Speaker 1: and conservation in America, like you know, public lands policy
8:09
Speaker 1: or agriculture policy. Yeah, and I think that's what you
8:14
Speaker 1: just said, right, Their agri culture policy was what I
8:17
Speaker 1: was hoping we could focus on today because I think
8:20
Speaker 1: a lot of people are aware of what's going on
8:22
Speaker 1: with conservation related in relation to public lands. There's been
8:26
Speaker 1: a lot of talk lately over the last you know,
8:28
Speaker 1: several years about what's what's happening with our public lands
8:31
Speaker 1: and some of the different things we need to be
8:32
Speaker 1: aware of on that front. But when it comes to
8:35
Speaker 1: private land stuff, which is is what most deer hunters,
8:38
Speaker 1: especially east of the Mississippi are dealing with, we don't
8:41
Speaker 1: talk about a whole lot, you know. We kind of
8:43
Speaker 1: just talk about at least the average deer hunter is
8:46
Speaker 1: talking about maybe what kind of habitat work we can
8:49
Speaker 1: do on our own properties to help deer um. But
8:52
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of talk about some of
8:54
Speaker 1: the bigger picture programs or regulations or anything like that
9:00
Speaker 1: impacts all of us across the country when it comes
9:02
Speaker 1: to private land conservation. And I know that the Farm
9:06
Speaker 1: Bill is a big piece of that. So what I'm
9:09
Speaker 1: hoping today you can help us understand what is this thing?
9:14
Speaker 1: What is this beast of legislation? Why does it matter?
9:17
Speaker 1: And I guess maybe that maybe before I ramble any further.
9:21
Speaker 1: Can we start right there? Can you just tell us
9:23
Speaker 1: what is the Farm Bill? Why does it matter for
9:25
Speaker 1: deer hunters? Yeah, so, I mean, you know, you're exactly round.
9:29
Speaker 1: A lot of the attention, a lot of our attention
9:31
Speaker 1: is sort of applied to big sexy issues like you know,
9:34
Speaker 1: public lands policy and things like that. But you know,
9:39
Speaker 1: of these countries and private land ownership, and about half
9:42
Speaker 1: of that is an agricultural production or commercial timber production.
9:46
Speaker 1: And so the stats I've seen is about you know,
9:50
Speaker 1: somewhere around you know, the hunters out there, you know,
9:53
Speaker 1: the hunter on private lands predominantly, and so it makes
9:56
Speaker 1: a really big difference. And the Farm Bill actually dates
9:59
Speaker 1: all the way back to the Depression and Franklin Roosevelt,
10:03
Speaker 1: and it was part of his efforts to really stabilize
10:05
Speaker 1: you know, the collapse and the farming economy and the
10:07
Speaker 1: dust bowl and all that at that time by creating
10:11
Speaker 1: incentives for landowners to do the right things by their lands. Uh,
10:16
Speaker 1: it's evolved since the nineteen thirties, and really the conservation
10:19
Speaker 1: parts of the Farm Bill began in the nineteen eighties
10:24
Speaker 1: and there were sort of two goals there. One we
10:25
Speaker 1: were seeing you know, a rapid decline in wetlands and
10:29
Speaker 1: prairie habitat and you know, things like that. So there
10:32
Speaker 1: was a conservation need. We also were in a crisis
10:35
Speaker 1: in the farm states where prices were low and you
10:38
Speaker 1: were seeing you know, small farmers just getting out of business.
10:41
Speaker 1: And so it was sort of one part, you know,
10:44
Speaker 1: doing the right thing for conservation and one part a
10:47
Speaker 1: basically a price support program for the farmers to set
10:51
Speaker 1: aside land, not farm it, and get a payment for it.
10:53
Speaker 1: And that was a way of keeping them in business.
10:56
Speaker 1: And I think that nobody at that time really knew
10:58
Speaker 1: just how beneficial was going to be. But you know,
11:01
Speaker 1: as the results came in, as we saw sort of
11:03
Speaker 1: huge rebounds and pheasant populations and duck populations and white
11:07
Speaker 1: tales and turkeys and a lot of the other things
11:10
Speaker 1: we like to chase, people really started to understand and
11:13
Speaker 1: expand upon, you know, the conservation side of the farm
11:16
Speaker 1: mill and uh, you know, in the sort of grown
11:20
Speaker 1: up and down over time. And last farm Bill is
11:23
Speaker 1: in two thousand and fourteen, and at that time we
11:27
Speaker 1: saw a you know, a cut in the conservation progress.
11:30
Speaker 1: We saw a cut neal for all farm bill. Um,
11:33
Speaker 1: you know, every program pretty much in there was reduced
11:35
Speaker 1: in some fashion, but there was a big cut about
11:37
Speaker 1: three billion dollar cut in you know, the conservation side,
11:41
Speaker 1: and it's but it's still even with that. Today we
11:44
Speaker 1: were spending about five point seven billion dollars two through
11:49
Speaker 1: the Farm Bill to promote conservation on private lands, which
11:51
Speaker 1: really makes it the single largest conservation program in this country.
11:55
Speaker 1: And about fifty million acres out there are enrolled in
11:58
Speaker 1: you know, some conservation ram or another, so it has
12:01
Speaker 1: a huge impact. Um, there are a few different One
12:07
Speaker 1: thing important to understand about the Farm Bill is it's
12:09
Speaker 1: all about voluntary incentives for conservation. Uh. This is the
12:13
Speaker 1: non regulatory approach to conservation, and a lot of people
12:17
Speaker 1: get ticked off. I think about E p A or
12:20
Speaker 1: various other regulatory programs, all of which are necessary. But
12:24
Speaker 1: for private landowners out there, you know, they don't want
12:26
Speaker 1: to be threatened. They want to see if we can
12:28
Speaker 1: be in partnership with the government to do the right thing.
