Speaker 1: Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we have a special emergency FOP.
Speaker 1: This has dedicated to all the listeners out there who
Speaker 1: stay we should just stay out of politics. Join today
Speaker 1: by my friend Jeremy Romero, who's a hunter, conservationist and
Speaker 1: serves with the National Wildlife Federation. And Jeremy is here
Speaker 1: to talk about kind of what I view to be
Speaker 1: like one of the most I do. Like, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think choose my words carefully here. Cynical, creative, and
Speaker 1: kind of like a little bit like of an exploitive.
Speaker 1: Now explain why I'm using these words. A cynical, exploitive
Speaker 1: public lands bill that has emerged without a lot of
Speaker 1: fanfare and without a lot of reporting. If you, if
Speaker 1: you follow the news you've been, you've seen that we've
Speaker 1: suffered another a number of conservation setbacks coming out of
Speaker 1: the Trump administration where undoing the roleless rule. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: going on. We had we'd put the Ambler Road, building
Speaker 1: a big industrial corridor into Alaska's Brooks Range that had
Speaker 1: again temporarily put to bed. Ambler Road is back on
Speaker 1: the table in order to allow a foreign mining company
Speaker 1: to drill and export a bunch of mineral wealth out
Speaker 1: of Alaska and create a two hundred and fifty mile
Speaker 1: industrial corridor going into one of our last vestiges of wilderness.
Speaker 1: We have another phenomenal piece of wilderness called the Arctic
Speaker 1: National Wildlife Refuge. We learned a couple of days ago
Speaker 1: that they're they're looking to open up and reissue drilling leases.
Speaker 2: In anwar.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of resource management plans, Bureau of
Speaker 1: Land Management resource management plans that just got undone, so Montana, Alaska,
Speaker 1: North Dakota. So these were management plans that many stakeholders
Speaker 1: came together. They served a lot of interests of hunters
Speaker 1: and anglers that got thrown out the window. Okay, the
Speaker 1: aim for everything we're talking about, what we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about in a minute, The aim here is to
Speaker 1: be able to a push by the administration to increase
Speaker 1: resource extraction and industrialization. If you remember, back before a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff started brewing, a lot of this
Speaker 1: stuff was whispers last June. But last June we saw
Speaker 1: perhaps one of the most direct assaults on public lands,
Speaker 1: and that was Utah Senator Mike Lee's pushed to sell
Speaker 1: off a few million acres of public lands that got
Speaker 1: enormous pushback. I would say, like enormous bipartisan pushback. We
Speaker 1: had seen that happen. Again, what year was it the
Speaker 1: Chaf's one, Jared, I'm sorry, do you remember what year
Speaker 1: Jason Chafis proposal which was remarkably similar.
Speaker 2: Twenty seventeen sounds right, yeah, twenty seventeen. I think I
Speaker 2: was right.
Speaker 1: Around twenty seventeen, there was another proposal to sell millions
Speaker 1: of acres of public land that was met with enormous
Speaker 1: bipartisan pushback.
Speaker 2: The media.
Speaker 1: Seemed to be that the national media seemed to be
Speaker 1: expo surprised by the fact that Hunter's co laced around
Speaker 1: pushback on that issue that was by a Utah lawmaker
Speaker 1: named Jason Chafits Senator Mike Lee. Just in June twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five brought out a new plan to sell off
Speaker 1: millions of acres that had different sort of code words.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I find that these plans are a lot of this legislation,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into this in greater detail with Jeremy.
Speaker 1: A lot of the anti public lands legislation, anti wilderness
Speaker 1: aarrea legislation will carry like a a it'll carry fashionable buzzwords. Okay,
Speaker 1: So one of Mike Lee's early versions of the sell
Speaker 1: off was like, was couched in this language around affordable housing.
Speaker 1: But then when you look at the details of the bill,
Speaker 1: it didn't really do much to address affordable housing. Before
Speaker 1: it was in twenty seventeen, it was like extra or
Speaker 1: excess public lands. We have excess public lands. We're going
Speaker 1: to get rid of some of them. The bill we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about now. It uses another currently fashionable
Speaker 1: buzzword in order to accomplish something that really doesn't do
Speaker 1: much to serve the buzzword that it's being marketed under.
Speaker 1: But going back to June, this big sell off push
Speaker 1: was pulled, it was defeated. When that happened, a lot
Speaker 1: of people I know in the conservation space were like,
Speaker 1: We're cautious about declaring it a victory. They're like, that
Speaker 1: was a we want to battle. We didn't win the war.
