Speaker 1: If this is the Meat Eater podcast coming at you, shirtless, severely,
Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening to podcast,
Speaker 1: you can't predict anything.
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Speaker 3: You got a little hemp project going on, making yourself
Speaker 3: a little necklace?
Speaker 2: I do. I'll explain it is the machine on Phil
Speaker 2: it's on. Is it aiming at me? It's aiming right
Speaker 2: your front and center right now. Yeah, Cal was asking
Speaker 2: about this hemp project. This I think. I feel like
Speaker 2: this is one hundred years old. So this is the
Speaker 2: poll mechanism on the punk gun. And it had been
Speaker 2: pulled so many times that there was three strands over
Speaker 2: the islet and they had all failed. So I'm unwrapping
Speaker 2: this serving. I'm gonna put a new loop in there
Speaker 2: through the pole thing and put the serving back on
Speaker 2: and it's like a little piece of copper pipe.
Speaker 3: Very cool. When are you guys gonna touch that thing off.
Speaker 2: Well, we were going to touch it off the idea,
Speaker 2: but the weather was just too bad. So I don't
Speaker 2: know when we're going to touch it off. It's just
Speaker 2: not like hanging out outside shooting a punk gun weather right.
Speaker 3: Now, like negative eight.
Speaker 2: Snow blowing everywhere. Yeah, it just wouldn't be any fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will tell you.
Speaker 4: I went.
Speaker 3: It was one of my last pheasant hunts of the year.
Speaker 3: But i'd set a road tracks Montana that I had
Speaker 3: no idea that we're still in use. And it was
Speaker 3: super cold, not as cold as it is now, but
Speaker 3: it was down the in the teens.
Speaker 2: And you put your tongue on that track, well.
Speaker 3: It was like, was it ives? Who the real Christmas?
Speaker 3: He scenes? But this trains caierl lives. Yeah, but the
Speaker 3: sun setting and this train comes around the tracks. You know,
Speaker 3: it's it's all the drift country, so all this snow
Speaker 3: had been dumped into the railroad tracks. That train came through,
Speaker 3: and before the train even touched it, you know, it
Speaker 3: was like the vacuum effect of that freight coming through
Speaker 3: was blowing all that powder out. It was just like
Speaker 3: the most I've never been in love with trains before.
Speaker 3: But that afternoon. I was like, oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: My kids had been riding. They finally got in trouble
Speaker 2: for this. So we have like a road. It's not
Speaker 2: it's like a road but not really. The only reason
Speaker 2: you'd be on our little loop, you know, our house,
Speaker 2: Like the o reason you're on that loop is if
Speaker 2: you live there, yep. And then there's like a big
Speaker 2: grass circle which is all covered in snow. So my
Speaker 2: kids have taken the Like first it was like, we're
Speaker 2: just gonna ride the snowbill around the loop real quick,
Speaker 2: and then it became just riding d D ride and riding,
Speaker 2: and we were kind of laughing about when someone when
Speaker 2: someone would snap and come complain to them, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and sure enough they get flagged down by a couple
Speaker 2: of neighbors who after days of riding, flag down and
Speaker 2: complain to them. And they come back just outraged. You know,
Speaker 2: he says he's going to take it up with you.
Speaker 2: To me, you know, no one has but uh, he
Speaker 2: said you can't ride on the road. I'm like, I mean,
Speaker 2: you can't ride on the road. I didn't mention that,
Speaker 2: but no, it's like a traditionally friendly neighbor like someone.
Speaker 3: You guys, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Don't have any to do with them. You got people
Speaker 2: that you got people that see kids out playing outside
Speaker 2: and it makes them happy, and you got people that
Speaker 2: see kids playing outside and it makes them mad.
Speaker 3: Well, guys, people just work snowmobiles. Though. There's a tolerance level, right,
Speaker 3: Like the noise is is Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4: A four stroke clean. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. People that are like, oh, I'm gonna.
Speaker 3: Enforce the rules. I love the rules.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, wait a minute, those kids are breaking the rules. Okay,
Speaker 2: think of what it's hurting. But they're breaking the rules.
Speaker 3: It's the eight eight am kids just got out of
Speaker 3: the house. You're having a chill cup of coffee.
Speaker 2: And they're not like that. They very slow. It's more
Speaker 2: like in the distance. Man, they got a trail that
Speaker 2: cuts through our yard. They go up on that burm.
Speaker 2: If I'm standing at washing dishes, I only know they're
Speaker 2: coming by because the.
Speaker 3: Headlight, Oh sweet, the snow on the berm.
Speaker 2: They got loops all over the place, and all the
Speaker 2: neighbor kids are always riding with.
Speaker 3: Them and they haven't contact the community is bringing the
Speaker 3: community together.
Speaker 2: I was like, who could complain because everyone's kids rides
Speaker 2: on the snowbills. I got one neighbor offered me gas money.
Speaker 4: Occupied, that's what you should have said.
Speaker 3: Did you offer them a ride when they stopped.
Speaker 2: My wife had a really funny idea to She thought
Speaker 2: that we should act oblivious to what the issue was,
Speaker 2: and she said, let's ride the snowmobiles over to see
Speaker 2: what's going on.
Speaker 3: Bring an extra helmet.
Speaker 2: It's so funny. Uh, we do a thing. How often
Speaker 2: do we do this? We do a thing every year. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we do a thing every year. We do the State
Speaker 2: of the Union. We stole that. I don't know if
Speaker 2: they trademarked State of the Union. I don't think the
Speaker 2: trademark and State of the Union. We do the State
Speaker 2: of the Union on the conservation in the US at
Speaker 2: the federal level with the CEO of TRCP, and historically
Speaker 2: a number of times we've had on the former CEO
Speaker 2: with Fosburg. But today we're premiering the new CEO of TRCP,
Speaker 2: Joel Peterson, and we're gonna run through a State of
Speaker 2: the Union, and I'm gonna do a giant caveat right.
Speaker 2: No one knows. No one knows. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 2: some things from the past. Yep, we're gonna go back
Speaker 2: a little bit. I think the furthest will stray back
Speaker 2: as we'll stray back about eight years ago. Maybe. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to touch on to Trump one. We're gonna
Speaker 2: talk about Biden. We're gonna talk about the early days
Speaker 2: of Trump too, and and when we enter into the
Speaker 2: days of Trump too, there's a giant question mark because
Speaker 2: we're gonna be talking about some federal policy and a
Speaker 2: lot of federal policies up in the air. I had
Speaker 2: breakfast with Joel this morning, and I told him that
Speaker 2: he is not He does not need to be. He
Speaker 2: does not need to be a prophet or prophesize prophecy.
Speaker 2: What's the hell's the word prophecies? Can you see prophesies?
Speaker 2: It's is that not a word? Prophesies? In DC right now,
Speaker 2: there's a there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty with the
Speaker 2: administration's changing over a lot of policy changes.
Speaker 5: And a lot could change from the time we record
Speaker 5: this in the whatever six days until it airs well.
Speaker 2: Joe, Joel's one step ahead of you. Joel wanted to speak. Uh.
Speaker 2: He had a specific question for Corinn because he says,
Speaker 2: we're running the risk of anything we're saying, anything we
Speaker 2: say changing. So he wanted to understand what sort of
Speaker 2: timeline he's dealing with, and we sured him it's the
Speaker 2: tightest timeline as we can provide, which Tuesday, six days,
Speaker 2: So it's six days, so lock and change in six days.
Speaker 2: But it's different than if it was six.
Speaker 3: Months, Right, Steve, try this one on for size. Okay, prognosticate, Yes,
Speaker 3: that's a good one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would think that you were making that word up, prognosticating.
Speaker 3: Well, the examples perfect. I won't prognosticate and say whether
Speaker 3: this will lead to other mainstream what exactly?
Speaker 5: Oh it ends in an ellipses, No.
Speaker 3: It doesn't, it rolls. But I sorry, it was perfect up.
Speaker 2: Until oh I see, I see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now, but we were very vague. If we were
Speaker 3: talking about a current appointment, then this example would be
Speaker 3: sure perfect all the way through.
Speaker 2: Understood.
Speaker 3: I was thinking more about policy, not appointment.
Speaker 2: So to recap, in short, we're gonna we're gonna hand
Speaker 2: it over to Joel here to talk about what TRCP does,
Speaker 2: what federal policy looks like, what his personal background is.
Speaker 2: But again, this is a this is meant to be
Speaker 2: a quick crash course in the state of the conservation movement,
Speaker 2: particularly like conservation issues that impact American hunters and anglers,
Speaker 2: the state of the conservation Union as we enter into
Speaker 2: a new administration and embark on a new four years.
Speaker 2: So with that, Joel, tell everybody what TRCP is.
Speaker 4: So Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is a nonprofit organization. We've
Speaker 4: been around for twenty three years now, and we were
Speaker 4: really brought together, like I said, twenty three years ago,
Speaker 4: to help unify and amplif the sportsman's voice. And what
Speaker 4: we do. Our mission is guaranteeing all Americans quality places
Speaker 4: to hunt and fish, and so at the core of
Speaker 4: everything we do we try to tie it back to that.
Speaker 4: But the challenge that was seen over two decades ago
Speaker 4: was that every single one of the conservation organizations were
Speaker 4: coming into Congress or coming into the administration and asking
Speaker 4: for their own little thing, and it wasn't a unified message.
Speaker 4: And so the power of the millions of sportsmen that
Speaker 4: are out there, that are represented individually by the various
Speaker 4: conservation organizations just wasn't being captured to help make the
Speaker 4: point about some of the big conservation issues. And so
Speaker 4: fast forward to today. We now have sixty three organizations
Speaker 4: that we partner with and it's a willing partnership. It's
Speaker 4: not a pay to play. But we have tried to
Speaker 4: reach out to the groups like National Wild Turkey Federation,
Speaker 4: Mule Deer Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, the ones that everybody has
Speaker 4: heard of. But we also have as part of our
Speaker 4: partnership groups like the Tall Timbers Association, which is down
Speaker 4: in South Georgia and they're really focused on prescribed fire
Speaker 4: and how that benefits in that case quail, but everything
Speaker 4: else that's out there. We also work in marine fisheries.
Speaker 4: We've got groups like Bonefish and tarp and Trust and
Speaker 4: so it's a very diverse group that we have that
Speaker 4: brings a lot of important voices together to think about
Speaker 4: the conservation issues that the community, not just the Theodore
Speaker 4: Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is facing. So when we think about this,
Speaker 4: we've kind of broken the work that we do into
Speaker 4: five different areas. Public lands is one that I know
Speaker 4: this team is very well aware of. It's often at
Speaker 4: the center of a lot of the things that you're
Speaker 4: interested in. We also have a Private Land Center that
Speaker 4: deals a lot with farm Bill we also have some
Speaker 4: of the work we're doing with chronic wasting disease in
Speaker 4: that area. We have our marine fisheries which deals largely
Speaker 4: we do a lot with forage fish, but it's also
Speaker 4: been a big focus on the Mississippi flood Plain, coastal
Speaker 4: Louisiana coastal restoration there, moving up the Mississippi River with
Speaker 4: some of the work we're doing now. And then we
Speaker 4: have a water program as well that's largely been focused
Speaker 4: to date on the Colorado River, the Rio Grande River
Speaker 4: and the water issues that are there, but really that
Speaker 4: entire watershed and what we can do about that. And
Speaker 4: then we also have a focus on climate or resiliency,
Speaker 4: if you will, and really thinking about how some of
Speaker 4: the changes we're seeing on the landscape impacts across all
Speaker 4: those other centers, the impacts that it's having on our
Speaker 4: public lands, private lands, wildlife in general, and integrating that
Speaker 4: work into those different centers, taking advantage of some of
Speaker 4: the opportunities that are out there.
Speaker 2: Folks with your personal background, how you came to the work.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I think, like most people that have
Speaker 4: been involved in conservation, it started when I was young.
Speaker 4: I grew up in Nebraska, hunting and fishing with my
Speaker 4: dad and my grandparents, more fishing than hunting because of
Speaker 4: Northeast Nebraska, there wasn't a whole lot to hunt back then,
Speaker 4: pheasants was about the only thing. And I was actually
Speaker 4: grew up the dating myself, but after the real golden
Speaker 4: age of that, but before CRP really hit and kind
Speaker 4: of brought it back for a stretch of ten to
Speaker 4: twelve years in the eighties and early nineties, so I
Speaker 4: did that. I was involved with Boy Scouts as well,
Speaker 4: and I was fortunate the troupe I was with we
Speaker 4: camped every month year round, and so really grew up
Speaker 4: with a love for the outdoors and a By the
Speaker 4: time I was a sophomore in high school, I realized
Speaker 4: there was a thing called a wildlife biologist that you
Speaker 4: could make a career out of. And so one of
Speaker 4: those few people that I think knew from a very
Speaker 4: young age, this is what I want to do, and
Speaker 4: was was able to do that. So graduated with a
Speaker 4: degree in wildlife conservation from the University of Nebraska at Carney,
Speaker 4: spent a year at the University of Idaho on an
Speaker 4: exchange program during my undergraduate that I went on to
Speaker 4: graduate school at the University of Tennessee, where I got
Speaker 4: to live really a lifelong dream of being able to
Speaker 4: study black bears. I'd been in love with black bears
Speaker 4: for a long time, and over the years my master's program,
Speaker 4: I trapped nearly two hundred black bears and pulled them
Speaker 4: out of the den and all that cool stuff that
Speaker 4: wildlife biologists get to do. And then I very quickly
Speaker 4: got into the reality of what a wildlife biologist is
Speaker 4: like when you work for a state agency or a
Speaker 4: federal agency. Went to work for the State of Florida
Speaker 4: as a wildlife BIOLOGI spent most of my time dealing
Speaker 4: with people, so I was there for about four years.