12:32
Speaker 1: And UH. One of the things we saw in the
12:34
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen Farm Bill was, you know, the conservation
12:38
Speaker 1: side since the nineteen eighties had really grown and you know,
12:40
Speaker 1: programs and all sources of programs had popped up to
12:43
Speaker 1: the point where it was getting really complicated for the
12:46
Speaker 1: individual landowner about shy enrolled this or that, and so
12:50
Speaker 1: as a way of reducing some of the costs of
12:52
Speaker 1: the programs, a lot of that was consolidated in two
12:55
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, so I went down to much more more
12:58
Speaker 1: than half the programs were sort of evolved and moved
13:01
Speaker 1: into other programs were existing, which actually makes it, I
13:04
Speaker 1: think a lot easier if you're a landing out there
13:06
Speaker 1: to participate. UM. And then you know, that was where
13:10
Speaker 1: a lot of that three billion dollars worth of savings
13:12
Speaker 1: were in the two thousand eighteen farm build Now as
13:15
Speaker 1: we're looking at two thousand excuse me, the two fourteen
13:18
Speaker 1: farm bell as we're looking at two thousand eighteen, and
13:20
Speaker 1: we have a very different landscape today than we did
13:24
Speaker 1: four years ago. At that time, you know, corn prices,
13:27
Speaker 1: wheat prices, soybean prices for much of record highs, and
13:31
Speaker 1: it was very hard for the conservation programs to compete, um,
13:35
Speaker 1: you know with somebody who's planting those you know, turning
13:38
Speaker 1: those field into road crops. Uh, it's just so lucrative
13:42
Speaker 1: for the farm folks. Back then. We have a very
13:44
Speaker 1: different situation today. Prices are low. You know, farmers out
13:48
Speaker 1: there are not doing well right now, and they're clamoring
13:51
Speaker 1: to get into the conservation programs. But a lot of
13:54
Speaker 1: those programs, like the Conservation Reserve Program got capped in
13:58
Speaker 1: two thousand and fourteen. So CRP Conservation Reserve Program is
14:02
Speaker 1: probably one of the most famous programs out there. If
14:05
Speaker 1: you're a deer hunter, you probably know about it. If
14:07
Speaker 1: you're a pheasant hunter, you definitely know about it. But
14:10
Speaker 1: this is you know, a lot of the program folks
14:12
Speaker 1: can enroll to take you know, the idea was highly
14:15
Speaker 1: erodable areas out of production and also sensitive environmental areas,
14:20
Speaker 1: so let's say stream corridors on a field, you know,
14:24
Speaker 1: de steep slopes that were really pretty marginal for planning
14:27
Speaker 1: in the first place. A lot of those areas got
14:29
Speaker 1: entered into c RP. Uh, not only just to sort
14:32
Speaker 1: of go wild, but then you know, they're awesome incentives
14:35
Speaker 1: to you know, produce, you know, put in for example,
14:38
Speaker 1: you know, seed mixes for pollinators and for other species,
14:42
Speaker 1: and that just made tremendously good habitat um that program
14:47
Speaker 1: and went was at its height about thirty seven million
14:49
Speaker 1: acres around the country and far we're enters into it
14:53
Speaker 1: and they get a payment and if they make a
14:55
Speaker 1: commitment of ten to fifteen years to not you know,
14:58
Speaker 1: basically plow up that land and keep it in conservation
15:01
Speaker 1: and manage it. And uh, you know, so they're from
15:04
Speaker 1: thirty seven million acres at its height. It went down
15:07
Speaker 1: to twenty four million acres in two thousand and fourteen.
15:10
Speaker 1: Not because anybody in Congress was evil or didn't like conservation.
15:13
Speaker 1: The bottom line was it was really hard to compete
15:16
Speaker 1: with high commodity prices. So this is a way of
15:19
Speaker 1: saving money because people weren't enrolling anyway. So but today,
15:23
Speaker 1: you know, as I mentioned, is a very different situation.
15:25
Speaker 1: We're trying to get that number up into the thirties,
15:28
Speaker 1: thirty two five million acres because there's plenty of demand
15:32
Speaker 1: for that. And if you can add yeah, eight you know,
15:36
Speaker 1: ten million acres U two into good conservation and good
15:40
Speaker 1: habitat that has direct application to hunting and fishing. So
15:45
Speaker 1: that's the sort of short take of where we are. Um,
15:49
Speaker 1: it's probably worth talking a little bit about the different
15:51
Speaker 1: types of programs that we have in the Farm Bill.
15:53
Speaker 1: I made one is you know, we just mentioned you know,
15:56
Speaker 1: conservation reserve program which a lot of folks are familiar with, UH,
16:00
Speaker 1: or longer term easement programs where you basically set aside
16:03
Speaker 1: you know, really you know, sensitive areas you know, in
16:06
Speaker 1: perpetuity and obviously you get a lot more money for that, um.
16:10
Speaker 1: But that's really an idea of you know, not having
16:12
Speaker 1: to just sort of keep writing a check every you know,
16:14
Speaker 1: ten years, but areas we know should never be you know,
16:17
Speaker 1: put back under the plow getting them off. UH. There
16:21
Speaker 1: are other programs like you know, what's known as the
16:24
Speaker 1: EQUIP program that will fund things like improving your irrigation
16:28
Speaker 1: system so you use less water and you know, in
16:31
Speaker 1: the same time and return some of that saved water
16:33
Speaker 1: to the stream which is great for fish, or just
16:36
Speaker 1: irrigate a little more sensitively. Um. You. Programs like that
16:39
Speaker 1: are more you know, sort of fixes with you know,
16:41
Speaker 1: actually going in there and turning over some dirt and
16:43
Speaker 1: putting in structures. But that's all eligible under the Farm
16:47
Speaker 1: Bill too. One of the cool things that we did
16:50
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight is we added a public
16:53
Speaker 1: access program to the Farm Bill, and it's known as
16:56
Speaker 1: the Voluntary Public Access Habitat Improvement Program, and it was
17:00
Speaker 1: really actually the brainchild of TRCPS founder, a guy named
17:03
Speaker 1: Jim Range, and he had always thought that, you know,
17:07
Speaker 1: this was a great way of promoting conservation but also
17:10
Speaker 1: expanding public access because, as you know, loss of access is,
17:16
Speaker 1: if not d number one, is certainly one of the
17:17
Speaker 1: top two reasons that people stop hunting and fishing. And
17:22
Speaker 1: so Jim recognized that if we could create some incentives
17:25
Speaker 1: for private landers not only to do good things for conservation,
17:27
Speaker 1: but also to open those lands to public hunting and fishing,
17:30
Speaker 1: it would be a win win for everybody. So in
17:32
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, a prilot program got put in,
17:35
Speaker 1: but the v p A hip is a more official
17:37
Speaker 1: title for it. It got expanded into a fifty million
17:41
Speaker 1: dollar program in the two thousand and fourteen Farm Bill,
17:45
Speaker 1: and it has just been a phenomenal success. I mean,
17:47
Speaker 1: not only is it supplemented you know, states that have
17:50
Speaker 1: traditional walk in programs like Kansas in Montana, UM, but
17:54
Speaker 1: it has you know creag incentives for states like Massachusetts
17:58
Speaker 1: and Connecticut to create these walk in programs, and it's
18:02
Speaker 1: you know, we think in the first year that first
18:05
Speaker 1: section of the Farm Bill. From the two thousand eight
18:06
Speaker 1: Farm bill, it added about three million acres of private
18:09
Speaker 1: land public access. And the way that works is, you know,
18:13
Speaker 1: a state applies for a grant from the Partment Agriculture,
18:17
Speaker 1: Yeah a million dollars, it gets it, and then it
18:19
Speaker 1: uses that money to go out and enter into individual
18:21
Speaker 1: contract with willing landowners. And so Landard has got a
18:24
Speaker 1: payment uh in exchange for the state promises to, you know,
18:29
Speaker 1: put up the signage, monitor access. And also the status
18:33
Speaker 1: seems liability, so somebody steps in a ditch and breaks
18:36
Speaker 1: their leg, Landard doesn't have to worry about being sued.