Speaker 1: This will come back up very quickly. One might think
Speaker 1: that Senator Lee, like it was kind of a bruising
Speaker 1: on that. One might have thought he might retreat from
Speaker 1: the idea altogether of kind of weakening protections.
Speaker 2: But but but he hasn't.
Speaker 1: He's he's he has a he's committed to the idea
Speaker 1: of opening up, of weakening public lands protections, opening up
Speaker 1: undeveloped lands to development.
Speaker 2: That just that's where he is. That's his commitment. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we're looking at a new bill here that was
Speaker 1: introduced on October second, and this is the one I
Speaker 1: was saying that just hasn't, like, for whatever reason, hasn't
Speaker 1: received a bunch of news. And I think it's because
Speaker 1: it's entering an area that's quite clouded with all these
Speaker 1: other things that I laid out, the role this rule
Speaker 1: Ambler Road and why are resource management plans? So this
Speaker 1: one's kind of flown a little bit under the radar.
Speaker 1: And I've asked Jeremy Romero to come on. He was
Speaker 1: the one that told me about it. I asked him
Speaker 1: to come on and explain to me and explain to
Speaker 1: our listeners what the Borderlands Conservation Act is all about.
Speaker 1: And it ain't about conservation. So Jeremy, can you can
Speaker 1: you talk people through what the Borderlands Conservation Act is, like,
Speaker 1: what is it at face value?
Speaker 2: And what is it actually about? And then we'll get
Speaker 2: into some details.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you bet, Steve, Thanks for having me on to
Speaker 3: talk about this issue. You know, I think you said
Speaker 3: it brilliantly. It's a it's an attack on public LANs.
Speaker 3: You know, Senator Lee, I think really took a stab
Speaker 3: at at undermining public lands when we went through the
Speaker 3: reconciliation process, and you know, the large effort to sell
Speaker 3: off public lands, and essentially this is this is no different.
Speaker 3: So in October, early October, Senator Lee introduced the Borderlands
Speaker 3: Conservation Act with you know, in a nutshell, that bill
Speaker 3: is focused on border security. Again, you said, and use
Speaker 3: the phrase of kind of these these sexy terms, right,
Speaker 3: these terms that are popular in society today, and border
Speaker 3: security is one of those. And this bill is aimed
Speaker 3: at at just that increasing border security along the northern
Speaker 3: and southern borders in the United States, kind of creating
Speaker 3: these hundred mile buffer zones in the northern and southern
Speaker 3: borders and basically creates and gives Department of Homeland Security
Speaker 3: the authority to manage these roads and an effort to
Speaker 3: strengthen border security. And it does it by a number
Speaker 3: of different measures that we'll talk about this in this conversation.
Speaker 3: Really those measures, in my opinion, undermined the importance of
Speaker 3: public lands and the protections forwarded to public lands, like
Speaker 3: things like the nineteen sixty nineteen sixty four Wilderness Act.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which are these points should we jump into first?
Speaker 1: Here?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's just talk about this hundred mile buffer kind
Speaker 3: of the rationale behind, you know, inventoring these illegal roads
Speaker 3: and trails.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I want to hit that because when we
Speaker 1: talk about one hundred mile buffer, this will impact. You
Speaker 1: have to appreciate like what we're talking about. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell people something obvious here. If we're talking about
Speaker 1: if you look at a map of the United States
Speaker 1: and then magined coming in from one hundred miles on
Speaker 1: all of our borders north and south and Alaska, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're taking in wilderness areas in Washington, You're taking in
Speaker 1: wilderness areas in Idaho, You're taking wilderness area is in Montana.
Speaker 1: Jumping eastward from there, where this this grabs hold of
Speaker 1: all of the boundary waters area. It would come into
Speaker 1: areas in Maine National Parks, wilderness areas in California, wilderness
Speaker 1: areas in Arizona, wilderness areas in New Mexico, Big Ben
Speaker 1: National Park in Texas, Tungus Wilderness Area in Alaska, wrangle
Speaker 1: Saint Elias Park and Preserve in Alaska. So this is
Speaker 1: a I mean this you can one hand go like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a one hundred mile buffer, but you need to
Speaker 1: appreciate what we're talking about when we talk about a
Speaker 1: one hundred mile buffer coming in from our borders, like
Speaker 1: it's it's grabbing onto a huge swaths of land.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right. And I'll note that the one
Speaker 3: you know, the one type or the types of land jurisdictions,
Speaker 3: that this bill is not specific to our tribal land,
Speaker 3: state lands, and private lands. Other than that, it's take
Speaker 3: can you know, the stroke of a paint brush within
Speaker 3: that hundred mile buffer, And any land that's administered by
Speaker 3: the federal government under d o I and U s
Speaker 3: d A is subject to these measures in this bill.