Speaker 4: From there, I went to National Wild Turkey Federation. I
Speaker 4: worked with National Wild Turkey Federation in the Conservation Department
Speaker 4: for the majority of my twenty two years there, did
Speaker 4: just about everything you could do in conservation wise. And
Speaker 4: then when Becky Humphries, who I know has been on
Speaker 4: the show, actually was on about a year ago in
Speaker 4: the interim role at TRCP. When she took over as
Speaker 4: CEO there, she asked me to grow a government affairs
Speaker 4: program for National Wild Turkey Federation and so I went
Speaker 4: to work directly for her, and I did that for
Speaker 4: about the last six years that I was at NWTF,
Speaker 4: and then almost right out four years ago now I
Speaker 4: had the opportunity to move west and ended up in
Speaker 4: Salt Lake and took over as CEO of the Meldair Foundation,
Speaker 4: and so I did that for about three years, and
Speaker 4: then fast forward to September first of last year, I
Speaker 4: made another jump and back across the country to Northern
Speaker 4: Virginia in the DC area to take over as President
Speaker 4: and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which is
Speaker 4: a great opportunity to come in and do this. Through
Speaker 4: my roles at Turkey Federation and at Mule Deer Foundation,
Speaker 4: I had the opportunity to work with TRCP as one
Speaker 4: of those partner organizations, and so I came in being
Speaker 4: somewhat familiar with the work that TRCP does, certainly on
Speaker 4: the private lands and public lands side of things more
Speaker 4: than anything. So it's been a great career that has
Speaker 4: spen in a lot of years now, and never had
Speaker 4: it in mind to be a CEO, but that's kind
Speaker 4: of where things have led, and it's a great opportunity
Speaker 4: to be able to influence conservation in a different sort
Speaker 4: of way than just being the the dirt kicking biologists
Speaker 4: that I wanted to be for a long time.
Speaker 2: Hey, let's let's let's scrap federal policy for a minute.
Speaker 2: What did you think about I wasn't there before. I
Speaker 2: wasn't aware that you had worked on specifically on black bears.
Speaker 4: In Florida in Tennessee. Oh so, okay, so for my
Speaker 4: master's program at Tennessee.
Speaker 2: But when you went, you say so, you didn't wind
Speaker 2: up in Florida.
Speaker 4: I went to work for the State Wildlife Agency in.
Speaker 2: Florida, but not with a black bear focus, not with
Speaker 2: a black bear follow I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Tennessee is like the place for a degree with focusing
Speaker 3: on black bears, right, Like that is the school?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, University of Tennessee, through doctor Mike Pelton, had
Speaker 4: a program that spanned three decades there looking at black
Speaker 4: bears in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and really across
Speaker 4: the southeast and then on into Minnesota, and it spanned
Speaker 4: other places as well. Virginia Tech was the other one
Speaker 4: at that time that was also had a very strong
Speaker 4: program with black bears.
Speaker 2: Tennessee was where those dudes were fine, and that those
Speaker 2: black bears were den in like thirty forty feet up
Speaker 2: in trees and stuff and those How that was fascinating, man, Like,
Speaker 2: how they even know those holes are up there right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they seek them out and they find them. It's
Speaker 4: definitely preferred for them in that area. And you know,
Speaker 4: I had the opportunity to crawl up some of those
Speaker 4: trees and try to to find them and see what
Speaker 4: you could do. And you know, a couple of you
Speaker 4: never knew if the hole that you could see in
Speaker 4: the tree was just right there or whether there was
Speaker 4: one I can remember it was. You know, the hole
Speaker 4: was fifty feet up in the tree, but the whole
Speaker 4: tree was hollow clear down into the root mass. And
Speaker 4: so the bear had not only climbed up, but then
Speaker 4: climbed all the way back down and was you know,
Speaker 4: sixty feet below.
Speaker 2: And then another down that hollow tree.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah. And then contrast that with and you crawl
Speaker 4: up the next one and your eye to eye two
Speaker 4: feet away with a mama bear that's looking at you.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I thought that was wild man, just
Speaker 2: thinking about how like unless in some of those trees,
Speaker 2: unless he happened to be up there picking masts or something. Right,
Speaker 2: they must just go up there and scout him out.
Speaker 4: I think they do well.
Speaker 5: And then on the on the sixty foot climb down,
Speaker 5: he's got to be pretty confident that he can turn
Speaker 5: around at the bottom, right, I mean, you'd think that
Speaker 5: there's quite a few trees that the hole just tapers
Speaker 5: off and you're gonna find a bunch of bear bones
Speaker 5: down there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point, Like gets in there and
Speaker 2: can't get back up pretty confident, right, Yeah, that's a
Speaker 2: great points though, is it. Yeah? Oh, you know what
Speaker 2: I asked this to Carl Malcolm. That's right, Carl. You
Speaker 2: know what Carl Malcolm said to me. I forgot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he said, what way do you go down the ladder?
Speaker 2: So that I probably said first of course, Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: a good point. He just walks back up when things
Speaker 2: get tight on his butt. All right, So let's let's
Speaker 2: jump back. I said, we had to go back eight years.
Speaker 2: Hit me with a Hit me with a conservation recap
Speaker 2: on Trump administration. One, Like every administration has their areas
Speaker 2: where they focus. Right, there's things that their predecessor did
Speaker 2: that they kind of let go, you know that they
Speaker 2: let they let it drift away. There's new priorities. Uh,
Speaker 2: and Trump won? What did what did we see?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 2: What did he get right for hunters and anglers? And
Speaker 2: where do you feel that things could have gone better
Speaker 2: during Trump won?
Speaker 4: Yeah? You know, so in the first Trump administration, we
Speaker 4: were definitely benefited with his son, Don Junior, who is
Speaker 4: an avid hunter and fisher and definitely has some influence
Speaker 4: over the president there and so we always had a
Speaker 4: voice and I think that we'll continue to have that
Speaker 4: voice in the current administration as well. But a couple
Speaker 4: of i'd say real wins out of the first Trump administration.
Speaker 4: One of them had to do with access, for sure,
Speaker 4: and the work that he did through then Secretary Zinky
Speaker 4: at Department of Interior and Fish and Wildlife Service and
Speaker 4: really looking at opportunities to open up hunting and fishing
Speaker 4: access on wildlife refuges. And people remember that part of
Speaker 4: it and the millions of acres that have then been
Speaker 4: opened up since and that is something that carried through
Speaker 4: to some extent into the Biden administration and will continue on,
Speaker 4: I believe. But the other thing that that did which
Speaker 4: has gotten less attention is it it asked the Fish
Speaker 4: and Wildlife Service on their refuges to do the best
Speaker 4: job they could to align the regulations on the refuges
Speaker 4: with the regulations of the state so that you didn't
Speaker 4: have to have a different number of shells in a
Speaker 4: shotgun on a refuge versus public land and ammunition opening
Speaker 4: days things like that, and so I think that that
Speaker 4: was a good thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, quite a few refuges would have a shell restriction, right,
Speaker 3: so it's like you can only have twelve shells on
Speaker 3: you on the refuge, whereas anybody outside the refuge you
Speaker 3: can carry as around as many shotgun shells as you're willing, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: So it was just trying to get some things like
Speaker 4: that that were out of the way and make it
Speaker 4: easier on hunters and fishermen to access. And so access
Speaker 4: was one of them. Migration corridors. We've talked a lot
Speaker 4: about migration corridors over the last eight years, and Secretarial
Speaker 4: Order three three six two that again then Secretary Ryan
Speaker 4: Zink signed, really put attention on migration corridors and it
Speaker 4: led to a lot of the funding for research that
Speaker 4: we've had over the years for mapping those corridors, and
Speaker 4: we've seen great use come out of that for conservation
Speaker 4: measures as well as just having that body of information
Speaker 4: and then funding there to know where to do the
Speaker 4: work to preserve these, to preserve the corridors and the
Speaker 4: winter range, but then also the species that go with it.
Speaker 4: And then Trump was also.
Speaker 2: On that one. Sorry they put money there too.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, I forget exactly how much it was, but
Speaker 4: it was millions, low tens of millions maybe on an
Speaker 4: annual basis to really fund some of that research and
Speaker 4: a lot of what we know now from the GPS
Speaker 4: callers that are out there, they were around it being
Speaker 4: used some, but this really gave a push to that
Speaker 4: through that funding to grow those pro grams and our
Speaker 4: understanding of big GA migration corridors and what they use,
Speaker 4: which then leads to wise use decisions about management and development,
Speaker 4: et cetera that we've been able to use.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did a show some time ago now with
Speaker 2: Matt Kaufman and who's coffin work, Sorr. I'm mixing up
Speaker 2: two names, Monteeth, Kevin mont Kevin Monteeth and uh. We
Speaker 2: talked to them a lot about the ability from from
Speaker 2: their coloring data on big game animals, particularly in wyoming,
Speaker 2: but allowing you to get pretty focused and targeted on
Speaker 2: on on like specific points on a map. You know
Speaker 2: that when you're looking at when you're looking at migration
Speaker 2: corridors and things like narrowing down to very precise spots
Speaker 2: that needed help or needed protection or needed overpasses. And
Speaker 2: that came from being able to watch generations, right, you know,
Speaker 2: the generational turnovers quick, but to watch generations of deer
Speaker 2: moving across the landscape, you know, to find those things
Speaker 2: that are those those constants, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so that's had some real practical uses. Kind
Speaker 4: of fast forward into the Biden administration on this point.
Speaker 4: Some of the Bill and IRA money that came about
Speaker 4: was for explan by Partisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation
Speaker 4: Reduction Act, and that was what was passed during the
Speaker 4: first two years of the Biden administration. That it was
Speaker 4: the money that everybody's It went to everything, but there
Speaker 4: was a couple trillion dollars that went towards conservation work.
Speaker 4: One of the programs that was stood up in that
Speaker 4: was a wildlife Crossing's pilot program through the Transfer Transfer
Speaker 4: Transportation Department. Actually, but because of the work that a
Speaker 4: lot of the Western States have, you can go now
Speaker 4: and look at that program and say this is where
Speaker 4: we need to put the crossing instead of just kind
Speaker 4: of guessing based upon where you'd see roadkill. Now they
Speaker 4: had some good data for that that helped to drive
Speaker 4: the ability to implement that program. But I think really
Speaker 4: the ability or even the thought process of being able
Speaker 4: to put some money towards that program and have it
Speaker 4: be carried out successfully. But maybe an even more important
Speaker 4: example is as the BLM was looking at their solar
Speaker 4: program Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and really looking at how
Speaker 4: they were going to place solar over BLM lands per
Speaker 4: instruction from the Biden administration to make lands available for this.
Speaker 4: One of the things that TRCP was very successful in doing,
Speaker 4: and it was dependent upon this data, was saying, hey,
Speaker 4: you've the first draft that you've put out here, you're
Speaker 4: not paying attention to migration corridors or winter range. And
Speaker 4: so we worked really hard to get comments in from
Speaker 4: the public from our partners raise their awareness that we
Speaker 4: have really good data for this. And so the final
Speaker 4: rule that came out on that excluded known mapped migration corridors,
Speaker 4: winter range, and stopover range, but in addition also had
Speaker 4: language in there that said, and any future ones that
Speaker 4: get mapped within these areas, we're going to take that
Speaker 4: out as well. And so you know, the benefit from
Speaker 4: that s O three three six two eight almost you know,
Speaker 4: eight nine years ago now is really carried.
Speaker 2: Forward, got it? And what are something what are some
Speaker 2: things in Trump won that could have been that could
Speaker 2: have been better for Hunter's nahors.
Speaker 4: There's we're going to face this again. But energy development
Speaker 4: is certainly one of them. But we don't with that
Speaker 4: in the Biden administration. As I just said there, it
Speaker 4: was just it was different. It was solar and solar
Speaker 4: and wind, and here it's going to be back to
Speaker 4: oil and gas. And I guess one of the advantages
Speaker 4: that we have as oil and gas have been around
Speaker 4: for a lot longer, and so we better know how
Speaker 4: to deal with that, how to cite it. And there's
Speaker 4: there's a lot more technology and there's a lot of
Speaker 4: regulations already in place. So so that's one that is
Speaker 4: always there. I think development is another one. I think
Speaker 4: one I'm kind of fast forwarding to now, but one
Speaker 4: that's on everybody's mind is public lands and what's going
Speaker 4: to happen with public lands and Trump in the first
Speaker 4: administration was great on public lands, very strongly came out
Speaker 4: and said we shouldn't dispose of public lands, uh, and
Speaker 4: made sure that that didn't happen. And we think that'll continue.
Speaker 4: But it's you know, there's also a different tenor around
Speaker 4: the country right now on that, and so that's something
Speaker 4: that we're being cognizant cognizant about as well, and in
Speaker 4: trying to watch that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing. I've brought this up. I've told
Speaker 2: a story one hundred times. But the first time I
Speaker 2: saw first and only time I actually saw if Trump
Speaker 2: speak was very early in his campaign, his first campaign,
Speaker 2: and a very conservative audience. Okay, at shot show Yep,
Speaker 2: Trump spoke and he got up and and he I
Speaker 2: felt as though someone had just said, hey, I'll explain
Speaker 2: this later, but go out and say this, just because
Speaker 2: it seemed like for a guy like, you know, he's
Speaker 2: like from New York City, you know, he's a developer.
Speaker 2: But he got up and he said, I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: sell off your public lands.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I remember being like just surprised that would have
Speaker 2: been that early in the campaign, that would have been
Speaker 2: on his radar. Do you know what I mean to
Speaker 2: have brought that up, and then it kind of stayed
Speaker 2: whatever the motivation on it was, stayed pretty true to
Speaker 2: that and that there wasn't you know at that at
Speaker 2: that time, we still haven't seen it. There wasn't a
Speaker 2: like wholesale effort that want up being successful and like
Speaker 2: reducing federal land management, you know, like it always gets
Speaker 2: talked about, but it hadn't happened, and probably for a
Speaker 2: handful of reasons. You could watch just in our recent
Speaker 2: state campaign here, all all candidates would would try to
Speaker 2: establish their public lands bona fides. All can't. It's like
Speaker 2: it's like saying you're pro American, Ye, you're gonna do it.
Speaker 2: People are gonna say they're going to articulate being pro
Speaker 2: public lands, you know here, you know, in this state
Speaker 2: at least.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's definitely important in Montana and a lot of
Speaker 4: the other Western states.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you have to give, you have to articulate,
Speaker 2: you have to express that viewpoint, right. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But you know, I think I've met with members
Speaker 4: of your delegation many times over the years, and the
Speaker 4: ones that I know, they've been solid in that space
Speaker 4: for a long time because it's very personal to them, right,
Speaker 4: Congressman Zinkee, Senator Danes very personally both loved their time
Speaker 4: out on the land, and so when they say it,
Speaker 4: I'm I tend to believe them. And there's a lot
Speaker 4: of others out west as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh, you already touched on this a little bit.