18:39
Speaker 1: That program again was expanded fifty million dollars in the
18:43
Speaker 1: two thousand and fourteen Farm Bill. According to our friends
18:46
Speaker 1: of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, they say
18:49
Speaker 1: that you demand right now could easily full programs a
18:52
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars, which would add millions and
18:57
Speaker 1: more acres private land, public houneing and fishing. And so
19:00
Speaker 1: we've had bills dropped in the House and the Senate
19:03
Speaker 1: just on that one program. Bipartisan Republicans and Democrats, they
19:08
Speaker 1: would expand that to a hundred and fifty million dollar programs.
19:11
Speaker 1: So you know, in addition to the good things for conservation,
19:15
Speaker 1: we also have a direct direct tide public access and
19:18
Speaker 1: the farm bell through the v p A hip program.
19:23
Speaker 1: How how do how do hunters find where these places
19:28
Speaker 1: are a lot of people don't even realize that these
19:31
Speaker 1: kinds of programs are in place in a lot of
19:32
Speaker 1: states because and to your point, access is such a
19:35
Speaker 1: challenge for so many of us. Where do they get
19:38
Speaker 1: the info and what all states do utilize this program? Well,
19:42
Speaker 1: it's funny because every state has their own way of
19:44
Speaker 1: advertising it and it's has actually been one of my
19:47
Speaker 1: pet peeves is there's not one you know, if I'm
19:50
Speaker 1: I'm flying into pure South Dakota to go a pheasant hunting,
19:52
Speaker 1: I can't you know, sort of click on my access
19:55
Speaker 1: app and all of a sudden, have you pop up
19:57
Speaker 1: all around me these walking areas and what the rules
20:00
Speaker 1: are with them. So what you gotta do now is
20:03
Speaker 1: you got to go to the individual state websites and
20:05
Speaker 1: find out about so like in your state of Michigan,
20:07
Speaker 1: it's the Hunter as Honey Access program And what you
20:11
Speaker 1: will do is you'll go in there and you know,
20:13
Speaker 1: google that and it will tell you where those areas
20:16
Speaker 1: are if there any special rules associated with them. In
20:18
Speaker 1: Illinois is called the Illinois Recreational Access PROGRAMMER I WRAP. Um,
20:24
Speaker 1: you know, in Iowa it's the Hunter Illinois Hunter excuse me,
20:28
Speaker 1: Illinois Habitat and Access program I have and you know,
20:33
Speaker 1: so they're every state calls it something a little bit different,
20:36
Speaker 1: block grant programs, and that's what we call in some states.
20:39
Speaker 1: So what you really just gotta do is you go
20:42
Speaker 1: to your state agency's website, you know, google it and
20:44
Speaker 1: find out where these areas are. There will be maps
20:47
Speaker 1: you can click on them that should they should pop
20:49
Speaker 1: up and tell you about where the access points are
20:51
Speaker 1: and if there any special rules and REGs about going
20:54
Speaker 1: on them. Um. But it's you know, it's a really
20:57
Speaker 1: good program. Right now, when we're trying to do is
20:59
Speaker 1: get that span and also make sure that it's targeted.
21:02
Speaker 1: For example, if you target some of those areas that
21:05
Speaker 1: say about a national forest, uh, then you can you
21:09
Speaker 1: get access to those, but you can also then get
21:11
Speaker 1: access to the national forest behind it, which may have
21:13
Speaker 1: been inaccessible to most hunters. I mean you think about
21:17
Speaker 1: how the you know, for example, in the West, how
21:20
Speaker 1: development happened, and that is, you know, the private landers
21:23
Speaker 1: took all the good land down the river bottoms and
21:25
Speaker 1: then you know the mountains behind them where the national
21:27
Speaker 1: forests are. And the old days you can always just
21:30
Speaker 1: knock on someone's door, walk across their land, and you know,
21:33
Speaker 1: go hunt the national forest. And that has changed. People
21:36
Speaker 1: are afraid of liability. You know, a rich you know,
21:40
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley billionaire, has you bought that parcel and popped
21:43
Speaker 1: up no trespassing signs. So we have lost a lot
21:46
Speaker 1: of access, not only to private land, but to public
21:49
Speaker 1: lands that traditionally could be accessed but no longer can be.
21:53
Speaker 1: And so if you use something like you whither these programs,
21:56
Speaker 1: the volunteer of public access, you know programs in the
21:58
Speaker 1: farm bill, you can really be and strategically to access
22:02
Speaker 1: some of those lands that have become inaccessible. Right. So,
22:05
Speaker 1: so here's the question I've got about this kind of thing,
22:08
Speaker 1: because the voluntary public access portion of this just it
22:12
Speaker 1: seems like such a home run, such a no brainer
22:14
Speaker 1: benefit too, especially to hunters um. But the question is
22:20
Speaker 1: how do we help with something like this because and
22:23
Speaker 1: this is maybe a larger question too, but when you
22:25
Speaker 1: look at the farm Bill. It's it seems to be
22:27
Speaker 1: this convoluted combination of all these different programs and pieces
22:31
Speaker 1: and parts. UM. But then you also see things like
22:35
Speaker 1: this program that are getting talked about even outside of
22:39
Speaker 1: the Farm Bill. I think that you guys call this
22:41
Speaker 1: a marker bill. I was reading about how just recently, Yeah,
22:44
Speaker 1: so just recently a handful of UM congressmen proposed some
22:49
Speaker 1: updates to this, I think just this last week about
22:52
Speaker 1: some updates for this new version of the of the
22:54
Speaker 1: v p A UM. So how does that work? And
22:57
Speaker 1: how do we hunters say, yes, we really want this,
22:59
Speaker 1: we want this expanded. UM. Do we do we need
23:02
Speaker 1: to work on it right now because of this new
23:04
Speaker 1: proposal or do we wait until the farm bill debates
23:06
Speaker 1: are really happening. So that's a great question. And uh,
23:11
Speaker 1: you know, the farm bill debates are happening right now.
23:14
Speaker 1: And the way the farm bill works has so many
23:16
Speaker 1: diverse programs. I mean, you know, the food stamp program
23:19
Speaker 1: in this country is under the farm bill, you know,
23:21
Speaker 1: in addition to you know, crop insurance, in addition to
23:24
Speaker 1: the conservation payments. So there is a ton that goes on.