Speaker 3: So as you mentioned everything, everything administered by d U I,
Speaker 3: by us DA, all those national parks, all those uh
Speaker 3: you know, forest Service units, all those b l M
Speaker 3: Field offices, wilderness study areas, wilderness like, they are all
Speaker 3: subject to the measures in this bill, all within that
Speaker 3: hunter mile buffer, and those are there's a couple of
Speaker 3: other key points when we get to the wilderness portion
Speaker 3: of this that I'll also I'll make I'll make sure
Speaker 3: to distinguish. But you know, basically within this hunter mile
Speaker 3: buffer on the northern and southern boundaries, UH Department of
Speaker 3: Homeland Security is going to work in coordination with d
Speaker 3: U I and U s d A too, inventory what
Speaker 3: they would consider illegal roads and trails that are been
Speaker 3: that have been created by illegal border crossings. And that's
Speaker 3: important because one, how do we herman if in fact
Speaker 3: a road or a trail is created by illegal border crossing,
Speaker 3: and if these agencies, if these land management agencies determine
Speaker 3: that in fact these roads were created by illegal border crossing,
Speaker 3: then it's providing DHS Department Homeland Security the authority to
Speaker 3: then create and manage these roads as navigable roads for
Speaker 3: the sake of border security. So installing infrastructure technology that
Speaker 3: can monitor border security and illegal border crossings and put
Speaker 3: and prevent those from happening in the future. And so
Speaker 3: it really opens up this can of worms of you know,
Speaker 3: deciding whether or not these roads actually are illegal, and
Speaker 3: whether or not these trails are illegal and if so,
Speaker 3: be able to be managed, and it doesn't really consider
Speaker 3: the impacts to developing these roads. You know, currently a
Speaker 3: lot of these agencies go through travel management plans where
Speaker 3: they tory the road use system and determine whether or
Speaker 3: not these roads are navigable or innavigable, and create this
Speaker 3: kind of access plan, this map that you that I
Speaker 3: that others can then access public plans, and they do
Speaker 3: a pretty meticulous job of being able to lay out
Speaker 3: this footprint of what's considered navigable. Right, you want to
Speaker 3: you want to protect wildlife, you want to you know,
Speaker 3: protect wildlife habitat, there's cultural resource protection when it comes
Speaker 3: to managing these roads, and so allowing for this kind
Speaker 3: of unregulated development of roads really I think puts a
Speaker 3: lot of important things in the crosshairs along this buffer.
Speaker 3: And and like you hinted to you, I mean one
Speaker 3: hundred mile buffer to me, is is outrageous, right, I
Speaker 3: mean we're talking from the southern the southern border to
Speaker 3: almost Tucson, Arizona. Right. It encapsulates a lot of country
Speaker 3: that they are claiming be important for border security. And
Speaker 3: in my perspective, I think it's a little outrageous to
Speaker 3: think that a hundred mile buffer and all the different
Speaker 3: types of land jurisdictions and land management UH land jurisdictions
Speaker 3: within that hunter mile buffer are really going to lend
Speaker 3: to increasing border security.
Speaker 1: So I have struggle a little bit just to understand
Speaker 1: even the logic there that it'd be that if you
Speaker 1: were to determine if someone were to determine that a
Speaker 1: road that an illegal road, say on BLM Land and
Speaker 1: illegal road on BLM Land, or like an unregistered road
Speaker 1: on BLM Land, or an illegal trail on BLM Land,
Speaker 1: that they determined to have been utilized by illegal immigrants
Speaker 1: or for my for for illegal immigration of some part,
Speaker 1: that that would then give you justification to go in
Speaker 1: and make it into a road.
Speaker 2: Wilders exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in wilderness and non wilderness. It's it's mind boggling
Speaker 3: to me to to think about how these how the
Speaker 3: mandates in this bill and and those land management agencies,
Speaker 3: how they will come to the conclusion saying that these
Speaker 3: trails and these roads were created by illegal border crossing.