Speaker 2: Let's let's track some of the primary issues that What
Speaker 2: are some of the things that that continued, Like when
Speaker 2: when Biden came in after Trump won again, as we
Speaker 2: clarified earlier, Biden comes into his own priorities. Some things
Speaker 2: they're just going to get ignored, something is going to
Speaker 2: be pushed forward. What was sort of the conservation continuity
Speaker 2: or conversy like the lack of continuity we saw when
Speaker 2: Biden came in and what way is it. Did he
Speaker 2: have a unique focus, and what sorts of things died
Speaker 2: on the vine, what sorts of things kept going, What
Speaker 2: new ideas were brought forward?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, you know, we touched on a couple of
Speaker 4: these that that were around, and they they continued the
Speaker 4: migration's work that started with so three three six two.
Speaker 4: The Biden administration kept that program around and because it
Speaker 4: was a secretarial order from the Trump administration, it would
Speaker 4: have been very easy for them to just slice and
Speaker 4: dice that one, and we're getting rid of it just
Speaker 4: because of where it came from. But they kept it
Speaker 4: around because they they heard about it from the sportsman community.
Speaker 4: For sure, they heard about it from sportsman, but they
Speaker 4: also saw the value of it. But it didn't get
Speaker 4: the same level of funding, it didn't get the same
Speaker 4: level of focus that it did in Trump won. They
Speaker 4: kept it there and things continued by that token. What
Speaker 4: we talked about with access and opening up the fish
Speaker 4: and wildlife refuges to more hunting and fishing access is
Speaker 4: another one that they kept around, but just absolutely not
Speaker 4: at the same level. I forget the exact number here,
Speaker 4: but the last last year they did it, it was
Speaker 4: a couple hundred three hundre thousand acres that were opened
Speaker 4: up as a post of millions in the first several years.
Speaker 4: And they also you know, started putting some additional restrictions
Speaker 4: and looking at some of this in terms of we're
Speaker 4: going to open it up, but there's not going to
Speaker 4: be any lead ammunition allowed, regardless of what you're hunting
Speaker 4: for fishing for. It wasn't just tied to waterfowl and
Speaker 4: some things like that. That that made it a little
Speaker 4: more challenging in those regards. You know, the Biden administration
Speaker 4: and I think democratic administrations in general there they're always
Speaker 4: good about conservation funding. So we talked about the bipart
Speaker 4: as an Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act and
Speaker 4: the nearly two trillion dollars that came towards conservation through that.
Speaker 4: So the funding there was great. We'll probably see a
Speaker 4: reduction in some of that funding with a Republican administration
Speaker 4: and a Republican Congress coming in, and so it's kind
Speaker 4: of hard to weave apart. Was it just the administration
Speaker 4: because there's also Congress in there as well, and how
Speaker 4: they're given the funding out when it came to kind
Speaker 4: of some of the direct hunting related legislation and policies,
Speaker 4: certainly we saw a drop off with that. And in
Speaker 4: the Biden administration, access was important, access specific for hunting
Speaker 4: and fishing less important. Second Amendment issues absolutely less important
Speaker 4: within a democratic administration, and I think what we than
Speaker 4: what we saw and what we'll see again in a
Speaker 4: Republican administration. Energy development was still important for both, but
Speaker 4: in a different in a different manner. As we talked
Speaker 4: about a minute ago. And so I think those are
Speaker 4: some of the differences that.
Speaker 2: We'll see if you had to, if you had to
Speaker 2: look at the energy part of the question. With Biden
Speaker 2: administration talking about DO and renewables, so solar arrays and
Speaker 2: and uh, wind farms, what do you call it? What
Speaker 2: do you actually call it? Wind farm?
Speaker 4: That's what I call it.
Speaker 2: You can use that term solar rays and wind farms.
Speaker 2: And when it first came out, when it first came
Speaker 2: up for comment, it was kind of like a felt
Speaker 2: like a staggering amount of acreage being considered, right and
Speaker 2: then and then it got debated, and as you pointed out,
Speaker 2: people brought in issues like wildlife corridors and and and
Speaker 2: and it shrank, the proposed footprint shrank. And I think
Speaker 2: part of setting that policies you come out with a
Speaker 2: big ask, knowing that you're asked, will you get whittled down? Okay?
Speaker 2: And now with like energy dominance okay, and looking back
Speaker 2: at fossil fuels and in the current administration pushing for
Speaker 2: like a real concentrated focus on domestic fossil fuel energy production.
Speaker 2: Which of those things do you think which of those
Speaker 2: plans is going to lead to like the highest net
Speaker 2: acreage of public hunting and fishing lands being developed. Like
Speaker 2: is the footprint on Trump's fossil fuel plan? Will it
Speaker 2: wind up being bigger than the biggest ask from the
Speaker 2: buy An administration on the footprint of renewables.
Speaker 4: It's hard for me to prognosticate this, you tell uh no, I,
Speaker 4: Like I said before, we've got a lot of history
Speaker 4: with oil and gas development, right and we know that
Speaker 4: what that footprint is. And with directional drilling and everything else,
Speaker 4: it's they'll take up less of a footprint. You know.
Speaker 4: One of the big problems with with solar is the
Speaker 4: arrays go in and then they put an eight foot
Speaker 4: chain link fence around it to keep everyone and everything out,
Speaker 4: And with oil and gas you don't necessarily have to
Speaker 4: do that, and you can leave some open space between them.
Speaker 4: There's also some emerging technology that the companies have started
Speaker 4: talking about where they can check their pumps. They can
Speaker 4: check the flows more remotely than they ever used to,
Speaker 4: because even though you've got a reduced footprint with oil
Speaker 4: and gas, you still typically have historically had vehicles driving
Speaker 4: those roads every day year round checking on everything. And
Speaker 4: that disturbance just causes problems for the wildlife there, particularly
Speaker 4: in the winter range right where you're getting that constant
Speaker 4: disturbance on them. And so I think there's we've learned
Speaker 4: more about how to mitigate those factors over the years
Speaker 4: through oil and gas, where we're still learning it now
Speaker 4: with solar and wind. And I forget the acreages now,
Speaker 4: but TRCP and some of our partners put together a
Speaker 4: document looking at at the surface area impact of the
Speaker 4: various forms of energy to get this away from how
Speaker 4: many killowat hours are we talking about generating to what's
Speaker 4: the disturbance out there on the landscape, And it surprised
Speaker 4: me the wind had a bigger footprint even than solar
Speaker 4: when it came to the number of acres per kilowatt
Speaker 4: hour that we're being generated on.
Speaker 2: That, oh for sure, and it was not well, maybe
Speaker 2: it's better understood now than it was, but for lack
Speaker 2: of a better term, the psychological impact to wildlife that
Speaker 2: those blades rolling in the sky and how that affects
Speaker 2: the noise and the blades, how it affects what goes
Speaker 2: on down on the ground because you can look underneath
Speaker 2: one of those suckers and see a bunch of grass, right.
Speaker 2: But then and I just have had anecdotal conversations with
Speaker 2: people who've taken ranch land and put it into that
Speaker 2: and they'll come back and say, like buy and large
Speaker 2: stuff avoids that part of the ranch now, like prong Horn,
Speaker 2: particularly about prong Horn, just never getting comfortable with it, right,
Speaker 2: So you wind up it's like the footprint winds up
Speaker 2: being different than the footprint.
Speaker 4: Right, you know, yeah, exactly, which.
Speaker 2: I think is what you're referring to in the amount
Speaker 2: of traffic that a company's oil and gas correct, all
Speaker 2: the vehicle traffic right.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, yeah, And so like I said, we we
Speaker 4: know better how to mitigate it when it comes to
Speaker 4: oil and gas. But I think the other thing is,
Speaker 4: you know, and we're seeing it already even with the
Speaker 4: executive orders that have come out about energy dominance, you're
Speaker 4: already seeing a little bit of the pushback from the
Speaker 4: from the industry. Even that it's executive orders are only
Speaker 4: going to go so far. It'll open it up for
Speaker 4: the future, but it's probably not going to have an
Speaker 4: immediate impact right now because it's all supply and demand, right.
Speaker 4: And so we've got that aspect where with the subsidies,
Speaker 4: the the solar and wind we're getting to try to
Speaker 4: develop these technologies. I wonder if we were seeing more
Speaker 4: of that go on the ground because of the subsidies around.
Speaker 2: There, it was a little bit divorced from free market economy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I also think the like, what's one of the
Speaker 5: interesting things in terms of just beyond the physical impact
Speaker 5: is just leasing out because most leases don't get developed, right, right,
Speaker 5: And so I think, like if I recall, once that
Speaker 5: land is leased, it creates all sorts of hurdles for
Speaker 5: trying to do other projects on that ground, like habitat improvement.
Speaker 2: So one of the.
Speaker 5: Concerns is not necessarily like all the administration is going
Speaker 5: to sell a bunch of leases, even if they go undeveloped,
Speaker 5: it still creates hurdles for doing things for wildlife on
Speaker 5: those lands, even if those areas are never drilled, right. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that's that's another concern.
Speaker 3: Well, the Conservation Lease program is under review, so that
Speaker 3: doesn't actually fact round at this point, right, So that's
Speaker 3: part of the Secretary order. So that just came out
Speaker 3: or sorry, executive orders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that came out.
Speaker 5: I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. But like, even
Speaker 5: outside of that, like aside from just leasing public ground
Speaker 5: for wild so can you not.
Speaker 3: Like overlap grazing allotment on that.
Speaker 5: I mean, I can't speak to the technicalities, but I
Speaker 5: know that's one concern is like if you have a
Speaker 5: massive least sale, even if they say we're not going
Speaker 5: to drill this for a hundred years, there are immediate
Speaker 5: consequences in terms of like wanting to do wildlife on
Speaker 5: that land because they could drill it at any time.
Speaker 2: So there's like there's.
Speaker 4: There's kind of a primacy of use. Yea, so it
Speaker 4: gets better consideration. I mean it's that way with grazing
Speaker 4: as well. When you get a grazing allotment on public lands,
Speaker 4: there's some deferment that goes to that rancher that's got
Speaker 4: it because he's paying for that. And while there's still
Speaker 4: can be habitat work that can be done, got to
Speaker 4: take into consideration what's that going to do to the
Speaker 4: to the forage, the cattle that are out there, the
Speaker 4: sheep that are out there. Right and while there's there's
Speaker 4: still hunting access, there may be areas within that that
Speaker 4: get excluded because it's important to the ranchers operations and
Speaker 4: things like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I can see, like on the flip side,
Speaker 3: if you're operating under grant to go out and do
Speaker 3: improvements on the landscape, are you going to prioritize land
Speaker 3: that may at some point be developed. Should kind of
Speaker 3: be like throwing your your grant money away understime?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it Joel's an interesting point you brought up
Speaker 2: that I hadn't really thought too much about, is you
Speaker 2: can do executive orders, but it's all going to be
Speaker 2: a little bit at the whim of the industry as
Speaker 2: they watch the price of a barrel of oil, Like
Speaker 2: there's certain places that are very expensive to operate in,
Speaker 2: and until the market is such that it makes sense,
Speaker 2: you can ask them to do it, but they might
Speaker 2: not pull the trigger on it.
Speaker 4: Right, No, that's exactly right. And I think what the
Speaker 4: executive orders do is they they create the framework to
Speaker 4: be able to do more in the future, but it's
Speaker 4: still going to be up to the markets.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think you're right and that that a
Speaker 2: lot of renewables were being like highly incentivized, meaning the
Speaker 2: wattage or however you measure the output of places you'd
Speaker 2: get a premium price for depending on how that was
Speaker 2: generated right, or you'd be you'd operate at a deficit
Speaker 2: depending on how it was generated. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of parallels with how the New York Times bestseller list works,
Speaker 2: and you happen to be thinking that, Yeah, like a
Speaker 2: book sold in some places is worth a lot more
Speaker 2: to their algorithm than a book sold in other places.
Speaker 4: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Uh, So to play this game we played, we
Speaker 2: looked at Trump won and coming out of Trump one,
Speaker 2: what are some things that what were some areas where
Speaker 2: we saw Biden's focus change? So if we look at
Speaker 2: some areas of focus that Biden had, what are some
Speaker 2: places where we might see some continuity. I think i'll
Speaker 2: tee this up about something that you and I discussed
Speaker 2: as breakfast as well as I can tell you. One
Speaker 2: area where there will not be continuity is so far
Speaker 2: is conversations around climate and it puts it creates a
Speaker 2: particular pickle for people. And I'll recap a discussion we
Speaker 2: had over breakfast. The Biden administration was so focused on
Speaker 2: climate issues that researchers needed to change the language they
Speaker 2: used when talking about wildlife conservation to get funding or
Speaker 2: to stay at the top of the heap, meaning You
Speaker 2: could be an individual who say, maps salmon runs, describes
Speaker 2: salmon runs, looks at the relative strength of particular salmon runs,
Speaker 2: what's going on with king salmon? Right? And this might
Speaker 2: be your focus. Four years ago there was a dramatic
Speaker 2: paradigm shift. You had to then say, well, how is
Speaker 2: what I'm already doing? How can I frame this as
Speaker 2: being a discussion about climate? Or you work on wildfire mitigation,
Speaker 2: generally you work on wildfire issues. To keep doing your work,
Speaker 2: you had to say, oh, and by the way, it's
Speaker 2: a climate project, because that would enable you to get funding,
Speaker 2: that would enable you to be published academically, because if
Speaker 2: you weren't talking about climate, you wouldn't get published. If
Speaker 2: you weren't talking about climate, you wouldn't get funding. And
Speaker 2: now there's this this reality that you need to expunge
Speaker 2: that language from your project. We had people whose arms
Speaker 2: were bent and creating that language correct, Everything had to
Speaker 2: flow through that lens. And now you have to retract
Speaker 2: from that and demonstrate back to the old way you
Speaker 2: would you would highlight your work or seek grants. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's like it feels to me and this is
Speaker 2: me talking. I want to be very clear This is
Speaker 2: not Joel talking. This is me talking. It feels like
Speaker 2: if I was a wildlife researcher, I would I would
Speaker 2: feel disheartened about that, disheartened about this because I'd be like, dude,
Speaker 2: I was overplaying it. I don't want to admit it now,
Speaker 2: but I was overplaying that shit to get funding. Now
Speaker 2: I gotta turn around and dial it back.