23:28
Speaker 1: The way it often happens is that individual portions of
23:31
Speaker 1: the farm bill. Members will break them off introduce what
23:34
Speaker 1: we call marker bills, and that's where they can be
23:36
Speaker 1: discussed and they can be modified, because once everything is
23:38
Speaker 1: put together, it's just becomes so big it's hard to
23:40
Speaker 1: get your arms around. Um. You do a lot of
23:43
Speaker 1: that sort of yeah, obviously negotiating and fine tuning with
23:47
Speaker 1: these marker bills, and then assuming you build some good
23:49
Speaker 1: by partis in support and you take care of any
23:51
Speaker 1: unanticipated problems, then you hopefully that becomes what guests moved
23:55
Speaker 1: into the bigger farm bill. Um. So, as you just mentioned,
23:59
Speaker 1: you know, we have now sent versions and House versions
24:01
Speaker 1: of a new voluntary public access bill, and really the
24:05
Speaker 1: main change in it is that it's just a bigger bill.
24:08
Speaker 1: It goes from fifty million dollars to a hundred and
24:10
Speaker 1: fifty million, and we think it is going to have
24:13
Speaker 1: broad bipartisan support. The Senate bill was you know, Senator
24:16
Speaker 1: Bennett Democrat from Colorado, Senator Crapo, Republican from Idaho. Four
24:23
Speaker 1: members including your you know, Debbie Dangle from Michigan were
24:26
Speaker 1: the co sponsors in the House side. And you we
24:29
Speaker 1: can go to our website which is a tier cp
24:31
Speaker 1: dot org and click on our Farm Bill stuff nicket
24:34
Speaker 1: all the details, But first you thank the folks that
24:37
Speaker 1: have introduced this to urge your own congress person to
24:41
Speaker 1: get in there and support this program and broadly support
24:45
Speaker 1: conservation the farm bill. The challenge that we're going to
24:48
Speaker 1: be under is especially now that you know Congress has
24:52
Speaker 1: you know, done the tax bill. They've proved a two
24:54
Speaker 1: year budget, you know that spends a ton of money.
24:56
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a lot more pressure than usual on
24:59
Speaker 1: the Farm Bill to cut money. And because you know,
25:02
Speaker 1: there are few folks out there is actually think deficits
25:04
Speaker 1: still matter, and they see the farm Bill as a
25:07
Speaker 1: giant chunk of cash. And what we don't want to
25:10
Speaker 1: see happens a lot of these conservation programs to be
25:12
Speaker 1: the ones to get sacrificed in exchange for spending in
25:15
Speaker 1: other areas. So a day two things. One, you know,
25:20
Speaker 1: argue for the voluntary of public access program expansion in
25:24
Speaker 1: the you know whatever house were the center farm Bill,
25:27
Speaker 1: and to really pushed back on the notion of cuts
25:30
Speaker 1: to conservation. If anything, we ought to be doubling down
25:33
Speaker 1: on conservation. A couple of points here, I mean we
25:36
Speaker 1: obviously on this administration does not like the idea of
25:41
Speaker 1: you know, e p A and regulatory enforcement, which is fine,
25:45
Speaker 1: but if you're not going to go out there and
25:46
Speaker 1: enforce things to regulation, you better double down on voluntary
25:50
Speaker 1: and centives to do the right things and areas like
25:53
Speaker 1: programs like the Farm Bill with its you know, the
25:56
Speaker 1: grasslands programs, wetlands programs, you know, trap all the rest.
26:02
Speaker 1: I mean, those are natural programs to improve water quality.
26:06
Speaker 1: So if you don't like dead zones in the Gulf
26:08
Speaker 1: of Mexico, in Lake Erie, off the coast of Florida,
26:12
Speaker 1: other places, you need to double down on these voluntary
26:15
Speaker 1: and centers for conservation. And you know, so I think
26:18
Speaker 1: that in I also would argue, and I think that
26:21
Speaker 1: the economics back this up that these aren't just hand
26:25
Speaker 1: douns to farmers. I mean, these are good for local economies.
26:28
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember when the walk in programs first
26:31
Speaker 1: started in Kansas, and it was years ago, and it
26:34
Speaker 1: brought so many people that came to the state to
26:36
Speaker 1: go pheasant hunting. And there's so many ripple effects to
26:39
Speaker 1: the economy. Motel rooms, diners, supporting good shops, you name it.
26:44
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, the counties, we're sending text to
26:47
Speaker 1: the state government to extend those areas because they saw
26:50
Speaker 1: what was doing locally for the economy. I don't know
26:53
Speaker 1: if you noticed, but this past week, you know, the
26:55
Speaker 1: Bureau of Economic Analysis released statistics on the outdoor recreation
26:59
Speaker 1: of economy in this country and it is massive, and
27:02
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing play a really big part in that.
27:05
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, so I would argue that any
27:08
Speaker 1: investments we make in conservation, expanding hunting and fishing are
27:11
Speaker 1: also investments in our economy. Yeah, so taking a or
27:17
Speaker 1: zooming back, I guess a little bit excuse me, zooming out. Uh.
27:21
Speaker 1: You talked a little bit about this as far as
27:24
Speaker 1: what you think might be going on with the current
27:26
Speaker 1: administration and some of these pressures, But can you speak
27:28
Speaker 1: a little more on what the overall prognosis is, you know,
27:32
Speaker 1: coming into the two thousand and eighteen debate, do we
27:34
Speaker 1: feel good about what's happening or is this like an
27:37
Speaker 1: area that we are concerned about in the hunting and
27:39
Speaker 1: fishing community really needs to um get into get into
27:43
Speaker 1: action here and make sure that we don't have any
27:46
Speaker 1: negative outcomes. Well, I mean, one thing that having been
27:49
Speaker 1: around this town for a very long time, has told
27:52
Speaker 1: us is you'd never take anything for granted, and the
27:55
Speaker 1: squeaky Wheel against the Greece. So I think we're in
27:58
Speaker 1: a pretty good place with the farm bill moving forward.
28:01
Speaker 1: But unless you know members of Congress here from constituents
28:05
Speaker 1: like ours, they care about conservation, they care about public access.
28:09
Speaker 1: They're gonna be hearing a whole lot from commodity groups.