Speaker 3: You know, how how do you determine that? Right?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: That's I think that's kind of the big question I
Speaker 3: have in my mind is you know, when it comes
Speaker 3: to a trail, for instance, I mean you and I
Speaker 3: hunt a lot where we're in places where you know, livestock,
Speaker 3: whether that's a you know, a grazing allotment or what
Speaker 3: have you, or in a lot of areas we tend
Speaker 3: to occupy. You know, if cattle are utilizing a trail
Speaker 3: that they've created, and you know, let's just say there's
Speaker 3: a boot track on there, does that mean that that
Speaker 3: road was used and created by illegals and now it
Speaker 3: gets to be managed by Department of Homeland Security and
Speaker 3: in a fashion that allows them to access you know,
Speaker 3: these these areas. If a road was created by illegal
Speaker 3: OHV use, or it was once determined to be navigable
Speaker 3: and has since been deemed innavigable, so it's no longer
Speaker 3: accessible to the public, how do you determine that that
Speaker 3: road was road was created by by illegal border crossing
Speaker 3: and then be able to reopen that road?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: How The question I have next, next to what I
Speaker 3: just pointed out, is then how do you enforce these
Speaker 3: roads to be used for the intent in which the
Speaker 3: bill describes and not for all this extracurricular activity like
Speaker 3: illegal OHV use. I think there's I think there's a
Speaker 3: bigger question to be had, which is who's gonna who's
Speaker 3: gonna front the cost for developing these roads. I think
Speaker 3: right now, when you look at the deferred maintenance to
Speaker 3: agencies like uh for service in BLM, there's hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands of miles of roads that are deteriorating because these
Speaker 3: agencies don't have the resources to manage the roads that
Speaker 3: they have considered and deemed to be navigable through these
Speaker 3: travel management plans. And we're asking we're asking these agencies
Speaker 3: to create more roads and take away from roads that
Speaker 3: they've already seemed to be accessible and the management and
Speaker 3: the resources you know that they need to manage those roads.
Speaker 3: There's a lot to unpack there, and so I think
Speaker 3: there's a lot of questions, and I think the bill
Speaker 3: doesn't do a great job of defining how these actions
Speaker 3: are going to be conducted. And those are part of
Speaker 3: the part of the many problems I have with the bill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in a minute, let's get into a little bit
Speaker 1: of the how these bills come up, where they leave
Speaker 1: so many details up to one's imagination, and that in
Speaker 1: some ways was attributable to the sinking of the sell
Speaker 1: off plan, where the sell off plan went through a
Speaker 1: handful of versions. They had these permutations, and in the
Speaker 1: end someone realized, and it was pointed out, and this
Speaker 1: was acknowledged by the office that put it forward. It
Speaker 1: was pointed out even though this was put together as
Speaker 1: this idea of addressing affordable housing, and the way the
Speaker 1: bill was written, you couldn't have prevented foreign governments from
Speaker 1: buying the land. Right, So you wind up in this
Speaker 1: thing like you're saying it's one thing, but then you're
Speaker 1: not clarifying with enough level of detail about how it
Speaker 1: would be determined. I would be able to take it
Speaker 1: a little more seriously. If someone was talking about a
Speaker 1: three mile buffer, a five mile buffer, a ten mile buffer,
Speaker 1: I'd be able to look at it and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm willing to at least take this at face value.
Speaker 1: But when you've gotten one hundred miles north of the
Speaker 1: border with Mexico or one hundred miles south of the
Speaker 1: border in Idaho, like, at that point, I don't think
Speaker 1: we're talking about immigration anymore, and so it opens up
Speaker 1: this question of like, what is it really about. If
Speaker 1: it was a five mile thing, I'd be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is about immigration. One hundred miles is about something
Speaker 1: entirely different, and we'll get to that in a minute.
Speaker 1: But let's get into a couple of these components. One
Speaker 1: of the ways that they're trying to sell this again
Speaker 1: couching it in language that anyone would agree with. This
Speaker 1: is like a tactic, right. You say, like, oh, border security, Well,
Speaker 1: who wouldn't want border security? Right, must be a good
Speaker 1: idea here. They're like, hey, this will help with search
Speaker 1: and rescue. Explain that component.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's important to note that the search and
Speaker 3: rescue piece is basically also tied to this amending the
Speaker 3: Wilderness Act.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm out of order. Then let's get into
Speaker 1: amending the Wilderness Act.