Speaker 3: I do think this is just like the same game
Speaker 3: that gets played every four years or eight years. Though
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, your emphasis is on this awesome. I
Speaker 3: work on grizzly bears, and I'm gonna make grizzly bears
Speaker 3: climate than yep, right, i work on grizzly bears. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna make it. Uh. I'm gonna try to determine how
Speaker 3: grizzly bears love oil and gas withdraw, but I'm gonna
Speaker 3: steal work on yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, oh no, it's the same work, but now
Speaker 2: it has to do with how I can mitigate risk
Speaker 2: to the livestock industry by better understanding how bears live
Speaker 2: and where they go. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, And before I
Speaker 2: wanted to find out how they live and where they
Speaker 2: go because it could have something to do with climate yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a pre precursor to how the temperature is
Speaker 3: changing on the ground something.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, No, I think you're you're both absolutely correct
Speaker 4: on that, and and it is frustrating. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: the fact of the matter, is I I So I
Speaker 4: think back to my my Milder Foundation days when we
Speaker 4: were While I was there, Meal Deer Foundation was a
Speaker 4: benefactor of large tens of millions of dollars commitment from
Speaker 4: for a service and BLM to go out and help implement,
Speaker 4: in the eyes of the Mule Deer Foundation, great habitat
Speaker 4: restoration work for mule deer to save mule deer, make
Speaker 4: sure they had the best quality habitat out there on
Speaker 4: winter range, summer range, wherever it was. But it was
Speaker 4: coming through a lens of this money is coming on
Speaker 4: the ground to help us mitigate climate change, to help
Speaker 4: us mitigate the wildfire crisis, and all of that. The
Speaker 4: work the Mule Deer Foundation and those contractors are doing
Speaker 4: is exactly the same three years ago as it will
Speaker 4: be next year. It's just in the name of however
Speaker 4: you want to frame it up.
Speaker 3: And so that's probably overlaps a lot with what Tall
Speaker 3: Timbers has been doing for like seventy years now.
Speaker 4: Exactly exactly. Yeah, And so you get this and when
Speaker 4: we come in with just the broad brush that it
Speaker 4: said climate, it must be bad. I don't you know.
Speaker 4: It's just too broad stroke and it just politicizes the
Speaker 4: issues like everything is politicized now in Congress and conservation
Speaker 4: and everything else, which is is really unfortunate because the
Speaker 4: work that we do is nonpartisan, right, and we can
Speaker 4: do good things for whatever you care about with this
Speaker 4: money being done or the research being done. It's just
Speaker 4: it's unfortunate that the word climate gets caught up in
Speaker 4: all of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what are some other areas where you think we'll
Speaker 2: see So we talked about oil and gas like a
Speaker 2: fundamental change of perspective on what kind of energy like.
Speaker 2: But both administrations agreed that we wanted to do energy work, right,
Speaker 2: but a real difference, and we're talking about renewables v.
Speaker 2: Fossil fuel, right, And I think within that you can't
Speaker 2: really separate that conversation from from the client a conversation,
Speaker 2: because the climate conversation was driven by an idea that
Speaker 2: renewables great good. You're bad. If you talk, you know,
Speaker 2: you're you're you must not love the environment. If you
Speaker 2: bring up questions about renewables to being renewables bad, fossil
Speaker 2: fuels good, that's a major shift. Are there some other
Speaker 2: like just like ideological shifts that you think will see
Speaker 2: I mean only as it pertains the conservation though, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to make you go down some you know,
Speaker 2: you don't talking about the A word or anything, but
Speaker 2: what are some fundamental shifts that you think we're going
Speaker 2: to see in terms of in terms of attitude and focus.
Speaker 4: You know, I think that's probably the biggest one. I
Speaker 4: think how conservation gets funded. There's probably the other one
Speaker 4: that that I've been spending a lot of time thinking about,
Speaker 4: and my counterparts and the organizations have I've brought up
Speaker 4: the bill and i ra A funding a couple of
Speaker 4: times when there's big slug of money there, what's going
Speaker 4: to happen with that money?
Speaker 2: Those?
Speaker 4: Again, those that money was going to programs that people
Speaker 4: care about. Right. There was so one example I can
Speaker 4: use it goes to private lands. In the Farm Bill.
Speaker 4: There was about twenty billion dollars through the Inflation Reduction
Speaker 4: Act that went to the Farm Bill to help farmers
Speaker 4: and ranchers do projects on their land that had conservation
Speaker 4: benefits and water quality benefits that were programs that existed
Speaker 4: before this money passed. Landowners like it. There was more
Speaker 4: landowners that wanted funding than there was funding available for
Speaker 4: and a number I saw recently about eighty percent of
Speaker 4: that funding that's gone out the door has gone to
Speaker 4: Republican congressional districts. And so even the people that voted
Speaker 4: for this administration, they're the ones that are benefiting from this,
Speaker 4: and they like it. Well, what's going to happen with
Speaker 4: that funding as we go forward and we're thinking about
Speaker 4: reconciliation and reducing the size of the government. Those programs
Speaker 4: are still there. They're still going to do great things
Speaker 4: for conservation and for agriculture. I'd argue they need to stay.
Speaker 4: But where's the priority going to be between reducing the
Speaker 4: size of government, reducing the amount of money going out
Speaker 4: the door, and the conservation issues that are really important
Speaker 4: to us. To the point, and this is where I'll
Speaker 4: tie it back to climate here a little bit. At
Speaker 4: the end of last Congress, there was a recognition that
Speaker 4: there was an opportunity here to take ten twelve, fourteen
Speaker 4: million billion dollars that had not yet been spent through
Speaker 4: those programs and roll it into the baseline of the
Speaker 4: next Farm bill. And the Republican and Democrat leadership for
Speaker 4: both the House and Senate agg committees were in favor
Speaker 4: of doing this. They saw it as an opportunit need
Speaker 4: to increase funding to do private land conservation work down
Speaker 4: the road. But there was a faction of individuals out
Speaker 4: there that just could not live with the fact that
Speaker 4: we might take climate out of the equation and say
Speaker 4: and just remove the word that this money has to
Speaker 4: be spent for climate work, even though it was going
Speaker 4: to do exactly the same work. And so it didn't
Speaker 4: happen at the end of last Congress, and we don't
Speaker 4: know if it'll happen again now.
Speaker 3: So yeah, because we're on our second Farm bill extension,
Speaker 3: that's right right now. Whereas technically we shouldn't have an extension,
Speaker 3: we should have a new farm bill.
Speaker 4: Should have had a new farm bill two years ago, right,
Speaker 4: But this was just an attempt at the end of
Speaker 4: Congress to get this rolled in. So when they did
Speaker 4: work on the next extension, it went on into the baseline, right, And.
Speaker 3: That's referencing like the climate credits for soil conservation through
Speaker 3: things that a lot of ranchers want to do anyway,
Speaker 3: which is grow native grass as that deeper rip structures,
Speaker 3: they sequester more carbine, but they're also super drought and
Speaker 3: fire tolerant, and they're just really good forage for those
Speaker 3: landscapes because that's what was there long before they were there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, you know, President Trump has overwhelming support.
Speaker 2: I gu it's fair to say, like overwhelming support from
Speaker 2: the agricultural industry, right, farmers, ranchers. I mean, if you're
Speaker 2: gonna pull farmers and ranchers, he's got their support. Yes,
Speaker 2: not without exception, but overwhelmingly correct When you look at
Speaker 2: like like over your career and over your time of conservation,
Speaker 2: when you look at that, do you find that, like
Speaker 2: we remove it just from a conversation about Trump, at
Speaker 2: any administration, do you find that they'll wind up looking
Speaker 2: at that that constituency is supportive, here's some federal spending
Speaker 2: that aids that constituency, and that gets a level of favoritism.
Speaker 2: I don't mean to be cynical, but I mean that
Speaker 2: has to be a thing that plays out in the
Speaker 2: psychology of any president.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I mean, we can talk about conservation and you
Speaker 4: talk about all those other programs that we're not going
Speaker 4: to talk about today, right, but but absolutely it's there.
Speaker 4: And ultimately it boils down to how can I get
Speaker 4: those votes and then how can I follow through on
Speaker 4: those votes I got with the promises that I made
Speaker 4: to get him there? And so yeah, definitely is a factor.
Speaker 2: What does need to happen? Uh, what does need to
Speaker 2: happen with the farm Bill? And is it fair to
Speaker 2: say too? Is my understanding this credit simple?
Speaker 3: Simple?
Speaker 2: But is the main like if you maybe i'm maybe
Speaker 2: I'm I don't have a sophisticated understanding, and I know
Speaker 2: it's like it's byzantine, right, but but one of the
Speaker 2: main issues of the farm bill is having CRP lands.
Speaker 2: Is that under Is that like under selling other initiatives
Speaker 2: in the farm bill? Or is that kind of like
Speaker 2: one of the primary points and from conservation, not from
Speaker 2: everything else, but in the conservation part of the question
Speaker 2: is land CRP lands.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So CRP is extremely important as a program in
Speaker 4: there For those that may not be familiar, it's basically
Speaker 4: a short term lease on that land to put it
Speaker 4: into to native hopefully native grasses, but at least into
Speaker 4: some sort of cover. So it's not in row agriculture,
Speaker 4: and it's supposed to the marginalized lands, but it's you know,
Speaker 4: twenty to thirty million acres depending upon the year and
Speaker 4: where that cap has been over the years. That's of
Speaker 4: marginal land that's being set aside that ends up creating
Speaker 4: great wildlife habitat. And so it is absolutely an anchor
Speaker 4: of the of the Farm Bill program. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of other good programs in there through some of the
Speaker 4: Wetland Reserve Program, which has been through several different iterations
Speaker 4: and names over the year. The Environmental Quality and Sentence
Speaker 4: Program is another one that's about six hundred million a
Speaker 4: year that comes out through that that encourages private landowners
Speaker 4: to do conservation related practices to help with water quality,
Speaker 4: fencing issues, water issues, et cetera on their properties. And
Speaker 4: so there's all sorts of really good programs under there
Speaker 4: that need to happen. And then so Congress passes the
Speaker 4: farm Bill and you ask what needs to happen, Well,
Speaker 4: that's it. They need to actually pass one instead of
Speaker 4: continuing to go on the extension after extension after extension.
Speaker 2: What has been the greatest obstacle to getting it passed.
Speaker 4: A hell of a question. I don't it's hard to
Speaker 4: put my finger on it. Just I think it's become
Speaker 4: like everything else, it just kind of became politicized and
Speaker 4: trying to come up with the baseline numbers. But you
Speaker 4: can't just look at the conservation aspect of the farm
Speaker 4: bill and focus on that, because what a lot of
Speaker 4: people don't understand is the conservation title within the farm
Speaker 4: bill is small compared to the insurance programs, the food
Speaker 4: stamp programs, and everything else that's tied in. And so
Speaker 4: that's where the real that's where the real rub comes is.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of programs there that help urban communities
Speaker 4: and help underserved communities to go along with the conservation
Speaker 4: and the farm subsidies and all of that. And so
Speaker 4: you got all of these great things, and so we
Speaker 4: can look at, you know, the little bit of quote
Speaker 4: infighting that might happen within the conservation organizations about whether
Speaker 4: it ought to be grasslands, or whether we need to
Speaker 4: pay more attention to forestry, or do we need more
Speaker 4: for easements and all of that, but all of that
Speaker 4: pales in comparison to the broader fight about that really
Speaker 4: comes down to political sides over where this money should go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so those issues in a way are held hostage
Speaker 2: by these much more expensive, much more contentious issues. Yes.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And if you go like all the way back to
Speaker 3: like waters of the United States, sure, right, So you
Speaker 3: got a lot of farmers who are like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: government overreach. We can't do anything as far as like
Speaker 3: water that they can manage on their private property. Trump
Speaker 3: one big rollback of WOTIS, and we see a pretty
Speaker 3: drastic increase in drain tile right, so we're losing intermittent wetlands.
Speaker 3: In the Farm Bill, there's a lot of programs that
Speaker 3: are kind of like the carrot not the stick approach
Speaker 3: to Hey, not great to tile that farm for a
Speaker 3: bunch of different reasons. Here's a bunch of incentives that
Speaker 3: you have access to in the farm that would prevent
Speaker 3: got that pract that particular farming practice.
Speaker 2: It that can help you make the right choice for
Speaker 2: conservation without an economic without as much of an economic
Speaker 2: cost to your operation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or without the feeling of like being held against
Speaker 3: your will. I guess I understand, depending on who who's
Speaker 3: coming at it. From wood angle, yeah, uhh.
Speaker 2: We talked about wolves from mint everybody's favorite topic right
Speaker 2: just a minute, though, should be able to cover it. Uh, well, no,
Speaker 2: it's more of like a it's more like a how
Speaker 2: to how does stuff work in Washington? Question? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 2: so I have a question I wrote up. So I
Speaker 2: was going to say, moving to the lower forty eight.
Speaker 2: So we're going to talk about Alaska and we still
Speaker 2: might talk about Alaska. We're gonna talk about Alaska. I
Speaker 2: was gonna say moving to the lower forty eight. My
Speaker 2: beloved colleague Brody Henderson just alerted me that there's a
Speaker 2: bill right now. I have no idea where it sits.
Speaker 2: There's a bill right now once again, moving to delist
Speaker 2: wolves across the lower forty eight, which would have big
Speaker 2: implications for right now Colorado, wouldn't have implications for Idaho,
Speaker 2: Montana and Wow have implications for Colorado, potential implications for
Speaker 2: Utah other states. How likely is something like that to advance?
Speaker 2: Meaning I've had people explain to me that that questions
Speaker 2: around listings and d listings are somewhat insulated from from
Speaker 2: presidential administrations. Meaning these are things that move slow. They
Speaker 2: move at department levels, and it's not like presidents come
Speaker 2: in and are able to. They don't come in and
Speaker 2: manipulate or push directly like Endangered Species Act discussions, that
Speaker 2: might not even be true. I don't know. But if
Speaker 2: you have, if you have a Republican Senate, a Republican Congress,
Speaker 2: Republican president, all the appointees going along, is there a
Speaker 2: power play? Is there a power play that can happen?
Speaker 2: That would be we're gonna begin the delisting of grizzly
Speaker 2: bears and we're gonna delist wolves in the Upper Great
Speaker 2: Lakes or across the lower forty eight Or is that
Speaker 2: just completely outside of how the election just went? Yeah,
Speaker 2: does that make any sense? That was not a very
Speaker 2: well articulated question. Try to say what I'm saying, Randall.
Speaker 4: I'm tracking.
Speaker 3: What what do you think?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you're correct that this is supposed to be insulated.
Speaker 4: I mean it is all through the Endangered Species Act.
Speaker 4: When a species is listed, you're supposed to eventually Typically
Speaker 4: it's supposed to happen when it gets listed, but it
Speaker 4: usually takes no more time to get a recovery plan.
Speaker 4: And within that recovery plan, there are goals about the
Speaker 4: number of individuals or the number of breeding pairs that
Speaker 4: you have to hit before it would be delisted. The
Speaker 4: Endangered Species Act was never written and designed to house
Speaker 4: a species forever. It was designed to let's identify what
Speaker 4: it is, let's identify how we recover it, and let's
Speaker 4: get it off the books, and let's put the management
Speaker 4: of that species back to the state, just like they're
Speaker 4: managing for the game species right now. Right. And so
Speaker 4: when you look at wolves and over the years, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's been going back and forth since the Biden administration,
Speaker 4: I think was the Biden administration with wolves? Or we
Speaker 4: can overcomplicate this and get into all the distinct population
Speaker 4: segments and all that other stuff. But the bottom line
Speaker 4: is they said the Biden administration, this novisser has said
Speaker 4: they've met recovery. Let's get it off the books.
Speaker 2: That came from the Biden administration.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, the Obama administration going way back the Obama administration,
Speaker 4: people didn't like that, so they took it to court.
Speaker 4: The court overruled. I forget the reasons. Oftentimes it's a technicality.
Speaker 4: It's not based upon how many are out there on
Speaker 4: the landscape. It's did you follow the rules to the
Speaker 4: letter of the law, right, and so We've been back
Speaker 4: and forth on this with wolves on several occasions, listed, delisted, listed, dlisted.
Speaker 4: And so does Congress have an influence on this? They
Speaker 4: can they you know, they certainly can they get together
Speaker 4: and pass something. So what you mentioned now, I think
Speaker 4: it's called the pet and Livestock Protection Act, and it's
Speaker 4: been introduced to get wolves off. I don't know much
Speaker 4: about it other than it's got thirty Republican co sponsors,
Speaker 4: no Democratic co sponsors on this, So.
Speaker 2: That's in the House.
Speaker 4: I think it is in the House right now. Right, Well,
Speaker 4: it passed the House on a slim margin party line. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but this is not something this is something that in
Speaker 4: the Senate unless they do it away with the filibuster,
Speaker 4: they're gonna have to get sixty votes for There's no
Speaker 4: way they get to sixty votes. So I don't think
Speaker 4: you're going to legislate it. Can it be influenced by
Speaker 4: the administration, It absolutely can be, because all of those
Speaker 4: rules not only go through the Agency, but then they
Speaker 4: go through the Council on Environmental Quality the CEQ, which
Speaker 4: is an office of the White House that all of
Speaker 4: this environmental related, wildlife related stuff goes through. And so
Speaker 4: there's a filter there, and there's direction coming from there
Speaker 4: about you know, this is where the administration would like
Speaker 4: to go. Ultimately, they still have to base it upon
Speaker 4: the merits right, and so with the recent Grizzly Bear
Speaker 4: decision that the Biden administration did, they in a way
Speaker 4: they kind of changed the goalpost because this was about
Speaker 4: distinct population segments and they said, well, no, let's look
Speaker 4: at this across the whole landscape and what those numbers are.
Speaker 4: So you get all of those things going on. Ultimately,
Speaker 4: what's going to happen. I think it's going to continue
Speaker 4: to be a political ping pong ball, which is a shame.
Speaker 4: And when I think about the influence on this and
Speaker 4: think about legislation to try to get us out of
Speaker 4: this quagmire, I can't say that I'm a real fan
Speaker 4: because I start thinking about ballot box initiatives that happened
Speaker 4: at the states, right, It's not that. Look, wolves in
Speaker 4: most cases should be delisted based upon the merits of recovery,
Speaker 4: and it shouldn't be going back and forth between the
Speaker 4: politicians and the courts, and the special interest groups and
Speaker 4: the courts and all of that. We ought to just
Speaker 4: be able to get it back to nonpartisan, science based
Speaker 4: decisions like as it was designed to be, and how
Speaker 4: we get there. I don't know if I ever figure
Speaker 4: it out. I'm you know, I'm not going to be
Speaker 4: doing this job anymore.
Speaker 2: I think I might have been sitting next to you
Speaker 2: when I heard this. I believe I'll sit next to
Speaker 2: you and I and the Governor of Utah was addressing
Speaker 2: the audience and the Governor of Utah pledged the wolves
Speaker 2: aren't coming into Utah, and I remember thinking to myself,
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's up to you, right, Yes,
Speaker 2: I mean i'd be like, care for what you promise?
Speaker 4: Well, right, I mean they do have legs, Yeah, kind
Speaker 4: of like they got to Colorado before a malady initiative
Speaker 4: there said let's put them back they were already there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be like, if you're looking at a map
Speaker 2: and you just have that figured out based on the
Speaker 2: map you're looking at, that's one thing. But if you
Speaker 2: mean politically, I don't think that's that's not your call
Speaker 2: right now. Yeah, Like if they walk in, they walk in.
Speaker 3: Well, the pro wolf people were like, there's no way
Speaker 3: with the way Wyoming manages wolves that a wolf will
Speaker 3: ever walk from Wyoming into Colorado, Like, well.
Speaker 2: Really, they'd be incentivized to.
Speaker 3: They're sprinting, they're walking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the you know, yeah, like the equip
Speaker 2: of the Southern Railroad. Uh yeah, good answer on that one.
Speaker 2: It is a ping pong ball.
Speaker 4: Man, It's crazy.
Speaker 2: It is a ping pong ball. I feel that.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: I feel that the if I had to look at it,
Speaker 2: if I was going to crystal ball what's the word prognosticate,
Speaker 2: If I was going to prognosticate, and I was going
Speaker 2: to come up with like a realistic the realistic goal
Speaker 2: for the next four years when it comes to the
Speaker 2: when it comes to the delisting issue, I think that
Speaker 2: saying declaring delisted across the lower forty eight, I think
Speaker 2: that kind of winds up. I wouldn't be a poet.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't really get worked up about it in a
Speaker 2: negative way. But I think it kind of goes against
Speaker 2: a lot of the work we've done about distinct population segments.
Speaker 2: And I think that if the distinct population segment, if
Speaker 2: that idea was being used the way it was intended
Speaker 2: to be used, that'd be a quicker path forward. So
Speaker 2: I think that to throw your hands up in the
Speaker 2: air and be like, we're going to delist across the
Speaker 2: entirety of the Lower forty eight. Is kind of like
Speaker 2: me telling my kids, I'm gonna take all their iPads
Speaker 2: and run them over with my truck. Well, they're like,
Speaker 2: they're thinking, like, he's not really gonna do that, but
Speaker 2: he is pissed, do you know what I mean? So
Speaker 2: I think that realistically doing Northern Great Lakes on wolves right,
Speaker 2: finding some clarity because that's been a ping pong back
Speaker 2: and forth, back and forth. We're doing doing wolves in
Speaker 2: the Northern Great Lakes back to state management, so Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan. Right,
Speaker 2: that's like a realistic goal. And this is my opinion,
Speaker 2: and again this is me talking, not Joel talking. That's
Speaker 2: a realistic goal. And I think doing to do grizzly
Speaker 2: bears in one or two of the distinct population segments,
Speaker 2: starting with the Yellowstone DPS and maybe the Northern Continental
Speaker 2: Divide DPS, that seems to me like on that issue,
Speaker 2: that would I would view that as a success. I
Speaker 2: think it's starting to talk about the whole Lower forty
Speaker 2: eight is just it's you're you're you're kind of reintroducing
Speaker 2: an old paradigm that got us in trouble in the
Speaker 2: first place. Was the problem was listing them in the
Speaker 2: lower forty eight didn't give you any sort of nuanced control.
Speaker 2: So to go back to talking about lower forty eight,
Speaker 2: you're almost repeating like an old you know, it's kind
Speaker 2: of you're repeating an old mistake. And I'm just talking
Speaker 2: about I'm just talking about being strategic, like I'm talking
Speaker 2: about getting making some progress. I feel that it'd be
Speaker 2: much better to focus on these these pre existing sets
Speaker 2: of rules that we've been operating under and like try
Speaker 2: to be impactful there.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, I will prognosticate on this one, and my prediction,
Speaker 4: as it continues to be a ping pong ball, that
Speaker 4: this administration will ask the Service to go back and
Speaker 4: look at it again and they'll find some merits for
Speaker 4: delisting based upon the science that's out there, and end
Speaker 4: up back in the courts something too.
Speaker 3: I'd ask him like this, I'd say, find the areas
Speaker 3: that have the most grizzly bears hit by cars or
Speaker 3: lethally removed, and let's just look at those, and all
Speaker 3: the ones that don't have shockingly high numbers. We'll set
Speaker 3: those areas aside for further review.
Speaker 2: Right now, here's cal introducing like a whole new metric
Speaker 2: and thing. When I just made a plea for sticking
Speaker 2: with the conversation, now it's gonna be a vehicle collision conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I want people to be like, oh, holy shit, one
Speaker 3: hundred and some grizzly bears get killed every every single year.
Speaker 3: I thought there were no grizzly bears.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how they have any left?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay. Trump appointees yep, As far as I'm aware of
Speaker 2: his appointees, only one is with on. So they've been
Speaker 2: having some good they've been having good success moving appointees
Speaker 2: through the Interior department. Doug Bergham, he's a hunter, he is, right,
Speaker 2: a successful businessman. He's a pretty popular governor. What's your
Speaker 2: what's your take on what it's going to be like
Speaker 2: working with the Department of Interior going forward, and any
Speaker 2: other and any other kind of news or opinions to
Speaker 2: have about other appointees and who are people going to
Speaker 2: be what names are people going to be hearing a
Speaker 2: lot in the next four years?
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, a lot of questions. Eric, We'll see if
Speaker 4: I can remember them all and get to first off, Bergham,
Speaker 4: I think I think he's going to be really good
Speaker 4: to work with. I don't have a lot of personal
Speaker 4: experience with him, but some of our staff has worked
Speaker 4: with him through Western Governors Association and some of those
Speaker 4: UH some of the groups through that, and it's been
Speaker 4: a positive experience. And we're hearing some names. It's probably
Speaker 4: too early to say of people that UH worked with
Speaker 4: him in North Dakota that were in the first Trump
Speaker 4: administration that will likely be coming back in So I
Speaker 4: think there'll be some some known entities there. As you said,
Speaker 4: he he is a hunter and fisherman. I actually was
Speaker 4: at a reception last week celebration of the Explorer Act
Speaker 4: and Secretary Bergham showed up as his first public appearance
Speaker 4: since being confirmed UH and was there and he talked
Speaker 4: personally about hunting and fishing and growing up and shared
Speaker 4: some personal stories and you can tell it's it's not
Speaker 4: just words with him in that regard, you know. He
Speaker 4: he touched on at that a little bit about oil
Speaker 4: and gas and the mandate from the President for energy dominance,
Speaker 4: and he's also the energies are so he's going to
Speaker 4: play a role in that but what he highlighted there
Speaker 4: in this group of conservation minded folks in North Dakota,
Speaker 4: they grew to be the number three producer of oil
Speaker 4: and gas in the country during his administration, and they
Speaker 4: did that while only impacting one percent of the surface area.
Speaker 4: And so he's about technological advances to move these things forward.
Speaker 4: He's about finding the balance, and I truly I think
Speaker 4: he's got the track record to show that on the
Speaker 4: energy side of things. Within the Department of Interior, another
Speaker 4: name that's out there is Kate McGregor is Deputy Secretary.
Speaker 4: She's not been confirmed yet, but that's who they've put up.
Speaker 4: They'll start going to these second tier confirmations here in
Speaker 4: the coming weeks once they get the main ones done.
Speaker 4: Kate served in the same or similar role under the
Speaker 4: first Trump administration, so she knows how the department works
Speaker 4: and she's going to be able to bring some of
Speaker 4: that knowledge there into how it operates. And it's somebody
Speaker 4: the TRC and the other organizations worked with in the
Speaker 4: first Trump administration, So a known entity there.
Speaker 2: You know, let me wet something in there is from
Speaker 2: a conversation you and I had this morning, is with
Speaker 2: so much upheaval in the federal workforce right now.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 2: We had talked about, you know, with the federal buyout
Speaker 2: reducing agencies, we've talked about a loss of institutional knowledge, correct,
Speaker 2: And you had mentioned to me that some of these
Speaker 2: secondary positions are going to wind up need to be
Speaker 2: things you pay attention to, Like, are people coming into
Speaker 2: some of these agencies that have a big conservation mandate
Speaker 2: or a big implication for conservation. Are some of the
Speaker 2: people that are coming in in leadership roles? How familiar
Speaker 2: are they familiar? Are they with the agency? Do they
Speaker 2: have a generally positive attitude toward conservation work within that agency?
Speaker 2: Or in some cases, are they like complete outsiders who
Speaker 2: are there more or to reduce and dismantle rather than
Speaker 2: make more efficient and effective. Right, And that's just something
Speaker 2: I guess we'll just have to wait and see on
Speaker 2: some of those issues, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, we will have to wait and see.
Speaker 4: I think Kate and her first time around, she generally
Speaker 4: was good on her issues. Like I said, she understands it.
Speaker 4: She left the administration and she went to work for
Speaker 4: an energy company, which incidentally was actually more based on
Speaker 4: wind and solar than it was oil and gas. Huh.
Speaker 4: But so she's coming back in so she understands the
Speaker 4: energy side of things. And you know, that's a huge
Speaker 4: mandate with the Department of Interior. It's a huge agency, mining, minerals,
Speaker 4: all of that stuff, water reclamation, Bureau of Reclamations in there.
Speaker 4: We always think about it from the BLM and the
Speaker 4: Fish and Wildlife Service, but there's a whole bunch of
Speaker 4: other things that that secretary and that Deputy secretary have
Speaker 4: to think about on top of that.
Speaker 2: You know a thing that your predecessor at TRCP said
Speaker 2: to me about Secretary Bernhardt that always stuck with me.
Speaker 2: He had said he was talking about liking working with Bernhardt,
Speaker 2: and he had an interesting thing he liked about him.
Speaker 2: He's like, he doesn't waste your time, meaning when he
Speaker 2: tells you something, he tells you what he's going to do,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't pull the carpet off from under you.
Speaker 2: So it will allow you to be pretty focused in
Speaker 2: your ass where you didn't get like grinned along and
Speaker 2: then later realized that he was having a totally separate
Speaker 2: conversation and just leading you along. He said it allowed
Speaker 2: for a certain efficiency where he'd be like, you're not
Speaker 2: going to get anywhere on this, but if you'd like
Speaker 2: to talk about this, I'm all ears, yeah, right, it
Speaker 2: let you be, let you sort of understand the landscape,
Speaker 2: right which I thought was just an interesting way to
Speaker 2: look at someone who is an ally and adversary and like,
Speaker 2: how efficient are you in figuring out where you line
Speaker 2: up and don't line up right? Well?
Speaker 4: And that's a lot of what we're spending our time,
Speaker 4: not only t RCP, but everybody that works up there
Speaker 4: right now is trying to figure out as much as
Speaker 4: we can about these appointees and where they're going to
Speaker 4: land on that. And you know, there's a level of
Speaker 4: excitement when a known entity goes in there so that
Speaker 4: you don't have to build the time creating the relationship
Speaker 4: and you can kind of know what their track record is.
Speaker 4: But somebody like Burgham, you know, we know a little
Speaker 4: bit about his track record. Beyond Bergham and McGregor that
Speaker 4: I mentioned, we're not hearing a lot of names for
Speaker 4: the next level down and the agency directors at this time.
Speaker 4: It's still a little early to tell. In Department of
Speaker 4: ag it's you know, a little bit on the flip
Speaker 4: side there Brooke Rawlins is the new Secretary of AG there.
Speaker 4: She was in the first Trump administration, but in a
Speaker 4: very different role, had nothing to do with AG. She's
Speaker 4: got a degree from Texas A and M, so she's
Speaker 4: an aggie in that regard. But she's been in the
Speaker 4: interim since last ministration. She's been part of the American
Speaker 4: First Policy Institute, or she was CEO of that, which
Speaker 4: is a conservative think tank. And in her first role,
Speaker 4: you know, she was really about what was it it
Speaker 4: was ran the Domestic Policy Council during the first term,
Speaker 4: which basically is his cabinet and helps to set the
Speaker 4: presidential agenda. And so it's been you know, she's not
Speaker 4: a known entity in the AG space, and we don't
Speaker 4: know who she's going to bring in. She hasn't worked
Speaker 4: in that space, so she doesn't have a bunch of
Speaker 4: people that she can pull from. But you know, they've
Speaker 4: named a few more people over there. Richard Fordyce is
Speaker 4: one of the under secretaries. I think there's three under
Speaker 4: secretaries over there. Two of them we care about. One
Speaker 4: is for Farm Production and Conservation, which oversees Farm Services
Speaker 4: Agency and the NRCS. Farm Services Agency implements CRP, the
Speaker 4: Natural Resources Concertvation Service or in our CS, implements the
Speaker 4: rest of the conservation programs in the farm bill, So
Speaker 4: that's an important one for us. He's a farmer out
Speaker 4: of Missouri. He was administrator of Farm Service Agency in
Speaker 4: the first Trump administration, so he understands some of the
Speaker 4: egg policy and things like that, and apparently does a
Speaker 4: lot of conservation work on his own farm back in Missouri.
Speaker 2: We had talked as well about the idea of reconciliation,
Speaker 2: which is something I hadn't given much thought to. Meaning
Speaker 2: we're hearing a lot about cuts, yep, right, like we have.
Speaker 2: I mean, we have like an existential problem in the
Speaker 2: country about a budget deficit and debt. Like all the
Speaker 2: money we're talking about, right, all this money we're talking
Speaker 2: about that that we could spend on conservation. If you
Speaker 2: were gonna compare that the amount of money that this
Speaker 2: country spends servicing its debt, it's not it's nothing. We
Speaker 2: spend far more servicing our debt than we do on
Speaker 2: conservation by probably like some factor of hundreds.
Speaker 4: I don't know exactly what that number is, but the
Speaker 4: amount of money of uh for you, I lost the term.
Speaker 4: I'm looking for but of the non obligated federal budget
Speaker 4: goes to conservation.
Speaker 2: Well, non obligated, yeah, it's it's.
Speaker 4: A non mandatory discretionary is the word I'm looking for.
Speaker 4: The discretionary budget goes to the conservation issues.
Speaker 2: So if you rolled in the total federal budget would
Speaker 2: be a much smaller fraction. So, uh, we have a
Speaker 2: problem with like with debt, no remedy, like any remedy
Speaker 2: is going to have a bunch of people pissed off.
Speaker 2: It's like, that's what's created the problem. We have it,
Speaker 2: and we so far we've just generally seen administration after
Speaker 2: administration after administration people can't stomach what it would take
Speaker 2: to fix it. Trump's in a similar bind. He's in
Speaker 2: a similar bind because he can't go after and not can't.
Speaker 2: It'd be politically detrimental to go after Social Security, Medicare,
Speaker 2: and Medicaid, right, So you wind up needing to fidget around,
Speaker 2: to fidget around in these much smaller things when like
Speaker 2: seventy percent of the money is going to these things
Speaker 2: that it's political suicide to talk about entitlement spending. It's
Speaker 2: political suicide. So you need to go after the less
Speaker 2: the areas with less friction, right, and you wind up
Speaker 2: talking about little little chunks of money here and there
Speaker 2: because you just can't talk about the big chunks of money.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you I watched an interview with Steve Bannon,
Speaker 2: who was in the early first Trump administration, was a huge,
Speaker 2: the impactful person. And so here's Bannon saying, you know,
Speaker 2: he was like a naval commander, right, he was in
Speaker 2: the navy, He's got kids in the military. He's like
Speaker 2: establishing how hawkish he is. But he goes, and this
Speaker 2: is coming from me, we need to talk about the
Speaker 2: defense budget down the road. We need to talk about
Speaker 2: the social safety in that budget, because we're not going
Speaker 2: to get there with the kinds of things we're talking about.
Speaker 2: But to get back to the original point I was
Speaker 2: going to make is we can talk about places to
Speaker 2: save money, but you also the administration also needs to
Speaker 2: look at how you make money, right, Right, There's like
Speaker 2: you can cut out going, but what do you do
Speaker 2: to bring it in? And one of the ways you
Speaker 2: can bring money in is leasing, right, and probably some
Speaker 2: other issues right.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, for sure. And so yeah, when it comes
Speaker 4: to reconciliation, that's something that I don't know how much
Speaker 4: the sportsman's community is paying attention to. But it is
Speaker 4: certainly something that we're watching for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 4: One is, and we've talked about it several times, the
Speaker 4: slug of money that came out through Bill and IRA
Speaker 4: that goes to conservation, that is from day one, been
Speaker 4: a target because of how it came about, because it
Speaker 4: has the climate connotations, because it was a Biden administration priority,
Speaker 4: that's an area they're going to cut in. Anything that
Speaker 4: at least that hasn't been obligated right now is on
Speaker 4: the blocks to come back. The ten twelve, fourteen million
Speaker 4: that I talked about with the farm bill program earlier
Speaker 4: is part of that. That is the chance of getting
Speaker 4: recisioned back out to decrease spending. So that's one part
Speaker 4: of it. But then another part of it, as you said,
Speaker 4: is increasing the revenue. And so we've heard and I
Speaker 4: don't know how serious it is. And so with reconciliation,
Speaker 4: it has to tie right back to the budget, and
Speaker 4: so some of this may be a stretch, but if
Speaker 4: they can tie it back to revenues, it may not
Speaker 4: be a huge stretch. And so some big wins that
Speaker 4: the conservation community and TARRASEPA has had over the course
Speaker 4: of the last four and eight years having to do
Speaker 4: with mining. The Biden administration decided that they weren't going
Speaker 4: to permit a critical mineral's mind up in the Boundary
Speaker 4: Waters Canoe area of northern Minnesota. That's been something that's
Speaker 4: been going on for a long time, well in the
Speaker 4: headwaters the headwaters, Yeah, thank you. That has specifically been
Speaker 4: mentioned that maybe we need to bring that back online
Speaker 4: so the royalties we get from that Pebble mine, which
Speaker 4: Trump won when he was president before came out strongly
Speaker 4: against and said no, we're not going to do this.
Speaker 4: We need to protect Bristol Bay. That one has specifically
Speaker 4: been brought up by Congress as another one where let's
Speaker 4: bring that back on and get the royalties to bring
Speaker 4: money in, to bring money in because of the royalties
Speaker 4: that eventually would come from that. And then another issue
Speaker 4: that TRCP and it's partners have worked on here over
Speaker 4: the course of the last four years that the Biden
Speaker 4: administration was a champion on was the Ambler Road and
Speaker 4: the Brooks Range ere a two hundred and eleven mile
Speaker 4: road that would have three thousand stream crossings and bisect
Speaker 4: the West Alaska Cariboo herd and just all of the
Speaker 4: negative things that come from that in this largely undeveloped
Speaker 4: kind of the last bastion of wildness that this country has.
Speaker 4: The BLM decided they weren't going to permit that. That's
Speaker 4: something else that not only came up in the executive
Speaker 4: Order about unleashing Alaska's greatness, but it's also been mentioned
Speaker 4: as potentially coming in through reconciliation because we can open
Speaker 4: up that mine right well, that mine if it depending
Speaker 4: on how good it is. One of the documents from
Speaker 4: one of the companies doing it said, yeah, we want
Speaker 4: to do this so week and send it all overseas
Speaker 4: to be developed. Right So it's not even going to
Speaker 4: come back to our critical menus, but it would create
Speaker 4: some royalties, so we're watching it for that. There's also
Speaker 4: a positive on this as well with reconciliation. So there
Speaker 4: is a loophole in the federal excise tax around archery
Speaker 4: equipment and fishing tackle that is being exploited right now
Speaker 4: by direct to consumer sales largely over the internet for
Speaker 4: products that are starting outside of the country. Whereas we
Speaker 4: all know that through the Pittman Robertson Act and Daniel
Speaker 4: Johnson Act. There's an excise tax on firearms, ammunition, fishing tackle,
Speaker 4: et cetera. But what's happening right now is with that
Speaker 4: direct to consumer is not being taxed when it's purchased
Speaker 4: online and it's being shipped from outside of the country
Speaker 4: into the country because it's the first first point of
Speaker 4: sale in the country. Is where that's collected. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 4: And so that's about a seventeen million dollar bump that
Speaker 4: we think we could see for fish and wildlife conservation.
Speaker 4: That is, when you buy a fishing reel, or you
Speaker 4: buy a fishing tackle that's developed in China or arrow
Speaker 4: shafts is another big one, and you buy them online
Speaker 4: and it gets shipped directly to your home. Nobody's collecting
Speaker 4: that tax. You're the one Steve that should be paying
Speaker 4: that because you're the first point of purchase on that.
Speaker 4: So there's legislation that's been in the talks, and I
Speaker 4: think it's going to get introduced. There was talks that
Speaker 4: would be introduced last week or this week that would
Speaker 4: close that loophole and that would have a talk direct tie.
Speaker 3: To You're digging pretty hard for some blue sky there, Joel,
Speaker 3: do it, I can't. I mean, it's it's great. I
Speaker 3: think we could crowdsource seventeen million dollars if we really
Speaker 3: needed to against Ambler road, right, pebble mine, yeah, boundary
Speaker 3: waters right. But I guess the efficiency part of this,
Speaker 3: right is I respect you well enough to bust your
Speaker 3: your your jobs a little fair the because we have
Speaker 3: seen so to go back to the farm bill, right, Like,
Speaker 3: the farm Bill is a big thing, and that's why
Speaker 3: I was joking on. This is a layup deal, right,
Speaker 3: and it's a big complex package to the point where
Speaker 3: it needs like a lot of physical people on the
Speaker 3: ground to facilitate that just the use of a lot
Speaker 3: of the programs within the farm bill. So you have
Speaker 3: a lot of users on the ground who are working outside,
Speaker 3: they're doing non techy things, and there's a system in
Speaker 3: place that is very onerous for these people to in
Speaker 3: their spare time try to access some of these programs
Speaker 3: that will greatly benefit them and their bottom line and
Speaker 3: for generations to come sometimes and that's a big barrier
Speaker 3: to entry. So there's a lot of people involved in
Speaker 3: the farm bill that work on the farm bill. My
Speaker 3: understanding is all these people just got a notice that said, hey,
Speaker 3: if you want to retire early, you can hit the
Speaker 3: easy button and go right now.
Speaker 2: In regards to which has not had widespread adoption, No,
Speaker 2: it went out to two point five million, and I
Speaker 2: think there are sixty.
Speaker 3: Secretary Berghum all of his people in Interior got the
Speaker 3: same notice. And at the same time what we were
Speaker 3: just talking about, right, wants to review, officially review every
Speaker 3: national monument going back to President Theodore Roosevelt in nineteen
Speaker 3: oh six, So basically anything that was used in the
Speaker 3: the Antiquities Act, every mineral withdrawal, which obviously is what
Speaker 3: we just talked about, and every BLM Resource Management Plan
Speaker 3: which ties into ample road. I mean, pick one of those.
Speaker 3: And I can't imagine how many physical people it would
Speaker 3: take to accomplish a full review of just one.
Speaker 2: Right, So yeah, like, do.
Speaker 3: We know that the right hand is talking to the
Speaker 3: left hand in Washington?
Speaker 2: Right? No, I think it's unclear. And I and on
Speaker 2: the federal employee thing, when I looked at I saw
Speaker 2: someone put in line with normal annual turnover is I
Speaker 2: can't remember what it was in excess of one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand normal annual turnover at the federal of that two
Speaker 2: point five million federal employees normal annual turnovers one fifteen.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at rand I don't know, yeah, check, But
Speaker 2: I mean I think that the point being I just
Speaker 2: think that it was.
Speaker 3: Like, you can see it as a positive like this
Speaker 3: they're more loyal, well.
Speaker 2: Well as a positive negative. I just viewed it as
Speaker 2: I thought that number of you wig the hell higher,
Speaker 2: especially when I looked at what normal turnover is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: then it'll wind up being as much as that's gotten
Speaker 2: a lot of media attention, it'll wind up being kind
Speaker 2: of like a non event. It's also changing.
Speaker 5: It's all there's nothing behind it. I mean they just
Speaker 5: got an email. There's no there's no promise, right, like,
Speaker 5: there's nothing. I mean, I think that's the thing is
Speaker 5: it's sort of an io you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be scared.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there's no I mean, you like.
Speaker 2: To take the deal, I'd be like, can I get
Speaker 2: my money up front?
Speaker 3: It's not exactly a pad on the back, yeah, right,
Speaker 3: you know, it's like we all the you know, the
Speaker 3: federal government gets summed up just like that, all the feds, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And the more time you spend outside, the more interaction
Speaker 3: you have with federal employees, and holy cow, are there's
Speaker 3: like some phenomenally good, dedicated federal employees that deal with
Speaker 3: a lot of sometimes literal human shit.
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of the opposite for sure.
Speaker 3: How many of the good ones go oh boy, these
Speaker 3: guys don't have our back. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy, right.
Speaker 2: I think that one one thing, that one point way
Speaker 2: you got to hand it to the administration is they're
Speaker 2: moving so fast that it it leaves you stuttering, right,
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, you can't tell what's going on? So
Speaker 2: and looking at trying to understand executive orders, right, and
Speaker 2: other things. I find myself waiting for the dusta settle
Speaker 2: a little bit to see like like, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: opposed to Ambler Road project just taking Alaska. I'mposed of
Speaker 2: the pebble mine project. I don't think that they should
Speaker 2: drill Anmar. So you see the executive orders coming and
Speaker 2: I kind of just wind up mentally hitting pause a
Speaker 2: minute to understand how much of this is, Like how
Speaker 2: what is symbolism? What's really going on? Where is their industry?
Speaker 2: Where is there even industry buy in industry possibility at
Speaker 2: the state level, what's the political mood, what is the
Speaker 2: permitting process? No administration lasts forever. Some things just take forever.
Speaker 2: What happens in two years, Like depending on how the
Speaker 2: midterms go, how much of this stuff unravels if the
Speaker 2: normal thing plays out where you normally, you know, it's
Speaker 2: a majority of times a president in the midterms loses,
Speaker 2: loses whatever their existing majorities are in the House and Senate.
Speaker 2: So like, all of this stuff happening, and I catch
Speaker 2: myself being like, oh, just just hold on a sec.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to understand what's going on. Yeah, like, what
Speaker 2: do you.
Speaker 3: Care about the words coming out of your mouth being true?
Speaker 3: That is a smart thing to do.
Speaker 2: Yes, But then I also sit there thinking, I also
Speaker 2: say that they're thinking to myself, there are things that
Speaker 2: you know, there's things the administration is doing that I applaud,
Speaker 2: and there's things the administration is doing that I'm very
Speaker 2: nervous about. And I don't want to find that I'm
Speaker 2: so on the things that I'm uneasy with or the
Speaker 2: things that I oppose. I don't want it to be
Speaker 2: that like everyone waits too long to try to get
Speaker 2: their bearings and then realize that you missed your chance
Speaker 2: to go Hey, wait a minute.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I guarantee you the I guarantee you. The ambler
Speaker 5: roade people and the pebble mind people are not waiting
Speaker 5: for the dust to settle, you know, they're not waiting
Speaker 5: to see what happens in two years. Their foot on
Speaker 5: the gas right now.
Speaker 2: It'd be like Colorado on the wolf thing. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: get the votes and wolves. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I will say, like, hats off to the administration
Speaker 3: for the strategy, right, Like it is an effective strategy.
Speaker 3: We're gonna throw so much stuff out there, yeah, that
Speaker 3: everybody is going to be like, oh my, oh that's illegal.
Speaker 3: Wait is it illegal? Let's be sure about that. Can
Speaker 3: somebody look that up. Let's let's make sure. Oh there's
Speaker 3: another thing today. Oh there's another thing at two am today,
Speaker 3: this tweet just went out. We got to make sure
Speaker 3: what we can do, what our actions are. And some
Speaker 3: of this stuff is going to stick. I think a
Speaker 3: lot of it is not going to stick. But it's
Speaker 3: a hell of a good strategy, right. And I think
Speaker 3: from a conservation point of view, you gotta you can't
Speaker 3: say everything's on fire all the time, because you can't
Speaker 3: get people to show up all the time for everything,
Speaker 3: Like you got to choose your fires and say, gang,
Speaker 3: this one's the real one, and we got to show
Speaker 3: up for this and and you know, yeah, some groups
Speaker 3: are drawing some lines in the sand already. I think
Speaker 3: a lot of folks are trying to be patient. It's
Speaker 3: it's tough though, because it it's scary, Like there's a
Speaker 3: lot going on on right now, and one of those
Speaker 3: ambler road boundary waters pebble mind. I mean, we've already
Speaker 3: had generation of conservation minded people work the majority of
Speaker 3: their lives on some of this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to give return it back order, Joel make because
Speaker 2: it's gonna be his job. Joel's job is going to
Speaker 2: be sorting all this out. But you know, earlier I
Speaker 2: was making the point, and I want to clarify this
Speaker 2: is very much me talking and not Joel talking. Earlier. Wait,
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say anything in sundiary. I'm just talking
Speaker 2: about like and trying to understand the ass Is any
Speaker 2: of this putting you in a bad position? No, no,
Speaker 2: not yet. Earlier it won't at all. But remember earlier
Speaker 2: I was making the joke about I was talking about
Speaker 2: when I tell my kids, like listen, I'm gonna run
Speaker 2: I'm gonna take everyone's iPads and run them over the driveway.
Speaker 2: And and it's meant to be that. They go like, well,
Speaker 2: he's not gonna do that, but he's here something some
Speaker 2: some lesser version is gonna happen right now, Like they're
Speaker 2: going in the gun safe is probably what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: It's probably what they're thinking, the iPads, not the kids. No, no, yeah,
Speaker 2: Like I say I'm gonna run them over. In their head,
Speaker 2: they're like, this is gonna settle out where my iPad's
Speaker 2: in the gun safe right for like two weeks, like
Speaker 2: I can see where this is going. So with a
Speaker 2: lot of things and trying to get in like a
Speaker 2: lot of things, are trying to understand how President Trump
Speaker 2: operates and how he thinks is when is he doing
Speaker 2: that I'm gonna run over all the iPads. When Trump
Speaker 2: said I'm gonna empty we're straying way away from conservation.
Speaker 2: I'm making up a conservation point. When Trump says I'm
Speaker 2: gonna empty Gaza, I'm gonna empty Gaza and we're gonna
Speaker 2: build a resort. He I think it's like I'm gonna
Speaker 2: run over all the iPads. That's about where I'm at, right,
Speaker 2: and anyone that has a stake in that is listening
Speaker 2: and being like, man, a minimum, the iPads are going
Speaker 2: in the gun safe. Right. It's a way of sort
Speaker 2: of like it's a it's a way of communicating of
Speaker 2: saying I'm at a point where I'm gonna do something major, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: So that's part of the thing is like him saying
Speaker 2: energy like if we look at like energy extraction, you know,
Speaker 2: if we look like like energy dominance such as and
Speaker 2: you just throw out like such as ambler, pebble mind,
Speaker 2: boundary waters. Is that running shit over in the driveway
Speaker 2: or does that wind up being that they're going into
Speaker 2: the gun set. Yeah, they're going to the gun safe.
Speaker 2: And that's what's so bewildering to me personally.
Speaker 4: It is. But you know, there's another twist on this
Speaker 4: because when I'm talking about pebble mine and boundary water
Speaker 4: is an ambler in reconciliation that's congressional. So now you've
Speaker 4: got not just the administration saying we ought to think
Speaker 4: about this, but you've got Congress doing it, and you
Speaker 4: start getting that synergy there, it's going to be even harder, right,
Speaker 4: And so we're trying to be measured in our approach
Speaker 4: right now. We're trying to be measured in what we say.
Speaker 4: We've had several of our partners that have wanted to
Speaker 4: be very vocal against some things that have come out already,
Speaker 4: and it's like, you know, let's just hold on not
Speaker 4: waiting too long. To your point, we can't do that.
Speaker 4: But you know, we haven't even had to sit down
Speaker 4: with Secretary Burgham as a community to say, here's the
Speaker 4: things that we really care about. Here's our top ten issues.
Speaker 4: Right where are you on these? We shouldn't go in
Speaker 4: there and say we don't like this, don't do it
Speaker 4: now before we even know what the lay of the
Speaker 4: land is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it might backfire, right, and you.
Speaker 4: Know, just thinking about Alaska and unleashing Alaska's energy dominance.
Speaker 4: Whatever the title of that one was, it's like.
Speaker 2: That really dramatic title.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got it somewhere, but it's spectacular it is. Yeah,
Speaker 4: But there's like thirty different things that he identifies in there. Well,
Speaker 4: which ones of those are gonna filter to the top.
Speaker 4: Which ones will trcp's voice make a difference in, Because
Speaker 4: if we're not going to move the needle on it.
Speaker 4: There's probably no sense in wasting the political capital on
Speaker 4: it and save it for those things like Pebble Mind
Speaker 4: and Ambler Road that TRCP and our broader community have
Speaker 4: worked so hard on for so long to really try
Speaker 4: to put the stake in the ground on those when
Speaker 4: the time is right.
Speaker 5: But I think one aspect of working for TRCP that
Speaker 5: I hadn't really appreciated as an outsider is like, you
Speaker 5: have to work with both sides of the aisle, and
Speaker 5: it does that's.
Speaker 3: The literal job. Yeah you can't. Yeah no, I mean, like, like, no,
Speaker 3: it's a.
Speaker 2: Good point it Yeah no.
Speaker 5: I mean, but like there's people that when Biden's in office,
Speaker 5: they're saying, you know, tiercp's working with Biden and doing X,
Speaker 5: Y and Z, and if you don't like Biden, you
Speaker 5: don't like what tiercp's doing. And then if this administration
Speaker 5: comes in and you work on priorities that you have
Speaker 5: with this new administration, say, oh, they're just bending over
Speaker 5: to Trump, you know. And so I think, like it's
Speaker 5: easy if you're not trying to get access to the
Speaker 5: Secretary of the Interior, it's easy to sort of sit
Speaker 5: back in the cheap seats and you know, take a
Speaker 5: flamethroat or whatever you don't like coming out of DC.
Speaker 5: But I having worked for TIERCP, I appreciate the position
Speaker 5: that you're in because you need to have influence no
Speaker 5: matter who's sitting behind that desk, right, And so it's
Speaker 5: a matter of aligning your priorities with their priorities and
Speaker 5: finding where you can work on things. And then that
Speaker 5: cooperation is what gives you the leverage to in turn say, actually,
Speaker 5: pebblemind is a red line for us, you know, and
Speaker 5: so it's like you have to pick those those battles strategically.
Speaker 4: Yeah. No, that's that's exactly where we are, where we've
Speaker 4: been for a long time. And you know, there's groups
Speaker 4: out there, not so much in the direct conservation space,
Speaker 4: but there are groups out there that we're just going
Speaker 4: to refuse to work with Trump because he's Trump, and
Speaker 4: they're not going to see any of their priorities go
Speaker 4: anywhere for the next four years and.
Speaker 2: Well potentially eight. I mean I'm not saying with Trump,
Speaker 2: but I mean I if Trump, you know, if.
Speaker 3: True can put some policies in place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that are long last But I was even saying, like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's it's fairly common for an administration
Speaker 2: to continue on under a new you know, under new leadership,
Speaker 2: with the priorities to continue. So you know, it's not
Speaker 2: no one really knows, but you could have, you know, basically,
Speaker 2: you know, presume me as Jade Vance, you'd have like
Speaker 2: basically a Trump three point zero. And if you're going
Speaker 2: to go and cry in the corner because you don't
Speaker 2: want to deal with the right, uh, you might be
Speaker 2: sitting in that corner a very long time right right now.
Speaker 5: And I have I mean I have like memories of
Speaker 5: when I was working at TRCP talking to somebody like
Speaker 5: at a bar not who's not working in conservation space.
Speaker 5: But they're like you, you guys are working with this
Speaker 5: individual or you're sending out a press release with with
Speaker 5: this individual's office, like I thought they were against conservations,
Speaker 5: Like well on this bill, they're in the right space,
Speaker 5: you know. And so it's like you can't close too
Speaker 5: many doors and.
Speaker 2: Still be effective.
Speaker 5: So I don't know, I don't know who I'm talking
Speaker 5: to there, maybe just the yeah no. But I mean
Speaker 5: it's like it's like there's when everything is political, when
Speaker 5: everything's political if you work with somebody on one side,
Speaker 5: like there's a large part of the public that turns
Speaker 5: you into a bad guy. And that's if you want
Speaker 5: to be effective in Washington. That's just not like an option.
Speaker 5: So I don't know all that to say. I respect
Speaker 5: the way that the RCP does well, it puts you
Speaker 5: in an uncomfortable position a lot of times.
Speaker 2: I'll put it like I want to add to what
Speaker 2: you're saying a little bit because the focus is so broad. Yeah,
Speaker 2: when we're talking about conservation, like the focus is huge.
Speaker 2: There's things that live under conservation that you know are
Speaker 2: are sort of like cousins to conservation. But it's a
Speaker 2: huge area. Right. If you're if you're an organization, let's
Speaker 2: just say you're a gun rights organization, there's not going
Speaker 2: to be really any way, Like you're not going to
Speaker 2: go if you're focus singularly on defending Second Amendment rights,
Speaker 2: you're not going to have the conversation with the Biden administration.
Speaker 2: There's kind of like nothing to talk about. You're gonna
Speaker 2: be like just resistance.
Speaker 5: You're gonna be fundraising.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you get you're like fundraising and resistance because you
Speaker 2: have a a small area of focus in conservation, there's
Speaker 2: so many different aspects to it, and servicing American hunters
Speaker 2: and agy, there's so many different aspects to it. You
Speaker 2: need to at any given time be able to be
Speaker 2: push and pull because there's gonna be things within a
Speaker 2: right linging administration that are going to be like easy
Speaker 2: wins for you. You know, access on refuges and it's not
Speaker 2: technically conservation, but it fits into that, it fits into
Speaker 2: the interests of hunters and anglers, right, So you got
Speaker 2: you always got to be ready to there's so many
Speaker 2: issues you've got to be ready to, like pick your
Speaker 2: moment and find the allies where you find them and
Speaker 2: then do like a push poll thing because it's not
Speaker 2: I don't think you can really afford to just burn
Speaker 2: stuff down now. You become irrelevant for too long.
Speaker 4: Right, or you irrelevant for a few years and then
Speaker 4: you're either fundraising or you're just totally irrelevant.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: And but trcp's track record over the last two plus
Speaker 4: decades has been able to get stuff done no matter
Speaker 4: who's in there. And that's something that I'm really proud of.
Speaker 4: It's something that drew me to this Organization's the ability
Speaker 4: to do that and have that kind of influence and
Speaker 4: work on the variety of issues that we do.
Speaker 2: A thing that draws me to TRCP, and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of ways to push conservation, but the thing that
Speaker 2: draws me to the way TRCP handles conservation is you
Speaker 2: guys have this every year, you have a Capital Conservation
Speaker 2: Awards dinner. And it's like, I mean, it's ad mentally
Speaker 2: somewhat symbolic, but intentionally so where it's you guys honor
Speaker 2: someone from each side of the aisle, so you honor
Speaker 2: a Republican, honor Democrat or someone from the typically someone
Speaker 2: from the House, someone from the Senate. I've seen it
Speaker 2: go where it's too Western governors and applaud them on
Speaker 2: where areas where they were able to do conservation wins
Speaker 2: right right, and the areas where they were able to
Speaker 2: do conservation wins is often where they had political cover
Speaker 2: within their party but not looking at it, singling it
Speaker 2: out and applauding it in a bipartisan way. And that
Speaker 2: like I said, it's it's symbolic, it's impactful, but it
Speaker 2: like puts a stake in the ground about how we're
Speaker 2: approaching this and how we're looking at it like we're
Speaker 2: gonna partner with whoever is in power wherever they can
Speaker 2: help us get conservation wins, of which there are many, right.
Speaker 4: You know, well, those awards also give us the chance
Speaker 4: to to show the bipartisanship even by those members, right,
Speaker 4: because those things don't get passed, those things don't get
Speaker 4: done if there's not bipartisanship on that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: We got that coming up again this year April thirtieth.
Speaker 2: I imagine. Yeah, I'll be there, and I.
Speaker 4: Hope you will since you're gonna mce.
Speaker 2: It, I see it, So you'll you'll be spend a
Speaker 2: lot of time in your future having cups of coffee,
Speaker 2: getting getting introduced to people.
Speaker 4: There's been a lot of that already, and I think
Speaker 4: that's gonna be a lot of this first year.
Speaker 2: A lot of new faces around town.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there is. You know, we've focused a lot on
Speaker 4: the administration, but there's big changes in Congress too, a
Speaker 4: lot of new members there. But you know, I think
Speaker 4: about the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, where we
Speaker 4: had Mansion and Brosso that have led that for a
Speaker 4: long time, and we've got a new leader and a
Speaker 4: new chair and a new minority leader in there, and
Speaker 4: a lot of staff turnover that we've worked with for
Speaker 4: a long time, and so myself and the rest of
Speaker 4: the team have a lot of work to do just
Speaker 4: to get to know the new players in Congress as
Speaker 4: well as in the administration.
Speaker 2: Have they offered a buy out to Congressman, We'll pay
Speaker 2: you through September. I wonder if I wanted to take
Speaker 2: it if they did, let's talk about let's talk about
Speaker 2: So we have the annual awards dinner coming up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but that's not you can't, like Joe blow off the
Speaker 2: Street can't come in right.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, they can really, Yeah, explain that. Yeah. So you know,
Speaker 4: this is largely driven by our sponsors and our partners
Speaker 4: that we invite. We'll get a number of members ariss,
Speaker 4: a lot of staffers will come to that event because
Speaker 4: it is an opportunity to celebrate our conservation achievements as
Speaker 4: you highlighted, and we'll recognize a Democrat and a Republican
Speaker 4: from Congress. We also typically recognize someone from the outside world,
Speaker 4: communications or supporting. I think last year's award winner might
Speaker 4: be sitting next to me here.
Speaker 3: Two years ago I was I stepped in an m seed.
Speaker 4: You got recognized at one point too, did you not.
Speaker 5: I don't think you got the big award. You did
Speaker 5: the Yeah, it's like people from the private sector and
Speaker 5: give yourself an award.
Speaker 4: Colt, No, you missed your opportunity, man, man.
Speaker 3: I got a lot of stories like that. Brandon Newberg
Speaker 3: got the Communicators Award, Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I got
Speaker 3: to make fun of them a little bit on stage,
Speaker 3: which was always fun.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So so we use it for that and a
Speaker 4: lot of our corporate sponsors come and so lebrate the night,
Speaker 4: as well as our partners on the conservation side. But
Speaker 4: we do have individual tickets for people that want to
Speaker 4: come and be part of this and help to celebrate.
Speaker 4: Www dot TRCP dot org slash C eight twenty twenty
Speaker 4: five is where you can buy the find those tickets
Speaker 4: and as we get closer to the event towards the
Speaker 4: end of March, our auction items. We do an online
Speaker 4: auction related to this and that's available to everybody, whether
Speaker 4: you're there or not, and the auction items will be
Speaker 4: on that same website as well is our dinner.
Speaker 2: I got a little loss because we're doing two things.
Speaker 2: We're doing a wild game dinner that'll be auctioned, correct,
Speaker 2: and that will be part of that auction. Yes, I
Speaker 2: know we debated this, but I can't remember where we landed.
Speaker 4: That will be part of the auction.
Speaker 2: So you'll be able to come to our headquarters here.
Speaker 2: We just remodeled our remodeled kitchen. We finished, We built
Speaker 2: it and then immediately tore it apart and read did it?
Speaker 2: That kitchen will be ready, and it's a dinner. I came.
Speaker 2: Do we say four or eight? It was a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're auctioning off at dinner for eight at me Eater headquarters.
Speaker 2: And it'll be Randa will be there. He doesn't even know.
Speaker 3: I I hope.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna say cal will be there. He doesn't know.
Speaker 2: I'll be there for damn sure. And we're gonna do
Speaker 2: a big, a big many course dinner in that kitchen.
Speaker 3: You're a you're adopting Trump speak already.
Speaker 2: The biggest day.
Speaker 3: It'll be a big many many.
Speaker 2: The biggest best dinner.
Speaker 4: I heard.
Speaker 2: It was the best dinner ever. People are saying a lot.
Speaker 3: Of people are saying, love to help with the dinner
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 2: Uh having a big dinner and we're gonna auction that
Speaker 2: off and then we have our like seventh annual or
Speaker 2: so many time annual Hunt sweep Steaks. It used to
Speaker 2: be an Elk Hunt sweep steaks and then we turned
Speaker 2: it into a Turkey Hunt sweep steaks where a winner
Speaker 2: and a guest have all their expenses paid. So we
Speaker 2: cover everything, airfare, lodging, We've even provided shotguns, shotgun, Ammo, camo,
Speaker 2: we clean your turkeys for you. All everything taken care of,
Speaker 2: and that we're going to do that.
Speaker 4: We're gonna do it later in the summer.
Speaker 2: Later in summer.
Speaker 4: One of the things that the team identified is that trying
Speaker 4: to promote the sweepstakes while promoting the dinner and all
Speaker 4: of the auctions kind of got lost. So we're going
Speaker 4: to separate it a little bit. I think we're talking
Speaker 4: about promoting that during June and.
Speaker 2: July and that that Turkey Hunt sweepstakes that's a raffle
Speaker 2: and that was interesting to find out years ago we
Speaker 2: did it. The first couple of times we did it,
Speaker 2: we did it as an auction, and then when we
Speaker 2: moved it to a raffle, it made a lot more
Speaker 2: money as a raffle. And then we just had a
Speaker 2: guests on who explained all the ways in which that
Speaker 2: does not hold true when you're trying to distribute big
Speaker 2: o'horn sheep tags. Raffles can't touch an auction. But in
Speaker 2: the case of.
Speaker 3: Our hunts going to turkey counting with.
Speaker 4: Steve and the same allure as a big yeah.
Speaker 2: In the case of going turkey hunting on a on
Speaker 2: a on an all expense paid turkey hunt, raffles are
Speaker 2: way better. So we'll do the raffle. We'll do the
Speaker 2: raffle in the summertime for the turkey hunt. And we're
Speaker 2: going to auction to the highest bidder dinner for eight
Speaker 2: at our headquarters here, and it'll be a many coarse
Speaker 2: wild game dinner and we'll pair it with drinks.
Speaker 4: Sounds like it'll be a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2: Paired with drinks. We'll be there. Travis Barton at Barton
Speaker 2: Fabrication is as we speak, making the table that you
Speaker 2: will sit at wow while eating the dinner, and you'll
Speaker 2: look at this steel bar dividing these two large wooden
Speaker 2: slabs and you'll think that it was an esthetic consideration
Speaker 2: and you won't know that it had to do with
Speaker 2: the wood slabs not being big enough.
Speaker 3: An awesome touch.
Speaker 4: Touch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's steel running down the middle of not Travis's fault.
Speaker 2: Not Travis's fault. So we got that. Thanks for coming on. Man,
Speaker 2: appreciate you An you want to wedge in there.
Speaker 4: Man, We've covered a lot of ground, I really think.
Speaker 2: So I appreciate. Uh, I just want to clothes to say.
Speaker 2: And I appreciate that you're in a real like like
Speaker 2: you're in a you're in a spot right now, you're
Speaker 2: in you're in a you're coming into a new role
Speaker 2: for an organizations that have been homing along for a
Speaker 2: long time, and then getting your feet under you on
Speaker 2: that and then at the same time dealing with a
Speaker 2: as the Free Press puts it, a major vibe shift
Speaker 2: in DC. The vibe is just different there right now,
Speaker 2: and it's like, uh, that's got to be a daunting thing.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, for sure, just get getting getting your feet under
Speaker 6: you at a new org and then and then getting
Speaker 6: your feet under you with with the new administration and
Speaker 6: is a very fast moving group of people.
Speaker 2: So I appreciate you taking your time to come talk
Speaker 2: to us absolutely all that's going on. And I asked
Speaker 2: people to you know, I did an interview yesterday and
Speaker 2: and with the one of the podcasts by the Navy
Speaker 2: Seals Foundation, and he was just saying, if you could
Speaker 2: change one thing about hunting, what would you change? And
Speaker 2: I said, it's a great question, and I thought about it,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't really think of a good one, and
Speaker 2: I said, I guess it would be that a greater
Speaker 2: percentage of the people who like and un like to
Speaker 2: hunt and fish increase their involvement and increase their involvement
Speaker 2: and conservation, increase their involvement and conversations about funding for
Speaker 2: and just demonstrated greater awareness about the issues at stake
Speaker 2: and how to be impactful. And you can do it
Speaker 2: at a broad scale like at the federal level, like
Speaker 2: the conversations we've been having here today with TRCP, or
Speaker 2: you can do it small scale, local about animals and
Speaker 2: fish that you like that live in places where you
Speaker 2: love to hang out, as represented by the huge partnership
Speaker 2: the TRCP has with a lot of organizations that are
Speaker 2: more singularly focused on specific issues surrounding specific animals. You
Speaker 2: can take your pick. You can find the kind of
Speaker 2: thing that fits with how you view the world, and
Speaker 2: when consider that, consider TRCP and know that they have
Speaker 2: their work cut out for them in the coming years,
Speaker 2: and trying to make sure that conservation stays front and
Speaker 2: centered in the minds of the lawmakers in DC.
Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I appreciate that, Steve, and I think that's
Speaker 4: a good point.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I think about all the partners we have, and there's
Speaker 4: great partners that are getting the work out there on
Speaker 4: the ground. It's a very tangible to see what they're doing.
Speaker 4: One of the challenges I think TARRCP has always had
Speaker 4: is that we work largely behind the scenes. We're up
Speaker 4: there on Capitol Hill every day and we are facilitating
Speaker 4: the funding, the rule making, the legislating that's happening. We're
Speaker 4: working side by side with our partner groups. I don't
Speaker 4: want to discount the work that they're doing, but those groups,
Speaker 4: they're doing the advocacy on the hill, and they're doing
Speaker 4: the implementation, and they're putting on all of the local banquets.
Speaker 4: So they're doing all those things. We're just looking at
Speaker 4: the policy side of this, and so fundraising is very
Speaker 4: important to us and they help to do that. And
Speaker 4: we're an organization where as we've talked for the last
Speaker 4: couple of hours, we're nonpartisan We're in there all the time,
Speaker 4: every year, working on both sides of the aisle to
Speaker 4: get done what's important to the sportsmen that are out there.
Speaker 2: And for eighty you special listeners out there. We're getting
Speaker 2: dinner going now. You just got to win the auction
Speaker 2: and we'll do something we've never done before. Well, I'll
Speaker 2: take requests mm hmm. You can send in like it'll
Speaker 2: be round rough. You can give me rough.
Speaker 3: You're like, Nope, don't have that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I've always wanted to try, you know, elephant,
Speaker 2: and I'll be like, eah, you had you ever had possible?
Speaker 2: All right, thanks man, appreciate it. Keep