28:12
Speaker 1: They're gonna be hearing a whole lot from other folks
28:14
Speaker 1: that have vested interests in this. And our job is
28:17
Speaker 1: to make sure that our voices are heard as well,
28:19
Speaker 1: and not in a shrill way. But yeah, using facts,
28:23
Speaker 1: you know, talking about water quality, talking about local economic impact,
28:26
Speaker 1: talking about how important these programs are to getting our kids,
28:29
Speaker 1: you know, away from the TV screen or their video
28:32
Speaker 1: games and out into the field. And I think yet,
28:35
Speaker 1: but you know, we cannot. Nobody can assume that you know,
28:38
Speaker 1: everyone somebody else is making that case. We all need
28:40
Speaker 1: to weigh in on this one, fair enough. So are
28:43
Speaker 1: what are some of the other programs You're going through
28:45
Speaker 1: the list of the different pieces of this um what's next? Yeah,
28:49
Speaker 1: I mean there's a I mean, there's a variety of
28:53
Speaker 1: the big ones in the farm bill. I mean, there's
28:55
Speaker 1: the what we call ASP for the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program,
28:59
Speaker 1: and asked the one we talked about that you know
29:01
Speaker 1: sort of you know, allows these larger parcels to be
29:05
Speaker 1: preserved a long term. We have the Conservation Reserve Program,
29:09
Speaker 1: which is a short term you know, ten fifteen years
29:11
Speaker 1: tops contracts to take land out of production and ideally
29:16
Speaker 1: you know, some of the higher quality you know, are
29:18
Speaker 1: more less high quality agriculturals, but important ecologically, stream corridors,
29:24
Speaker 1: highly erodable areas in places like that. We have the
29:28
Speaker 1: Environmental Quality Incentives Program EQUIP, And I mentioned that one,
29:33
Speaker 1: you know that is uh, you know, there have been
29:34
Speaker 1: a whole lot of wildlife investments on that one. I
29:37
Speaker 1: use the example of converting an irrigation system to make
29:40
Speaker 1: it a little more fish friendly. But there are a
29:43
Speaker 1: bunch of other things that can be done under that.
29:45
Speaker 1: A new program that was created in the two thousand
29:48
Speaker 1: fourteen Farm Bill, something called the Regional Conservation Partnership Program
29:52
Speaker 1: or r c PP. The idea there was to really
29:55
Speaker 1: target conservation investments on large scale watersheds or large scale areas.
30:01
Speaker 1: But in the past. You know, the conservation part of
30:04
Speaker 1: the farm bill could s already consider you a thousands
30:07
Speaker 1: of acts of random kindness. Our CPP was an idea
30:11
Speaker 1: of let's get folks diverse interests, conservation groups, farm groups,
30:16
Speaker 1: you know, conservation districts, others in a big watershed or
30:20
Speaker 1: a big area. So let's say the Upper Missouri Watershed
30:23
Speaker 1: in Montana something like that, and get them all working
30:26
Speaker 1: together and create public private partnerships to really make sure
30:29
Speaker 1: that we're having a broader impact what we're doing. It's
30:33
Speaker 1: not just isolated parcels, but it's really affecting entire landscapes.
30:38
Speaker 1: That is a program that's because it was new. There
30:40
Speaker 1: was some bugs in it, and we're getting those worked out,
30:43
Speaker 1: but that's something that really requires, you know, additional investment
30:46
Speaker 1: moving forward. I mentioned the voluntary of Public Access program,
30:51
Speaker 1: which is the public access part of the farm bill,
30:54
Speaker 1: and then really the last big one that is in
30:56
Speaker 1: you know, sort of our you know, I think that
30:58
Speaker 1: your listeners really should care about is something all conservation compliance.
31:02
Speaker 1: And this is where we sort of morph a little
31:03
Speaker 1: bit into the regulatory side. So we we went away
31:07
Speaker 1: from in the previous farm bill sort of direct payments
31:10
Speaker 1: to landowners to subsidize their production. Uh. Instead, we basically
31:15
Speaker 1: said you'll get a payment if your crop fails. You're
31:17
Speaker 1: not going to get a payment if you're doing fine,
31:19
Speaker 1: and which makes sense. Um, so that's crop insurance. But
31:23
Speaker 1: in order for that to work, it has to be
31:25
Speaker 1: linked to conservation and so otherwise you have an incentive
31:30
Speaker 1: to go up there and dig up and plant the
31:33
Speaker 1: worst land on your farm, knowing this is probably gonna fail,
31:36
Speaker 1: but who cares because you're gonna get a payment. You're
31:38
Speaker 1: gonna from crop insurance because it failed. Now that is
31:41
Speaker 1: just your bad public policy and it's bad for fisher wilfe.
31:44
Speaker 1: So it was really controversial. We managed to get it
31:47
Speaker 1: in in the two thousand and fourteen you know farm
31:49
Speaker 1: bill is that relinking you know, conservation compliance with crop insurance.
31:53
Speaker 1: So today you want you can go up and you
31:55
Speaker 1: can plow up those areas, but you're not going to
31:58
Speaker 1: be eligible for a crop insurance payment, and which is
32:01
Speaker 1: plenty of incentive to keep folks from and they see
32:04
Speaker 1: plowing up those areas that should never get plowed. So
32:08
Speaker 1: we've got in. You know, part of the ad community
32:10
Speaker 1: is after those and wants to see that taken away
32:13
Speaker 1: because they see that as too much intrusion on how
32:15
Speaker 1: they do business. In my mind, it is basic good
32:18
Speaker 1: governance that we do not want to be subsidizing bad practices.
32:22
Speaker 1: And so to the extent the europe listeners want to
32:25
Speaker 1: weigh in on conservation compliance and make sure that that
32:28
Speaker 1: remains linked to crop insurance. That is a really important
32:33
Speaker 1: program too. That's good to know. So we've got we've
32:37
Speaker 1: got CRP, which is incentivizing landowners to develop better habitat
32:42
Speaker 1: for wildlife and it's incentive. It's an incentive, so they're
32:46
Speaker 1: they're benefiting it from it too. We've got the voluntary
32:49
Speaker 1: access programs. We've got easman programs that preserve areas long term.
32:53
Speaker 1: We've got ways to help, you know, landowners better comply
32:56
Speaker 1: with some of the things that are going to protect
32:58
Speaker 1: some of these places. There's a whole bunch of different
33:00
Speaker 1: pieces of this pie. And you spoke to this a
33:02
Speaker 1: little bit when it came to the voluntary access standpoint.
33:06
Speaker 1: How we can be calling our representatives and supporting that.
33:09
Speaker 1: Um so we I guess what I'm starting to say
33:11
Speaker 1: here is we can call our representatives, we can email
33:15
Speaker 1: our representatives. But is there any Is there any kind
33:17
Speaker 1: of focused, um targeted other actions that we should be taking,
33:22
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes there's petitions or different things like that
33:24
Speaker 1: for specific aspects. Is there anything like that, Yeah, you
33:28
Speaker 1: can go on. There are a couple of things we've
33:30
Speaker 1: got a First of all, there's a whole you know,
33:32
Speaker 1: sport of sports nes priorities for conservation and access in
33:35
Speaker 1: the two thousand eighteen farm Bill. It's a publication we produced.
33:38
Speaker 1: If you go to TRCP dot org slash farm bill
33:42
Speaker 1: you will find it and it will be all our
33:44
Speaker 1: detailed recommendations for what's you know, what we want to
33:48
Speaker 1: see out of the farm Bill. And it's not just us.
33:50
Speaker 1: I mean, there are twenty four different groups that are
33:52
Speaker 1: part of our Agricultural Working Group, uh, groups that really
33:55
Speaker 1: care about you know, these things. It's a very group
33:57
Speaker 1: first group. I mean it's ranges from the Americans Fishery
34:00
Speaker 1: Society to the Associatedous Fish and Wildlife Agencies and Ducks Unlimited.