Speaker 3: You bet so. A big component of this bill is
Speaker 3: to amend the nineteen six or nineteen sixty nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: four excuse me, Wilderness Preservation Act to allow for the
Speaker 3: use of developing roads using motorized mechanized travel of under
Speaker 3: the hospice of search and rescue and border security, so
Speaker 3: basically allowing the things that the Wilderness Act prevents for
Speaker 3: the sake of border security. What's important to note is
Speaker 3: that when it comes to search and rescue in wilderness areas,
Speaker 3: a lot of the land use management agencies and local
Speaker 3: law enforcement, local search and rescue already have plans in
Speaker 3: place to one prevent more than is intended to when
Speaker 3: it comes to you know, occupying and being in wilderness
Speaker 3: areas to conduct those those search and rescue operations. So
Speaker 3: they can already go in and use motorized mechanized travel
Speaker 3: if it's deemed that they absolutely have to for the
Speaker 3: sake of human life. They have these plans in place,
Speaker 3: and they can go in there and they can fly
Speaker 3: a helicopter, they can take a uh, you know, like
Speaker 3: a gurney that's that's got a wheel on it, they
Speaker 3: can travel in on potentially on four wheelers, or use
Speaker 3: their motorized types of transportation in certain circumstances. These plans
Speaker 3: are already coordinated and developed with those land use management agencies,
Speaker 3: local law enforcement, search and rescue. And so what this
Speaker 3: is trying to do is a you know, amend the
Speaker 3: Wilderness Preservation Act to create those roads, to codify the
Speaker 3: use of motorized mechanized operation in wilderness Act, which to
Speaker 3: me is a really slippery slope. And earlier you mentioned
Speaker 3: like how these bills are written and how kind of
Speaker 3: things let's just say fly under the radar may not
Speaker 3: be explicitly defined. This is an important piece because this
Speaker 3: with this section of the bill does not clarify is
Speaker 3: when it talks about amending the wilderness to create roads
Speaker 3: motorized use with you know, for the sake of border security,
Speaker 3: it does not explicitly mention that it's with that it's
Speaker 3: wilderness areas within the hundred mile buffer, right, It's just
Speaker 3: it's just amending the Wilderness Preservation Act. So technically it
Speaker 3: applies to all wilderness areas, you know, aside from those
Speaker 3: within that hundred mile buffer. So in my mind that
Speaker 3: means if you can justify that building roads in wilderness
Speaker 3: areas is for the sake of border security, it can
Speaker 3: be it can be any wilderness in our country.
Speaker 1: Or building roads is helpful for search and rescue apparently exactly. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we got into some of the details here. What is
Speaker 1: your take the earlier I use like a term cynical,
Speaker 1: and I'm a little I'm not totally happy with word
Speaker 1: choice on that. But what you see is again and
Speaker 1: again you see see these things that they're they're they're
Speaker 1: trying to couch it as one thing, but what they're
Speaker 1: talking about is something else. Okay, So here it's taking
Speaker 1: this idea of border security, this idea of search and
Speaker 1: rescue and and and lo and behold, what does it
Speaker 1: really come down to? It comes down to like weakening
Speaker 1: protections on wilderness areas and making it easier to.
Speaker 2: Develop and do road building.
Speaker 1: Uh do you like in your view and your analysis
Speaker 1: of this, do you do you feel that that's fair?
Speaker 2: Like it?
Speaker 1: Do you feel that there really is I hate to
Speaker 1: use it, but like, is there like a sort of
Speaker 1: conspiracy of sorts of trying to use whatever tools are applicable,
Speaker 1: whatever national crises we have, affordable housing, border security, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, to try to just do anything to weaken
Speaker 1: protections on wilderness areas and weakened protections on public lands.
Speaker 1: And if that's true, like what is the end game? Like,
Speaker 1: how does that ultimately get them what they want?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean I think, you know, from like the conspiracy perspective,
Speaker 3: it's hard not to think that there's these ulterior motives
Speaker 3: when it comes to these types of bills and legislation.
Speaker 3: I mean we've seen time and time, you know, time
Speaker 3: and time again where individuals like Senator Lee or others
Speaker 3: just don't have the same perspective of public lands that
Speaker 3: you and I or others do, and therefore I think
Speaker 3: their perspective of public LANs is a much more you know,
Speaker 3: let's just call it an asset driven mindset, where they
Speaker 3: look at public lands and they see different types of
Speaker 3: investments that they can return on these assets, right, different
Speaker 3: types of ways that these lands can be more profitable
Speaker 3: than they already are than just create open spaces where
Speaker 3: we can recreate, where we can hunt, where we can fish.
Speaker 3: And in their minds, I don't believe that this is
Speaker 3: something that they enjoy seeing and how public lands are
Speaker 3: used are utilized, and you know, for that reason, I
Speaker 3: think we've seen these assaults on public lands through different
Speaker 3: different efforts, the reconciliation processes that you that you meant earlier.
Speaker 3: And so it's hard for me to think that these
Speaker 3: bills when I see them, are just focused on what
Speaker 3: the title of the bill is written as right I have.
Speaker 3: I can't help but think that there's that there's these
Speaker 3: these details, that there's these underlying efforts within within the
Speaker 3: these bills that are aimed at attacking and undermining public
Speaker 3: lands from multiple perspectives, like getting more access. Therefore you
Speaker 3: can potentially have non you know, you can have more
Speaker 3: resource extraction or irresponsible use of public lands. I think
Speaker 3: it's a slippery slope. And I think they're they're recognizing
Speaker 3: that they have to be a little bit craftier, a
Speaker 3: little bit more creative and how they attack public lands.
Speaker 3: And so you know, you said it, you said it
Speaker 3: spot on, Like using terms like affordable housing, border security.
Speaker 3: I think terms that maybe hit hit near and dear
Speaker 3: to a lot of Americans, you know, lives and homes.
Speaker 3: Like I do think by trying to create these kind
Speaker 3: of false narratives, by trying to get people on board
Speaker 3: for these ideas that really aren't the root of what
Speaker 3: is intended by these pieces of legislation, I can't help
Speaker 3: I can't help but think there's there's more to it
Speaker 3: than than what we're reading.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to use too hyperbolic of language here,
Speaker 1: like like I just want to, you know, acknowledge these
Speaker 1: things are coming from you know, patriotic people who no
Speaker 1: doubt love their families and love their communities. It's just
Speaker 1: we're like ideologically opposed an issue. My view is that
Speaker 1: undeveloped landscapes are of extreme value and will become more
Speaker 1: and more valuable over time, and that preserving them. Conserving
Speaker 1: them comes at no cost to us. They're still there,
Speaker 1: they will still be there later on. Once as the
Speaker 1: world gets developed, as the nation gets developed, as our
Speaker 1: last wildernesses get developed, will burned through an asset and
Speaker 1: will later regret what we did. And I think that
Speaker 1: there are some activities hunting, fishing, hiking, those are things
Speaker 1: that I'm interested in. There are some activities that can
Speaker 1: go on right now without having adverse impact on these
Speaker 1: great American assets. So I don't want to when I
Speaker 1: use the word conspiracy, I don't want to act like
Speaker 1: someone's objective in putting this forward, that the objective is
Speaker 1: to be like evil or something. It's just like a
Speaker 1: different thing. Some people look at undevelop landscape and they
Speaker 1: see wasted opportunity. I look at undeveloped landscape, and I
Speaker 1: see an incredible asset in the nation's bank that can
Speaker 1: bring enjoyment and mental health and physical health to all
Speaker 1: Americans while we hold it. And it might be h
Speaker 1: and I know, like without a doubt to me, will
Speaker 1: be of far more value to future generations than it
Speaker 1: is to us now. And and in in our in
Speaker 1: our undeveloped landscapes are at their most valuable state as
Speaker 1: they sit, right, it's like it's an asset. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to put this in terms of of
Speaker 1: good versus evil. It's like it's like it's an ideological
Speaker 1: battle with real with real results, like like real things
Speaker 1: are pivoting on this.
Speaker 2: Okay, what now?
Speaker 1: And then you see where people put forward pieces of
Speaker 1: legislation that you know aren't to be taken seriously, like
Speaker 1: people do it. There's a performative quality to some legislation.
Speaker 1: When there was talk of giving an example, when some
Speaker 1: guy put forth legislation that would have put Trump on
Speaker 1: Mount Rushmore, it was performative, right for a lot of
Speaker 1: people that it was good for a laugh. It sparked
Speaker 1: a lot of conversation like is there really room on
Speaker 1: Mount Rushmore? What is Mount Rushmore made of? Where would
Speaker 1: you put it? What's the history of Mount Rushmore? But
Speaker 1: in the end, it was like a performative gesture. It
Speaker 1: was never something that was meant to be advanced and
Speaker 1: signed into law.
Speaker 2: Right, is this is this like making a statement?
Speaker 1: Is it trying to like advance an idea that future
Speaker 1: generations might pick up on?
Speaker 2: Like what is this? Is this serious?
Speaker 3: I think it can very well be serious, and I
Speaker 3: do think it's somewhat performative. I think it's you know,
Speaker 3: Senator Lee and other co sponsors, you know, diping their
Speaker 3: their toe in the water to do a temperature check
Speaker 3: and see how a bill like this is perceived and
Speaker 3: whether or not it's going to get the support and
Speaker 3: the attention to gain some traction and potentially move forward.
Speaker 3: I hope it's it's kind of all smoke no fire
Speaker 3: for a lot of the reasons that we've been talking about.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's interesting when you look at this
Speaker 3: bill to see who the co sponsors are. And I
Speaker 3: say that because there's only one co sponsor that's occupying
Speaker 3: a state that is relative to the language and this bill,
Speaker 3: and that Senator Cruise out of Texas. You don't see
Speaker 3: other Republican or Democratic senators along these these border states
Speaker 3: that are co sponsoring this bill.
Speaker 1: Well, that's funny you mentioned that, because I mean Utahs,
Speaker 1: it's well outside of the hundred Senator Lee's state of Utahs,
Speaker 1: it's well outside the buffer. I see your representative from
Speaker 1: Wyoming sits outside of the buffer. But you're right, Senator
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz of Texas is has portions of his state
Speaker 1: in the buffer zone and the very generous buffer zone.
Speaker 3: That's right, And you don't see individuals like Senator Danes,
Speaker 3: Senator she He, Senator Rish, like you know, you know,
Speaker 3: those senators on the northern part of the of the border,
Speaker 3: those people who you would who you would think if
Speaker 3: this was an issue that was really important, you would
Speaker 3: think that the states that are going to be impacted
Speaker 3: by this legislation would have more of a of a
Speaker 3: perspective on the bill. Maybe that's a maybe that's a sign, right,
Speaker 3: Like maybe that's a sign that this this bill really
Speaker 3: is just kind of an attention seeker and not going
Speaker 3: to get the traction that or the seriousness that people
Speaker 3: are going to think when they read it. And for
Speaker 3: that reason, like maybe that's why those individuals don't, you know,
Speaker 3: aren't sponsoring the bill. And you know, obviously that's me
Speaker 3: just being you know, rather presumptuous. But I think when
Speaker 3: I when I see the lack of those co sponsors,
Speaker 3: I just have to ask those questions.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 1: And what do you think will happen? Like what's the
Speaker 1: next step for a piece of legislation like this? Like
Speaker 1: remember that remember that cartoon and your little kid, I'm
Speaker 1: just a bill on Capitol.
Speaker 2: Hill Like like what uh, like, what's what's next?
Speaker 3: Well, it was it was refer to the Committee of
Speaker 3: Energy and Natural Resources. So, amongst all the craziness that's
Speaker 3: happening in DC right now, this bill has to be
Speaker 3: put on the calendar by by E and R, by
Speaker 3: sending E and R. And then once it's there, they
Speaker 3: have to to listen to the bill and they have
Speaker 3: to vote on it to pass it out of committee,
Speaker 3: and then there it goes on its own kind of
Speaker 3: trajectory to potentially being voted on on the Senate floor.
Speaker 3: Has to have a house companion. You know, it still
Speaker 3: has a long route before it's even i would say,
Speaker 3: remotely considered serious. But the fact that it was introduced
Speaker 3: is serious enough for me to want to talk to.
Speaker 2: You about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this will come up under an early and
Speaker 1: an early person that will get a look at this
Speaker 1: as Senator Heinrich from New Mexico, who has you know,
Speaker 1: who represents landscape within this buffer. He's a big oh,
Speaker 1: you know, like a very informed, very dedicated defender of
Speaker 1: public lands.
Speaker 2: Like, what's his take on this going to be?
Speaker 3: Well? I imagine Senator Heinrich that, as you mentioned as
Speaker 3: a champion for conservation, champion for public lands, somebody who
Speaker 3: you know gets out on hunts and fish fishes on
Speaker 3: our public lands. I think when he sees a bill
Speaker 3: like this, he's gonna ask a lot of questions and
Speaker 3: he's gonna pick it apart, kind of as we've been
Speaker 3: picking it apart on this conversation. I don't think a
Speaker 3: bill like this is going to actually, I know a
Speaker 3: bill like this is not going to land well with
Speaker 3: with Senator him Rick. I think it will do a
Speaker 3: brilliant job of asking those important underlying questions of the
Speaker 3: intention and rationale of this bill. And you know, with
Speaker 3: that being said, I hope the result is is the
Speaker 3: bill doesn't move out of committee and is essentially dead
Speaker 3: upon arrival.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it is, man, it's like a very interesting
Speaker 1: and like I said, I didn't know about it, and
Speaker 1: you know we were together right around this time when
Speaker 1: this came out. You're the one that explained it to me,
Speaker 1: and I thought that regardless of where it lands, and
Speaker 1: it's it's very early to say, it's a very it's
Speaker 1: an interesting civics lesson and it's an interesting look into
Speaker 1: how people are. And it's the point I keep making
Speaker 1: an interesting look at how people could have a historic
Speaker 1: extra grind, like a career long set of goals. In
Speaker 1: this case, if your career long set of goals is
Speaker 1: to reduce protections on public lands and open up developant
Speaker 1: and industrialization of wildlands, that's like the career long goal.
Speaker 1: The way in which you can look for opportunities in
Speaker 1: the national dialogue to be like, oh, that's how I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about my perennial issue, and then the
Speaker 1: conversation changes and there's like a lot of talk about
Speaker 1: affordable housing.
Speaker 2: Let's say that's how.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about my perennial issue, and then
Speaker 1: there's a lot of talk about illegal immigration. That's how
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about my perennial issue. And it
Speaker 1: brings to mind this analogy of that the bottle of
Speaker 1: the wine stays the same, but you continue to apply
Speaker 1: a new label onto that wine. And so it's just
Speaker 1: as it's a fascinating glimpse into the thinking here, I
Speaker 1: hope listeners like give like start paying more attention to
Speaker 1: that in the years that are coming, as we continue
Speaker 1: to have these conversations and thank you Jeremy to come
Speaker 1: on and explaining this and telling me about it again.
Speaker 1: I think it's, like I said, if nothing else, is
Speaker 1: a great civics lesson for people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I uh, I really appreciate you letting me come
Speaker 3: on and talk about the bill. You know, any attack
Speaker 3: on public land is important to me to get out
Speaker 3: there and and and talk about and advocate for public
Speaker 3: lands and the right to hunt and fish and protecting
Speaker 3: these areas for future generations. So we're going to keep,
Speaker 3: you know, our eye on this bill. We're going we're
Speaker 3: going to do our due diligence to to make sure
Speaker 3: a bill like this doesn't doesn't have a future and
Speaker 3: you know in the future, you know, keeping keeping ah,
Speaker 3: you know, keeping a close eye on legislation that comes
Speaker 3: out and looking at how they are somewhat uh, you know,
Speaker 3: disguised in different ways. And I recommend people do their
Speaker 3: their due diligence and look at look at bills, look
Speaker 3: at legislation, not just for what the title of the
Speaker 3: legislation is, but what the actual action items in legislation are.
Speaker 3: And I encourage you to be active. Reach out to
Speaker 3: you or you know, your congressional members, and you know
Speaker 3: be be an engaged member of society. I think has
Speaker 3: the reconciliation process and the public lands sealoff kind of
Speaker 3: played out, we saw a tremendous amount of support from
Speaker 3: everybody on both sides of the aisle, you know, whether
Speaker 3: you whether you hunt and fished or didn't like it.
Speaker 3: We all came together and pushed back on the public
Speaker 3: land sealoff and it was an extraordinary thing to see.
Speaker 3: And I just hope that we can continue to have
Speaker 3: those shared visions when it comes to pieces of legislation
Speaker 3: like this. So Steve, again, I think I thank you
Speaker 3: for letting me come on and talk about this bill,
Speaker 3: and we'll just keep tracking, keep tracking it.
Speaker 1: Okay, uh again you're hearing from Jeremy Romero from the
Speaker 1: National Wildlife Federation, a very avid.
Speaker 2: Hunter angler out of New Mexico. Thank you, thanks again, Jeremy.
Speaker 3: Thanks