34:05
Speaker 1: But you know also from you know, Trout Unlimited, UM
34:09
Speaker 1: Wildlife Society, Wildlife Managements to Western Landowners Alliance. You know.
34:14
Speaker 1: So it is very much the you know, the big picture,
34:16
Speaker 1: and this is basically our collective vision and what needs
34:19
Speaker 1: to happen to the farm bill, so folks can go
34:22
Speaker 1: to that and then they can get much more detail
34:24
Speaker 1: and you know, figure out how to you know, contact
34:26
Speaker 1: their congressmen and all the rest. There is another specific
34:29
Speaker 1: site that we have called c RP Works, and that
34:32
Speaker 1: is a dedicated website just about c RP and it
34:36
Speaker 1: has petition and sign up and you get more information.
34:39
Speaker 1: And because CRUP is such an important part of the
34:42
Speaker 1: farm bill for our community, we have created a separate,
34:45
Speaker 1: you know site there. So those will give you, I
34:47
Speaker 1: think any listeners that want to go on, we'll give
34:50
Speaker 1: them places and really show how they can take action
34:52
Speaker 1: on this. But the key thing is really just to
34:54
Speaker 1: take action. Don't assume that somebody else is doing this
34:56
Speaker 1: stuff for you. That's that's definitely important. And I guess
35:00
Speaker 1: one more time, I wanted to just double check on timing.
35:03
Speaker 1: Is there a time that is the very most impactful?
35:07
Speaker 1: You know, any time now is a good time, because
35:09
Speaker 1: you know, we think the House Representatives is going to
35:11
Speaker 1: put in a farm bill within the next couple of weeks.
35:13
Speaker 1: They're going to drop their big bill. UH. Senate will
35:16
Speaker 1: not be far behind. Um. We are told that you know,
35:20
Speaker 1: they're going to try to move this before the summer recess,
35:23
Speaker 1: which is basically the endin ulye beginning of August. Um,
35:26
Speaker 1: you know so, and that's that's gonna come pretty fast.
35:29
Speaker 1: So we'll have a better idea in the next few weeks.
35:31
Speaker 1: But what's in the various bills, and we'll have more
35:33
Speaker 1: sort of specific advice to give to our you know,
35:37
Speaker 1: our members are supporters, our partner groups. If any of
35:41
Speaker 1: your folks want to just sign up as a you know,
35:43
Speaker 1: sign up on our site, they're gonna get weekly updates
35:46
Speaker 1: as to what's moving through Congress and what they can do. UM.
35:49
Speaker 1: And you know so, I would say that as the
35:50
Speaker 1: first step. But you know, I think that you know,
35:54
Speaker 1: the farm bill is unlike any other program really in
35:57
Speaker 1: Congress because it is not a partisan bill. It generally
36:00
Speaker 1: breaks down along geographic lines much more than Republican Democratic lines.
36:06
Speaker 1: And in a year when you know, any time when
36:09
Speaker 1: Congress wants to show can bring home the bacon, it
36:11
Speaker 1: tries to pass farm bills in election years. Um. Because
36:15
Speaker 1: with the end we don't have earmarks anymore. This is
36:17
Speaker 1: one way that they can really show they've brought something
36:20
Speaker 1: back to folks that matter in their states. And the
36:23
Speaker 1: reason that the farm Bill passes is because there is
36:26
Speaker 1: an alliance between urban members and rural members. The urban
36:29
Speaker 1: members get their nutrition assistance, their food stamps, the rural
36:33
Speaker 1: members get their price programs, get their conservation programs. Uh,
36:38
Speaker 1: you know, so we'd all are you doing is going
36:40
Speaker 1: in there and railing against you know, food stamps or something,
36:42
Speaker 1: because this is part of the coalition that keeps um
36:47
Speaker 1: the Farm Bill of live and viable. Because we ever
36:50
Speaker 1: break off just rural America versus urban America, we are screwed.
36:54
Speaker 1: And so I mean, folks need to remember that, you know,
36:57
Speaker 1: set the politics aside, focus on the farm bill, and
37:01
Speaker 1: and really pushed for something to get done, you know,
37:03
Speaker 1: sooner rather than later. And I think that the we're
37:07
Speaker 1: hearing a lot from the farm community and especially the
37:09
Speaker 1: small farmers out there. They're on a lot of financial
37:11
Speaker 1: stress right now. They're very supportive of you know, the
37:15
Speaker 1: farm Bill and the conservation programs because they see it
37:18
Speaker 1: as a way if they can ride out these tough times.
37:20
Speaker 1: Whereas maybe four years ago they thought they didn't need
37:22
Speaker 1: the conservation programs. That has changed. So I think the
37:25
Speaker 1: timing is really good to get something that's positive with
37:29
Speaker 1: this farm bill. But you know, just d C is
37:32
Speaker 1: so dysfunctional these days that if you just can't assume anything, Yeah,
37:37
Speaker 1: I can't take anything for granted these days. This is
37:40
Speaker 1: This is great though, because I think that when people
37:42
Speaker 1: hear the farm Bill, if they don't know anything about it,
37:44
Speaker 1: they just assume, unless they're a farmer themselves, that they
37:47
Speaker 1: assume it has nothing to do with me. And then
37:49
Speaker 1: if they do realize that there is some benefits within
37:52
Speaker 1: it to the hunting and fishing and outdoor community, they
37:55
Speaker 1: just might get confused by the whole alphabet soup of
37:58
Speaker 1: all the different programs and acronyms, and it's just kind
38:00
Speaker 1: of a murky swamp to wade through. So I'm glad
38:03
Speaker 1: you broke it down by a few of the most
38:05
Speaker 1: important programs that we can kind of wrap our heads around,
38:09
Speaker 1: and the action items I think are clear. Um. I
38:12
Speaker 1: want to shift gears to one final alphabet soup acronym
38:17
Speaker 1: here that's not in the farm Bill, But I do
38:19
Speaker 1: want to touch on this, and that's the Land and
38:22
Speaker 1: Water Conservation Fund um, because I know this is something
38:26
Speaker 1: that is up for debate again this year. Can you
38:29
Speaker 1: fill us in the latest with l WCF and maybe
38:31
Speaker 1: for those that aren't familiar, really quick what is it
38:33
Speaker 1: wasn't important? And then what's happening right now? Well, it's
38:37
Speaker 1: it's a great question. And this is another hugely important
38:40
Speaker 1: federal program for sportsman's access. So the Land Water Conservation
38:44
Speaker 1: Fund was created in nineteen sixty and it was a
38:47
Speaker 1: deal basically between you know, the oil and gas industry
38:51
Speaker 1: and you know, the conservation interests. And so the deal was,
38:54
Speaker 1: we're going to open up the Outer Continental Shelf to
38:57
Speaker 1: oil and gas development. In exchange, the oil and gas
39:00
Speaker 1: industry will pay in nine million dollars a year into
39:02
Speaker 1: a fund, land and Water Conservation Fund. They will be
39:06
Speaker 1: used to you know, protect you know, at risk natural
39:10
Speaker 1: areas through acquisition through Eastman. The program also supports state parks,
39:14
Speaker 1: so there's a local benefit as well. Um, and it
39:18
Speaker 1: was it was it was a great compromise and really
39:21
Speaker 1: the way you know, governing is supposed to work in
39:23
Speaker 1: It passed essentially unanimously in the Senate. In the fifty
39:27
Speaker 1: plus years since the Land Water Conservation Fund was created,
39:31
Speaker 1: only one time has it been fully funded. Instead, Congress
39:36
Speaker 1: gets all those receipts or the governmental government gets all
39:38
Speaker 1: those receipts, but Congress decides, well, we're actually gonna hijack
39:42
Speaker 1: that money and put it someplace else. So in a
39:45
Speaker 1: typical year you may get three four hundred million dollars
39:49
Speaker 1: going to the fund, which is still a lot of money.
39:50
Speaker 1: It's a lot less money that was in, but it's
39:54
Speaker 1: still important for you know, doing targeted acquisitions for easement
39:58
Speaker 1: programs for parks. UH initially had a fifty year authorization
40:04
Speaker 1: that expired three years ago. We got a three year extension.
40:07
Speaker 1: In theory, this program run is no longer authorized at
40:10
Speaker 1: the end of September this year. So we want really
40:13
Speaker 1: two things. One we want it reauthorized and two we
40:17
Speaker 1: want it fully funded. Um. You will hear complaints of
40:21
Speaker 1: some folks, well, gosh, you know, the federal government can't
40:23
Speaker 1: take you can't take care of the land it has,
40:25
Speaker 1: why should we add more to it? A couple of
40:27
Speaker 1: responses to that. First of all, you know, a relative
40:30
Speaker 1: small part of this is acquisition, A lot more of
40:33
Speaker 1: it is easements, and it's just keeping highly very important
40:38
Speaker 1: areas from getting developed. I mean, we're not making any
40:40
Speaker 1: more land. And as you know, as I know living
40:43
Speaker 1: around here in d C. You know, the march of
40:46
Speaker 1: sprawl is relentless. And the places that you know I
40:50
Speaker 1: could hunt when I was a kid, you know, we're
40:52
Speaker 1: now you know, full fledged, you know, shopping malls, subdivisions,
40:57
Speaker 1: all the rest. So LBCF is really important for protecting
41:01
Speaker 1: some of the special places. It's all done through willing sellers.
41:04
Speaker 1: There's no condemnation that goes in there. UM. And it's
41:08
Speaker 1: also incredibly important I mentioned before, like in part of
41:11
Speaker 1: connecting you know, off limits public lands through to the
41:15
Speaker 1: public again, so Land of Water Conservation Fund is one
41:18
Speaker 1: of those things that we can use to go in
41:19
Speaker 1: there and do that easement on a thousand acre ranch
41:22
Speaker 1: at the foothills of mountains that then connects the public
41:25
Speaker 1: with an area that can no longer get to to
41:27
Speaker 1: go hunting. UM. So they're all sorts of benefits with this.
41:31
Speaker 1: There was a you know, a cool piece I think
41:33
Speaker 1: it was in one of the outdoor rags, I think
41:37
Speaker 1: Field and Stream or Outdoor Life that talked about a
41:39
Speaker 1: world record big horn that was shot not too long
41:41
Speaker 1: ago in an island in Montana, and that island was
41:43
Speaker 1: brought through with LBCF funds and you know. So it's
41:47
Speaker 1: it's things like that that this is a mom and
41:50
Speaker 1: apple pie, you know, program for sportsmen, and it is
41:54
Speaker 1: again just another one of these sort of travesty is
41:55
Speaker 1: the way we run our government. That this money was
41:58
Speaker 1: certisfied for this purpose us and it's not being used
42:02
Speaker 1: for that purpose, and it's billions of dollars it should
42:05
Speaker 1: have gone into conservation over the past fifty years have
42:08
Speaker 1: been suburnted for other things. And we ought to just
42:11
Speaker 1: be putting our foot down and saying that this is
42:13
Speaker 1: incredibly important. It's not just incredibly important for hunting and
42:16
Speaker 1: fishing and water quality, but for bird watching and hiking.
42:19
Speaker 1: And this is one of the programs that's really brought
42:21
Speaker 1: by partisan support for conservation interests. But there are some
42:25
Speaker 1: basically with the fame folks that really don't like public lands,
42:28
Speaker 1: you want to get rid of the public lands or
42:30
Speaker 1: dead set in fighting you know, this program. So then it,
42:35
Speaker 1: like you said, every time I hear about this, every
42:38
Speaker 1: time I read something about this, it just seems like
42:39
Speaker 1: such a no brainer. Positive, what's the action that we
42:43
Speaker 1: need to take to make sure that we don't see
42:45
Speaker 1: this cut or not reauthorized or not refunded. Contact your congressman,
42:50
Speaker 1: contact the Trump administration and say that the Land Water
42:54
Speaker 1: Conservation Fund is an incredibly important program for sportsman and
42:58
Speaker 1: that you know Congress to reauthorize it and fully fund it.
43:02
Speaker 1: Perfect simple enough, right, very simple. And again you can
43:06
Speaker 1: go to our website and you'll find out lots more
43:08
Speaker 1: about that that we did report that's on our website
43:11
Speaker 1: a few years ago, just laid out ten examples of
43:13
Speaker 1: how Land Order Conservation Fund has been used for great
43:17
Speaker 1: sportsman's access programs. Excellent. Well, what while we have you,
43:21
Speaker 1: I guess, is there anything else that is top of
43:24
Speaker 1: your mind that that we need to be knowing about
43:26
Speaker 1: what's happening right now in d C or elsewhere pretending
43:29
Speaker 1: to deer hunters or public land or overall conservation, anything
43:33
Speaker 1: else that we need to be keeping our eyes on. Yeah,
43:36
Speaker 1: there's a cool thing that I was announced out of
43:38
Speaker 1: the department the Interior Secretary Zincy a couple of weeks ago,
43:40
Speaker 1: and it's a big emphasis on migration corridors and listen,
43:44
Speaker 1: I've been very critical Secretary Zincy. I mean it was
43:46
Speaker 1: a big support of his when he came in, but
43:48
Speaker 1: felt that he had just sort of been over backwards
43:50
Speaker 1: to open up areas to development, had done nothing for
43:53
Speaker 1: conservation since then. Um. But to his credit, you know,
43:56
Speaker 1: they announced a new Secretary order to require all the
43:59
Speaker 1: age seeds within Department the Interior to work together to
44:02
Speaker 1: protect and strengthen migration corridors. And you know, I mean
44:07
Speaker 1: we have sportsmen know that animals migrate, and you know,
44:11
Speaker 1: have held my hunting places in my campus in the
44:14
Speaker 1: Adondex and you know, the white tails out of there
44:17
Speaker 1: migrate out of our place every year down to you know,
44:19
Speaker 1: an area of twenty plus miles away where they basically
44:22
Speaker 1: overwinter in place like Montana. There's new research on mule
44:27
Speaker 1: deer migrations. Um. And then they have been you know,
44:30
Speaker 1: National Geographic others have covered really cool stuff the path
44:33
Speaker 1: of pronghorn. We know a lot more than we used
44:35
Speaker 1: to know about these migration quarterors. So you can preserve
44:39
Speaker 1: a lot of these big game species pretty simply by targeting.
44:43
Speaker 1: Let's keep development out of these corridors. Let's really focus on,
44:47
Speaker 1: you know, working with the states and private land ours
44:50
Speaker 1: to fix some fencing problems we might have if we
44:52
Speaker 1: have an overpassed or underpass that needs to go in
44:54
Speaker 1: the Highway. Let's work with Department Transportation on that. I mean,
44:58
Speaker 1: it's really a no brainer. But you know, and told
45:00
Speaker 1: this this stircuitar order that came out, there really never
45:03
Speaker 1: been an emphasis from the part of the Interior to
45:06
Speaker 1: focus on that. So I think that's worth noting. And
45:08
Speaker 1: I think that's something that's really cool and we hope
45:11
Speaker 1: that it becomes more than just a circuit of order.
45:13
Speaker 1: That's some real meat gets put on those bones and
45:15
Speaker 1: that that's something great for the hunting community. Yeah, I agree.
45:18
Speaker 1: When I saw that that was that was good news
45:21
Speaker 1: that I was glad to see. Alright, So final question
45:25
Speaker 1: then what and you mentioned are anybody just want to
45:27
Speaker 1: give you an opportunity to do so one more time?
45:29
Speaker 1: Where can people go to follow what you guys are doing,
45:32
Speaker 1: to get more information like this and to stay up
45:34
Speaker 1: to date. Yeah, just go to We don't do a
45:37
Speaker 1: magazine or anything like that. So everything that we have
45:40
Speaker 1: is on our website and it's Tierra CP dot org
45:44
Speaker 1: and you signed up there, Um, you will get a
45:46
Speaker 1: weekly update, you know on you know, what's going on
45:49
Speaker 1: in Congress. I have some fun stuff too. I think
45:52
Speaker 1: our website does a really good job and there are
45:54
Speaker 1: a variety of things you go through it. We have
45:56
Speaker 1: a you know, aside on you know, just pushing back
45:59
Speaker 1: against the Taco for public lands. We have another site
46:01
Speaker 1: called Sportsmen's Country dot org, this petition site that really
46:05
Speaker 1: calls on sportsmen to weigh on on how do we
46:08
Speaker 1: making sure we better managed lands we have that's better
46:12
Speaker 1: forest management to um, you know better you know facilities,
46:16
Speaker 1: you know that from everything from campgrounds to roads to trails. Um.
46:21
Speaker 1: But you will see if you go through that site,
46:23
Speaker 1: if you're a sportsman, there's gonna be something in there
46:25
Speaker 1: that's interesting to you. And if you have questions, you know,
46:28
Speaker 1: it's We also have a staff directory there and you
46:30
Speaker 1: just click on somebody's name and you know, get their
46:33
Speaker 1: email address and send him a note and just ask
46:35
Speaker 1: more questions. And if you also we have some great
46:38
Speaker 1: problems some of our friends like Sitka and first Light
46:40
Speaker 1: and others, and feel free to write a check and
46:43
Speaker 1: get something cool there. You go. Well, I said at
46:46
Speaker 1: the beginning, and I'll say it again, I personally check
46:49
Speaker 1: your guys site almost daily. UM It's it's some of
46:52
Speaker 1: the very best stuff out there to help us keep
46:54
Speaker 1: track of what's happening, So I highly recommend anyone if
46:57
Speaker 1: you're not already signed up for that newsletter, if you're
47:00
Speaker 1: not already checking out their blog on their website, you
47:02
Speaker 1: really should do it. So keep up the great work,
47:05
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for being here. Mark, keep
47:09
Speaker 1: up your great work too, and thank you for having
47:10
Speaker 1: me absolutely, And that's it for us today, folks. A
47:14
Speaker 1: short one, but interesting and important stuff. And part of
47:19
Speaker 1: the reason why this is a quick one and why
47:21
Speaker 1: there wasn't the long intro is because actually, right now,
47:24
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this, when this podcast drops, I
47:26
Speaker 1: am actually out in North Dakota. I mentioned this on
47:30
Speaker 1: last week's episode, but I'm out there right now, shed
47:32
Speaker 1: hunting and scouting and figuring some stuff out out there
47:36
Speaker 1: in western North Dakota with my buddy Further and my
47:40
Speaker 1: dog Boon and having a grand old time hopefully, And
47:43
Speaker 1: if you're interested in following along with that trip, you
47:47
Speaker 1: can check out assuming that I've got internet service where
47:50
Speaker 1: I'm at, which hopefully I will. I'll be posting lots
47:52
Speaker 1: of updates on the Wired Hunt Instagram account, and we're
47:55
Speaker 1: gonna try to do semi live YouTube videos while we're
47:58
Speaker 1: out there. Documenting the venture, So head on over to
48:01
Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt YouTube channel check out what we
48:03
Speaker 1: posted so far, and if for some reason we don't
48:05
Speaker 1: have that service, I'll be posting all these videos when
48:08
Speaker 1: I get home, which should be soon. So thanks for
48:12
Speaker 1: checking those out. And then finally want to give a
48:14
Speaker 1: big thank you to our partners who helped make all
48:16
Speaker 1: of this possible. So big thanks to Sick gear Yeddie Cooler's,
48:21
Speaker 1: Matthew's Archery, may Haven Optics, the White Tail Institute of
48:24
Speaker 1: North America, Trophy Ridge and hunter ra Maps, and of
48:28
Speaker 1: course thank you all for listening. I appreciate you tuning in,
48:31
Speaker 1: I appreciate you paying attention and you know, stepping up
48:34
Speaker 1: to help out on some of these types of issues.
48:37
Speaker 1: We couldn't we couldn't do this kind of stuff without
48:40
Speaker 1: you guys. Your support, your interest, your energy is what
48:44
Speaker 1: fuels this podcast, and that's what fuels the future of
48:47
Speaker 1: hunting in this country and this continent. So big props
48:51
Speaker 1: to all of you, Thanks for being awesome, and stay
48:54
Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt up