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Speaker 1: T E dot com. All right, everybody, we got a
Speaker 1: very special guest today who I'll announce in one minute.
Speaker 2: But uh, first off, oh did you just move that around? Krinn? No, cren,
Speaker 2: it moved around.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: The Christmas tour we staw our Christmas tour going Fayetteville,
Speaker 1: Arkansas has sold out, but uh here's run through December seventeenth.
Speaker 1: Will be in Birmingham, Alabama. As the lyric, So this
Speaker 1: is the meat Eater. Meat Eater Live. The Christmas Tour
Speaker 1: December eighteen, Nashville Marathon Music Works, December nineteen, Memphis, Minglewood Hall.
Speaker 1: The twentieth is Fayetteville, but those are gone. They've been
Speaker 1: gone for a few days. Twenty one Dallas, Texas Theater,
Speaker 1: So Texas Theater in Dallas, twenty second Austin, Texas at
Speaker 1: the Paramount. What's more, if you're listening on Monday for
Speaker 1: the Monday Drop. On Tuesday, we're having a special drop
Speaker 1: with a longtime associate, Ronnie Bame, who's going to tell
Speaker 1: a dog story that'll warm your little heart.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Joined today by Congressman Ryan Zinky. Ryan Zink is a
Speaker 1: fifth generation Montana serves as representative for Montana's first congressional district,
Speaker 1: so it covered sixteen counties. If you live in Bozeman, Butte, Missoula,
Speaker 1: callspell here in Montana, that's your man. Zinki was first
Speaker 1: elected to Congress back in twenty fourteen. He served as
Speaker 1: US Secretary of the Interior under the first Trump administration.
Speaker 1: Is now serving his fourth term in Congress. UH First off,
Speaker 1: Congressman Zink, I want to thank you.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: I haven't thanked you in person. I want to thank
Speaker 1: you again for your leadership during the recent public land
Speaker 1: sales efforts, for articulating the side of it that I
Speaker 1: stand on very well and the.
Speaker 3: Value of our public lands, the reason why we live
Speaker 3: out West, the reason why Teddy Rooseveld is revered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well, thank you because I know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I recognize it, like you know that that
Speaker 1: stuff has to come at some kind of costs.
Speaker 2: And but you come from a state where that stuff's
Speaker 2: cherished and uh.
Speaker 1: And you were very vocal up front, yeah, and laid
Speaker 1: out what you're laid out what you're at expectations, were
Speaker 1: laid out what your line was and held firm to it.
Speaker 2: And I think we.
Speaker 1: Had, you know, that land where I wanted to see
Speaker 1: it land, and my all my colleagues and friends wanted
Speaker 1: to see it land.
Speaker 2: And I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Well, the fight for freedom is not over, and I
Speaker 3: don't think the land battles over either.
Speaker 2: No. Yeh.
Speaker 3: Look, you know I grew up Montana. You know the
Speaker 3: reason why a lot of us live out West. And
Speaker 3: you know, I think it should be recognized too that
Speaker 3: we live out in West from a legacy of the
Speaker 3: great ones. You know, he had Roosevelt, you had Pinchot,
Speaker 3: you had mirror a lot of our our great thinkers
Speaker 3: in the conservation movement. We're blessed to live in an
Speaker 3: environment we have public lands, and you know the extent
Speaker 3: of our public lands. Uh. You know, I'm a big
Speaker 3: management and Teddy Roosevelt guy, with a pin show. Look
Speaker 3: on public lands, it's best used, best science, best practices,
Speaker 3: longest term, greatest good. That's the model you use. And
Speaker 3: you know, during this last dust up, there's a movement
Speaker 3: by a few that want to divest of America's greatest asset,
Speaker 3: which is our public lands, and the divesting of it
Speaker 3: once you sell it, you're not going to get back.
Speaker 3: But there's also a process. When I was Secretary, I added,
Speaker 3: I subtracted, I exchanged public lands. There's a process to it.
Speaker 3: I added Semnoso Wilderness in New Mexico. I added a
Speaker 3: number of parcels that were LWCF that provided either public
Speaker 3: access or corridors. I also subtracted around Las Vegas. There's
Speaker 3: an acronym called Snipplema terrible acronym, but allows areas around
Speaker 3: Las Vegas when the county and there's a whole procedure
Speaker 3: looking at it to divest in sections, and look, there's
Speaker 3: sections the highest and best use of land you know,
Speaker 3: probably should be looked at. I'll give you an example
Speaker 3: in Montana. There's thirty acres a U. S. Forest Service
Speaker 3: property near Lima or Lima and you know, Lineless, a
Speaker 3: little small little town, but it's right next to the school.
Speaker 3: At one time, I think the Forest Service is going
Speaker 3: to put a headquarters in there. They decided not to.
Speaker 3: It's not used for recreation, it's not used for habitat,
Speaker 3: it's just thirty acres. I think the highest and best
Speaker 3: use of that piece of property should be looked at
Speaker 3: of transferring to the school. I did the same thing
Speaker 3: on an airport that needed a little more runway. I
Speaker 3: did it on a school that needed some extra yardage.
Speaker 3: But you know there's a process to it. And let
Speaker 3: me take you a little journey. Because you know, most
Speaker 3: of the land in West was previously occupied by you know,
Speaker 3: a native tribe, and because a lot of that land
Speaker 3: is public land, is that they are given the right
Speaker 3: for cultural activities, for movement, for access to a lot
Speaker 3: of our public lands. When you take that out of
Speaker 3: the public domain and put it in private on those tribes,
Speaker 3: if it's a treaty, which many of the tribes are
Speaker 3: a treaty tribe, they would lose that right. And by
Speaker 3: law you have to consult. And then let's talk about
Speaker 3: water rights, because in the West whiskeys for drinking waters,
Speaker 3: for fighting, and when you divest of property, do you
Speaker 3: also divest the of the underwater, right do you divest
Speaker 3: also of the mineral rights in there? And if you're
Speaker 3: going to divest the mineral rights, you have to look
Speaker 3: at what minerals are there, what's the scope of the
Speaker 3: value so highest and best use. But also the government,
Speaker 3: you know, it doesn't give something away for free. And
Speaker 3: and also there's things like the Taylor Grazing Act. A
Speaker 3: lot of the BLM land on grazing is there at
Speaker 3: a discount because the Taylor Grazing Act make sure that
Speaker 3: the number of cattle on public land is controlled so
Speaker 3: it doesn't overgraze. And also so we had a secure
Speaker 3: food production in this country. So when you're talking about
Speaker 3: divesting a public land, there's a whole process to it
Speaker 3: to include public comment. You know, just because public land
Speaker 3: is in New Mexico or Utah or Montana, it belongs
Speaker 3: to all citizens and therefore all citizens of the US
Speaker 3: should have a comment, you know, on it and be
Speaker 3: involved in it. So the whole process. What I didn't
Speaker 3: like about about a number of things was this last
Speaker 3: assault I think on public lands, and there was no
Speaker 3: process to it. It didn't have consultation and a fire
Speaker 3: sale on public land. If it's for a debt, you're
Speaker 3: not even on the target. You could sell everything, it's
Speaker 3: not going to reach thirty six truellion dollars.
Speaker 2: I saw that.
Speaker 1: I saw that expressed in various ways, and I expressed
Speaker 1: it in various ways where the actual money into the treasury,
Speaker 1: it almost winds up being inconsequential.
Speaker 3: And there's a million acre ranch in Nevada. I think
Speaker 3: they want twenty three million dollars for it, all right,
Speaker 3: And it has water and it has buildings, you know,
Speaker 3: it's a ranch. And then if you're talking about housing, okay,
Speaker 3: housing is tens of acres. It's called an apartment complex.
Speaker 3: It's not hundreds of thousands of acres. And it's not
Speaker 3: you know, when they say family housing, it's not ranchets.
Speaker 3: It's not luxury ranchets. So you know, I think we
Speaker 3: are fortunate to live in a great country, and we're
Speaker 3: fortunate to have the outdoor experience we do, largely driven
Speaker 3: by public lands and access. Do we need to manage
Speaker 3: it better? Absolutely? Should we deem it acceptable for a
Speaker 3: force to burn down you know every season. And look,
Speaker 3: if you're a climate change believer or denier, it doesn't
Speaker 3: leave you. We leave you the responsibility of managing our
Speaker 3: public lands. Get rid of the dead and dying timber.
Speaker 3: Put in fire brakes where where they're necessary, make sure
Speaker 3: you have diversity of species. Prescribe burns on the shoulder
Speaker 3: seasons rather right in the middle on when it gets hot.
Speaker 3: So I think you know, you look at where it
Speaker 3: is on appalling. You know, I'd love to share it
Speaker 3: with you and the viewers. Is that on the Democrat
Speaker 3: side of the equation, I think it's ninety eight percent
Speaker 3: of the Democrats oppose selling the land on independence, you're
Speaker 3: in the high eighties eighty nine. On the Republican side,
Speaker 3: only ten percent want to sell public land. The other
Speaker 3: don't that don't know about it. When you say public
Speaker 3: land sales, is it? Is it thirty acres in in
Speaker 3: Lima or is it you know, three million acres around
Speaker 3: Glacier Park? So you know it is for the Republican Party.
Speaker 3: I can tell you it would be an extinction event
Speaker 3: because I could write the advertisement you're giving tax bricks
Speaker 3: the rich while you're selling public land, you know, and it
Speaker 3: would be true. So stop it. That's focus on managing
Speaker 3: public land. And if you look at a parcel of
Speaker 3: land that highest and best use. There's a process to it.
Speaker 3: So go through the process, go through public comment, you know,
Speaker 3: make sure we're not diminishing our federal estate from a
Speaker 3: point of view of public access for hunting, fishing, all
Speaker 3: those kind of things. Oftentimes exchanges, you know work work magnificently,
Speaker 3: or some land may be in a position where you
Speaker 3: don't have public access to it all. All four corners
Speaker 3: are are are surrounded, and it may be a better
Speaker 3: deal for the public to exchange it for someplace that's
Speaker 3: next to a river or access somewhere where you can
Speaker 3: enjoy the bounty of this great nation.
Speaker 1: Do you mind, just by way of introduction to people
Speaker 1: that might not follow politics closely, do you do you
Speaker 1: mind walking through a little bit of your background. Your
Speaker 1: family's been in Montana for a very long time, you know,
Speaker 1: and then you had a pretty storied uh you know,
Speaker 1: you had a storied military career and were involved in
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Yeah, involved in a lot of
Speaker 1: things that a lot of people heard a lot of things
Speaker 1: about over the last twenty years.
Speaker 3: Well, I grew up in Whitefish. When Whitefish, Montana now
Speaker 3: a destination, but when I grew up It was a
Speaker 3: railroad logging town, you know, smaller town, about five thousand folks.
Speaker 3: Over a period of time that expanded into a destination.
Speaker 3: I played football. You went to the University of Oregon.
Speaker 3: I was a duck, played played ball with it for
Speaker 3: the Ducks. But in all honesty, i'd played before Phil
Speaker 3: Knight wrote the check for five hundred million. So I
Speaker 3: played with Daffy Duck on the side of my helmet
Speaker 3: when I went walked in the stadium. It wasn't this
Speaker 3: big fear. Oh, it was a It was a Daffy
Speaker 3: Duck call. And then I joined in the Navy Seals,
Speaker 3: spent twenty three years. I was commander at Seal Team six.
Speaker 1: Tell me real quick the inflection point, like, why did
Speaker 1: you join the military.
Speaker 3: Well, to be honest with you, my folks are are
Speaker 3: not military. Our family in World War One, some of
Speaker 3: them fought on the German side, some of them fought
Speaker 3: on our side. But it was when I was at Oregon.
Speaker 3: It was a great alumni. Admiral Dick he commanded the
Speaker 3: Enterprise during Vietnam War, and he talked to me about
Speaker 3: about service, and he talked to me about the United
Speaker 3: States Navy seals, which he was a pilot, and he
Speaker 3: didn't lie to me like recruiters don't lie, they may
Speaker 3: not express the entire truth. Yeah, I remember his words distinctly, said,
Speaker 3: you know, if you don't like it, you can leave
Speaker 3: at any time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember that like a cycle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as I was in Bud's training getting tortured in
Speaker 3: the surf zone and going, you know what, Yeah, he's right,
Speaker 3: you could quit any time. He wasn't lying. Uh, but
Speaker 3: the seal training is you know, obviously very hard for
Speaker 3: for a reason. And then uh, I enjoyed, uh, being
Speaker 3: being a CeAl. I enjoyed being a commander. It's just that,
Speaker 3: you know, the more senior become, the less and less
Speaker 3: time you're actually in the field and the more time
Speaker 3: you're flying what's called a D four was a desk
Speaker 3: with four drawers. And it came to the point where,
Speaker 3: you know, I was a deputy commander of Special Forces
Speaker 3: in Iraq. My destiny was not to go back into command,
Speaker 3: but uh, you know, to do the staff and and
Speaker 3: there's a god bless those people that want to do it.
Speaker 3: So I retired, and I hadn't decided to retire. Was
Speaker 3: a state senator in Montana. And then I got this
Speaker 3: wacky idea to run for Congress and uh and was
Speaker 3: elected uh and then served a term, you know, learned
Speaker 3: a lot. And then President Trump and forty five asked
Speaker 3: me to be secretary. I enjoyed that, did that for
Speaker 3: a command tour for two years, and then took a
Speaker 3: wonderful absence away from Washington, d C. And then decided,
Speaker 3: because we got another another seat in Montana, to come back,
Speaker 3: go back to the front line on the fight for freedom.
Speaker 3: And and that's where I am. I enjoy you know,
Speaker 3: representing Montana. Montana has you know, a lot of opportunity,
Speaker 3: really really good people. Well I has some issues, oh
Speaker 3: like like every every state. But I'm an optimist. I
Speaker 3: haven't seen anything that's not fixable. But there are some
Speaker 3: threats out there. And we talked a little about public Land.
Speaker 3: I don't think that threat is doused. I don't think
Speaker 3: that campfire is doust I think I think it has
Speaker 3: a chance of coming back. So we have to make
Speaker 3: sure that we do our part to make sure that
Speaker 3: that it doesn't come back, and if it does, it
Speaker 3: remains unsuccessful. And in Davy Jones Box where alongs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're you want to tell people about the
Speaker 2: Public Lands Caucus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's bipartisan. Uh, we have twenty members, ten
Speaker 3: on on on each side.
Speaker 2: Is that normal for a caucus to be?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say normal because I know there's some that
Speaker 1: are both. But is it is it?
Speaker 2: Is it caucus? Is it preferential to be bipartisan? There
Speaker 2: are both?
Speaker 3: There are both, uh, partisan and non partisan. This is
Speaker 3: a non partisan caucus because you know, again, public lands
Speaker 3: isn't the Republican or Democrat or independent issues. It's a red,
Speaker 3: white and blue issue. We all enjoy it. But I
Speaker 3: think it's important to have both sides of the aisle.
Speaker 3: And it's not just about selling public land. It's about
Speaker 3: management issues. We have wildlife corridors that we have to
Speaker 3: look at and evaluate to make sure we protect. We
Speaker 3: have systems, we have watersheds. You know, what happens upstream
Speaker 3: affects downstream and in a system approach to make sure
Speaker 3: we have healthy systems our environment. And you know we
Speaker 3: live in a hyper Parisian world. You know. As a seal,
Speaker 3: I fought with Americans for Americans. I don't want to
Speaker 3: fight against Americans. I think it's repulsive that there's so
Speaker 3: much anger out there that you can't have a normal conversation. Look,
Speaker 3: we should be able to agree or disagree, but it's
Speaker 3: not be disagreeable and kind.
Speaker 2: Of quote yourself back to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I saw you speak a couple times in DC this
Speaker 1: year where you were honored by Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership,
Speaker 1: where I'm a board member, and you had two things
Speaker 1: you'd said.
Speaker 2: I told Crane abottom one you gave when you came
Speaker 2: to speak to us as a group.
Speaker 1: You talked about this was before it got hot, but
Speaker 1: you said we need to turn the heat down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and things got hotter since then.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing you said is you were
Speaker 1: talking about you said if you were talking about public lands,
Speaker 1: the public estate, and you had said, hey, if you
Speaker 1: have a hotel and it's not being managed, well, do
Speaker 1: you sell the motel or do you change the management?
Speaker 3: Exactly it is, you know, a great point, my great
Speaker 3: friends from Utah. I understand the frustration about getting a
Speaker 3: ticket on a county road. I understand the frustration of
Speaker 3: being locked out of public land of access. I understand
Speaker 3: the frustration of watching the forest burn down every year,
Speaker 3: and we burned more too, by fours last year we
Speaker 3: ever harvested. So I understand the frustration about mismanagement. But
Speaker 3: the solution, again using the hotel analogy, is not sell
Speaker 3: the hotel. Let's get better management. And better management is
Speaker 3: going back to what best science, best practices, greatest good,
Speaker 3: longest term. That's the conservation American conservation ethic that that
Speaker 3: Pinchot and Roosevelt and a lot of a lot of
Speaker 3: superb scientists over the course of time have adhered to.
Speaker 3: And I think we owe it to those that gave
Speaker 3: us the legacy to continue that process. And you know,
Speaker 3: kind of going back to the hyper partisan you know,
Speaker 3: how do you break through, Well, you find something we
Speaker 3: both agree on, right, and then you talk about it,
Speaker 3: and then you have a working relationship. Because Congress is
Speaker 3: a working relationship. It's four hundred and thirty five different
Speaker 3: members from different different parts, but you got to work
Speaker 3: together in order to get things done. So you work together,
Speaker 3: and then if you find something that's easy to work
Speaker 3: with together, maybe the next step is finding something a
Speaker 3: little more difficult. So then it's relationships. But public land
Speaker 3: should be a rallying call for Americans because Americans revere
Speaker 3: our public lands, and where the debate is is sometimes
Speaker 3: how best to manage it? And I sit in the
Speaker 3: in the corner of the conservationists. That's multiple use. If
Speaker 3: kind of my background is a boy scout when you
Speaker 3: when you have a campground, leave the campground and is
Speaker 3: good or better condition you find it so you can mine.
Speaker 3: But we're not gonna mine like Butte. We're not gonna
Speaker 3: mine like Virginia Beach or Virginia City. You know, you
Speaker 3: bring a paddle board up up the river and destroy
Speaker 3: the river. If we're gonna minelet's do it correctly. There's
Speaker 3: new mind techniques and we need to mind. There's there's
Speaker 3: critical minerals rarer some Montana that are are wonderful that
Speaker 3: we need. But let's do it right. Let's go through
Speaker 3: the process. It's not skip steps, but let's go through
Speaker 3: the process and then make sure we have a reclamation
Speaker 3: plan that works. And I think all of us would
Speaker 3: would would get along a lot better if we looked
Speaker 3: at you know, multiple use and management side of it.
Speaker 3: And I do agree that you know, wilderness is set
Speaker 3: aside because wilderness those areas with the lightest touch. But
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean no touch. I'll give you example in
Speaker 3: Hawaii when it was secretary, when the Hawaiian volcano on
Speaker 3: the Big Island was was blowing up a lot of
Speaker 3: that cauldra is actually in proposed wilderness. And if you
Speaker 3: by the letter of the law, the superintendent down there
Speaker 3: would not allow me as a secretary to put scientific
Speaker 3: instrumentation on the type of that on the side of
Speaker 3: that cauldron because there was in a proposed wilderness. Now
Speaker 3: I had to take a visit out there, uh and
Speaker 3: and relook at that. But let's say in our wilderness
Speaker 3: in Montana and the Bob Marshall. So what if you
Speaker 3: have an appearance of zebra muscles and the and the
Speaker 3: and the upper South Fork. Well, you know, I think
Speaker 3: when zebra muscles, I think you should use scientific instrumentation
Speaker 3: out there. And I think it's okay to put a
Speaker 3: wheel in in order to eradicate and eliminate the threat
Speaker 3: early enough. We have pine beetle the devastation across. So
Speaker 3: you can use management techniques. You know, if you if
Speaker 3: you don't like the sound of a chainsaw, clear and trail,
Speaker 3: then maybe a couple of times a year you got
Speaker 3: to be able to use electric chainsaws and clear the
Speaker 3: trail so people have access.
Speaker 1: We had a fisheries biologist on the show one time. Well,
Speaker 1: let me let me real quick, just catch people up
Speaker 1: on a point here. What we're talking about is about
Speaker 1: two percent of the country is federally designated wilderness, and
Speaker 1: it sort of enjoys what I feel is the for
Speaker 1: my personal opinion, and enjoys kind of like the perfect
Speaker 1: layer of protection where it's non motorized but you can
Speaker 1: still hunt it, right, and that picture like a park
Speaker 1: where you can hunt.
Speaker 2: Well, it's great.
Speaker 3: And the Wilderness Act was a great compromise between conservationists
Speaker 3: between cattlemen. Uh and, And that's why you can hunt
Speaker 3: on wilderness. That's why you can they can graze in
Speaker 3: the fish camp yep. Uh And and you're you're limited
Speaker 3: to what you can do mechanically. You know, you can't
Speaker 3: bring a week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the fisheries biologist thing is they were
Speaker 1: they were working I think it was in the heat
Speaker 1: of wilderness area and they have these strains of cutthroat
Speaker 1: trout that's fairly imperiled fish and fires yep will destroy
Speaker 1: whole rivers. And he was talking about when they were
Speaker 1: trying to get fish stock samples, couldn't use helicopters, and
Speaker 1: he wound up.
Speaker 2: They wound up. I think they thought.
Speaker 1: About it a little bit, but in the end he
Speaker 1: wound up taking packstock and trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: to move fish with packstocks because he couldn't beget a
Speaker 1: helicopter in there, you know.
Speaker 3: And then and then you got in New Mexico. You
Speaker 3: got a lot of areas where where a guzzlers is required,
Speaker 3: which means that there's not a lot of water out there.
Speaker 3: So there's guzzlers out there that allow sheep to have
Speaker 3: access to water. So and in order to make sure
Speaker 3: that those guzzlers have water in them, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't have a problem take you to truck and occasionally
Speaker 3: feeding the guzzlers. So you have wildlife out there.
Speaker 2: But oh no, well.
Speaker 3: You got you got to put it in a backpack,
Speaker 3: you know, one gallon at a time, and it stopped. Guys.
Speaker 2: The point is the argument is it's a slippery slope.
Speaker 2: That's a slip.
Speaker 3: Well, you know what, but a lot of things are
Speaker 3: a slippy slope. But you know, it's about management. It's
Speaker 3: about effective management, and and and have some degree of
Speaker 3: common sense to things. Uh, you know, in willness, I
Speaker 3: get the lightest, lightest touch because you want to look
Speaker 3: at the majesty of nature. But but nature can be
Speaker 3: pretty tough too. So if you have ravaging forest fires
Speaker 3: and it burns down every tree uh in the watershed,
Speaker 3: and it puts so much sediment and and silt in
Speaker 3: the in the watershed that the fish will die, you know,
Speaker 3: especially if you have you know, a species in trouble,
Speaker 3: which we do in Montana. You know, what's the purpose?
Speaker 3: So do you did you prevent uh? You know damage? No?
Speaker 3: What you did? Is you you allow? How did it happen?
Speaker 3: So you can you can't do management practices. It's a
Speaker 3: scale of how much and no one, no one's advocating
Speaker 3: you know, timber sales in wilderness. But certainly if you
Speaker 3: have a disease, if you have in the case of
Speaker 3: bill kill or or disease with aquatic invasive species, then
Speaker 3: and then I think you do need to be a
Speaker 3: judgment to get on it quickly and to make sure
Speaker 3: it make sure it doesn't spread.
Speaker 2: Here's here's large Y.
Speaker 1: I'm not large y A big part of why I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you, and I'm curious how you
Speaker 1: think about things. Is my personal tendency is to be
Speaker 1: something of an absolutist on wilderness protections. I have friends
Speaker 1: that are very involved in policy, very involved in the
Speaker 1: conservation world, and sometimes they'll make this argument and you
Speaker 1: made it too, that.
Speaker 2: We can't always just.
Speaker 1: There has to be some compromise in order to turn
Speaker 1: the heat down a little bit.
Speaker 2: And that was some of what you were talking about.
Speaker 1: Where there are people like people that advocate for public land,
Speaker 1: massive public land sell offs, have sets of.
Speaker 2: Frustrations, right absolutely, and.
Speaker 1: So like I'm open to at least I'd like to
Speaker 1: hear articulations of ways in which some of those frustrations
Speaker 1: can be addressed where we maintain the integrity of what
Speaker 1: we're trying to protect. And then therefore, as you said,
Speaker 1: turn down the heat a little bit by having an
Speaker 1: open ear and being like okay.
Speaker 3: And this is exactly what the Public Lands Caucus is
Speaker 3: intended to do, to turn the heat down and discuss,
Speaker 3: you know, areas where we can agree.
Speaker 2: And it seems like fire is a big one, well, fire.
Speaker 3: Wildlife corridors management, I think fishing people, you know, Democrats
Speaker 3: and Republicans and independence we all hunt. We want to
Speaker 3: make sure our herds are healthy. All right, if you
Speaker 3: have you know, whether you know, pick a disease, blue
Speaker 3: tongue or or chronic waste disease. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: things in there and that's not natural. Is it natural?
Speaker 3: Or are we going to just let it, you know,
Speaker 3: let it, let it go to the end, or are
Speaker 3: we going to intervene? And this is where discussion should
Speaker 3: should be made. And also the Wilderness Act, well was
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty four. That was a product of compromise. Well,
Speaker 3: so is our constitution. And in nineteen sixty four America
Speaker 3: was a little different. Back in nineteen sixty four, we're
Speaker 3: sitting in boze in Montana. I can show you pictures
Speaker 3: from nineteen sixty four. I was born here in sixty one.
Speaker 3: Bozeman has changed since then, and sometimes you got to
Speaker 3: upgrade the plan in order to protect your assets because
Speaker 3: things have changed. What's changed in Montana during my lifetime
Speaker 3: is that when I grew up, there was never a
Speaker 3: problem with public access because there was was any fenses there,
Speaker 3: you know there there there was less people out you know,
Speaker 3: in the woods, you know, you know, people just most
Speaker 3: people lived in town or but there was never a
Speaker 3: problem with public access or hunting, and now there are.
Speaker 3: There's a lot more fences set up. Public access is
Speaker 3: harder to find corners, you know, that's that's a big discussion.
Speaker 3: It wasn't in corners when I grew up because no
Speaker 3: one was there. Now the discussion, so, you know, looking
Speaker 3: at it, upgrading the plan, so you know what's important.
Speaker 3: Public access is important. System health is important, not just
Speaker 3: a segment of the river, but the river itself, not
Speaker 3: just a segment of the forest, but the health of
Speaker 3: the forest and the systems and wildlife corridors and flyways
Speaker 3: to make sure the systems operate. And that takes again
Speaker 3: going back to best science, best practices. You know, what's
Speaker 3: the greatest good, what's the longest term? You know, how
Speaker 3: to manage assets for the next one hundred years. And
Speaker 3: you know, we talked about a little about our you know,
Speaker 3: the legacy we were given, and I think the biggest
Speaker 3: challenge is how do we manage it for the next
Speaker 3: centerd years give them the change that's happened since Roosevelt
Speaker 3: was president and over one hundred years ago, he faced
Speaker 3: different challenges of what we face today. We do face
Speaker 3: rural interface, forest fires, you know, diseases, invasive species. There's
Speaker 3: a lot more on the plate about challenges, and not
Speaker 3: all of them are impossible, but I think we do
Speaker 3: got to look at innovative ways and maybe maybe find,
Speaker 3: you know, how to protect what I think are our
Speaker 3: greatest treasures. You know, how are we going to protect
Speaker 3: the herds? Because if you don't protect you know, wildlife corridors,
Speaker 3: because you know, large game they transit between summer range
Speaker 3: and winter range and if that is blocked by sets
Speaker 3: offenses or highways or development, and then they lose that
Speaker 3: access to their feeding grounds too. So how do we
Speaker 3: look at the corridors? How do I identify the corridors?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you prioritize that when you were Secretary of the
Speaker 1: Interior and there was and that kickstarted, I mean a
Speaker 1: ton of work. Then do you do you feel like,
Speaker 1: what do you think is gonna happen with in like
Speaker 1: in Trump too, with the current administration, do you feel
Speaker 1: that there's gonna be sort of a vocalization or rededication
Speaker 1: around some of the work that like that that you
Speaker 1: initiated on on corridors.
Speaker 2: I mean you get that kind of that conversation really
Speaker 2: came to life during those years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I like I like Doug Burgham. He's, you know,
Speaker 3: from North Dakota, so he has kind of a Western
Speaker 3: tilt to his walk. North Dakota's a little different Montana.
Speaker 3: But I've talked to him about wildlife corridors and reorganization,
Speaker 3: which I think is important. And a lot of times
Speaker 3: it's not more money into the system, it's better utilization
Speaker 3: of the funding. And I'll give you an example, and
Speaker 3: we've got to follow me on this, but let's say
Speaker 3: you have a trout and a salmon in the same stream.
Speaker 3: Happens everywhere in the West. Let's say upstream you have
Speaker 3: a Forest Service holding a National forest and downstream you
Speaker 3: have a dam. I've just described every watershed in the West.
Speaker 3: So this is how we manage it. So the trout
Speaker 3: are managed by Department of Interior through US Fish and
Speaker 3: Wildlife Service. The salmon are managed by Department of Commerce
Speaker 3: through NOAH. The National forest surface is managed by Department
Speaker 3: of Agriculture through US Forest Service subsurfaces Department of Interior
Speaker 3: through Bureau of Land Management. Our dam system downstream that
Speaker 3: directs the flow, the temperature. It's either the Department of
Speaker 3: Army through the Army Corps of Engineers like Libby or
Speaker 3: its Department of Interior through Bureau of Reclamation like the
Speaker 3: Dam and Hungry Horse. Even though they're almost you almost
Speaker 3: can see each other. So let's say you want to
Speaker 3: put a redo a bridge, or put a pipeline in
Speaker 3: or a dock system, you literally have to go through
Speaker 3: multiple departments with different agencies, with oftentimes conflicting regulation in
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty three different regions. Even the regions
Speaker 3: don't line up. The regions from Bureau of Reclamation is
Speaker 3: not the same region as Department or Bureau of any affairs.
Speaker 3: They're not even geographically the same. So it's not exactly
Speaker 3: you know, putting more resources in is reorganizing it so
Speaker 3: you can make better decisions. So you don't have seven
Speaker 3: different biologists from seven different agencies on the same acre
Speaker 3: of ground the same section of river giving different views
Speaker 3: and a conclusion that that either doesn't move forward or
Speaker 3: it it's not a consensus. And thus we were stuck
Speaker 3: in the mud and we don't get things done. Decisions.
Speaker 3: We have the we have the technology on decisions to
Speaker 3: make a decision yes or no within a reasonable amount
Speaker 3: of time. But because just the organization of it and
Speaker 3: how we're set up. A lot of these decisions wait
Speaker 3: and wait and wait and wait and wait. If you're
Speaker 3: if you're trying to you know, extract a resource, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of fra frustration on that side. You're trying
Speaker 3: to protect the resource, there's a lot of frustration on
Speaker 3: that side too, So we can do it better.
Speaker 1: Uh, let's jump to one that's heating up right now.
Speaker 1: A lot of conversations about the roleless rule. I hate
Speaker 1: to see the like, not hate to I really don't
Speaker 1: want to see the Roless rule thrown out. Uh, just
Speaker 1: I want to hear but people know what I think
Speaker 1: from your perspective, right, from from your perspective, like, like,
Speaker 1: aren't there some fixes and some adjustments that could be
Speaker 1: made to alleviate.
Speaker 2: Some of the concerns?
Speaker 1: Yes, like without like again, I don't want to lecture
Speaker 1: people on what I think about the Roles rule.
Speaker 2: I think like the Roles Rule does a great job
Speaker 2: of protecting those last bastions of undeveloped landscapes.
Speaker 1: But again, you know, in your role here, you are,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of constituents. You're answering to a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, a lot of people with a
Speaker 1: lot of concerns. I would love to see that there
Speaker 1: was a way to more surgically address concerns as they
Speaker 1: come up, rather than just saying like to hell with it,
Speaker 1: which I feel like we're sinding the role this rules
Speaker 1: a little bit like to hell with y'all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and all right, when one is, I'll hand over
Speaker 3: to you. When the roadless road rule was put in,
Speaker 3: there wasn't any public comment on that one either. That
Speaker 3: was that was President Clinton, we're gonna do the roadless rule.
Speaker 3: I don't remember any public comment, So I think there's
Speaker 3: public coming on the way out. I think, you know
Speaker 3: a blanket. We're just gonna undo every roadless and make
Speaker 3: them roadless again, make them roads. I think that is
Speaker 3: not best science, it's not best practices, it's not based
Speaker 3: on longest term, greatest good. I think there's there's no
Speaker 3: doubt some roads that probably should be opened up that
Speaker 3: provide access. Remember, not everyone is in great shape. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of older folks that they don't walk so
Speaker 3: well that maybe would like to drive. There's a snowmobile
Speaker 3: out there. They don't.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of promise you I was gonna stop
Speaker 1: talking about it. But I don't picture running out of
Speaker 1: roads like I'm not I'm not a there's like, there's
Speaker 1: no such thing as a road preservation is because there's
Speaker 1: always going to be a bunch.
Speaker 3: Of those well all right, and uh and and let's
Speaker 3: say northwest Montana, there's a lot of existing roads that
Speaker 3: when they shut the roads down they probably should have
Speaker 3: been opened up. They went they went too far, and
Speaker 3: then and over a period of time, if roads overgrow
Speaker 3: and then you do have a fire, you're putting a
Speaker 3: lot of firefighters in danger because you've got to have
Speaker 3: you gotta have access for machinery and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: But again, the right step I think is and they's
Speaker 3: we're going to do all this or all this. I
Speaker 3: think there's a logical you know midway that's that's evaluate
Speaker 3: the road system, that's evaluate we should have open up
Speaker 3: you know, public access because public access is important. Uh.
Speaker 3: And public access isn't always you know, two feet. I
Speaker 3: can tell you there's a lot of veterans that would
Speaker 3: wish they had two legs that can't walk very far.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of older folks that don't have the
Speaker 3: ability to walk that far. But you know that they
Speaker 3: used to, uh and so I think you can manage it,
Speaker 3: you know, well, but this, you know, one side or
Speaker 3: the other, I think leads to you know, tension. So
Speaker 3: I do think it's important to look at public access
Speaker 3: and evaluate fairly. Look at our roads when when they
Speaker 3: were made roadless, there was no comment when when when
Speaker 3: if the rule is overturned based on coming what roads
Speaker 3: are you going to overturn? I think that's a legitimate discussion.
Speaker 3: I think we should have these discussions about where and
Speaker 3: why and what purpose. Not every place, you know, some
Speaker 3: places have other alternative access points, uh and and a
Speaker 3: lot of places of you know, the road probably shouldn't
Speaker 3: have been in there in the beginning. So I do
Speaker 3: think you got to carefully look at things, and that's
Speaker 3: you know, some of these discussions. You know, it isn't
Speaker 3: it isn't clear where I have to have it one
Speaker 3: way or other. Do I have to have you know,
Speaker 3: zero people in it or or zero machinery in the wilderness. Well,
Speaker 3: it depends on what the machinery does. If it's scientific
Speaker 3: instrumentation on the side of a cauldron in Hawaii, so
Speaker 3: you can evaluate the subsurface channels of lava penetrating and threatening,
Speaker 3: you know, human life. I think that's a fair the
Speaker 3: put put that thing if you if you don't like
Speaker 3: to looking at it, then make it look like a rock.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 1: I I man, I understand those areas, like those examples
Speaker 1: of things that happen where it winds up being it
Speaker 1: almost becomes like a uh those areas where like some
Speaker 1: level of absurdity is demonstrated.
Speaker 2: It drives a lot of frustration, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It drives like in places that where like the one
Speaker 1: I brought up, where you know, there's almost an irony
Speaker 1: to it, like someone trying to preserve a strain of
Speaker 1: cutthroat trout being hindered in their activities because of the
Speaker 1: roadless rules, so like, and then you're trying to preserve
Speaker 1: the integrity, like you're trying to work on behalf of
Speaker 1: the integrity of the very thing that's preventing you from
Speaker 1: working on the integrity or whatever I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2: And I get all, I get those.
Speaker 3: And then you have a fire, right, they have a
Speaker 3: massive fire, and you have so much settlement that the
Speaker 3: trout you're trying to protect are gone. Yeah, and and
Speaker 3: and those are those are are real cases. So I
Speaker 3: think judgment matters and have a little latitude for the
Speaker 3: commander to make a decision based on ground truth, situation
Speaker 3: and train dictate. So on the roadless rule, I think
Speaker 3: it should be looked at, evaluated, a public couplic public comment. Uh,
Speaker 3: there's no doubt that's that. There are some places that
Speaker 3: the roads network should be replaced, probably repaired. So if
Speaker 3: you need to get in there with fire truck equipment,
Speaker 3: a can so you can evaluate it and enjoy your
Speaker 3: public landca it's jewrs snowmobiles, you know across Montana. I've
Speaker 3: never seen a problem or damage from a snowmobil during
Speaker 3: the summer. I like a lot unless a snowbill hits
Speaker 3: a tree, doesn't do a lot of damage out there.
Speaker 3: And the four strokes are are are pretty quiet and
Speaker 3: quite frankly, the game if if they're up that high,
Speaker 3: where the snowpacks that high, the game is not there.
Speaker 3: So as you know, you hunt and.
Speaker 2: I have a couple of snowbills.
Speaker 3: You do.
Speaker 1: Wild and scenic river work, so you recently I'm a
Speaker 1: little lost awhare like how the process plays out, but
Speaker 1: proposing wild and scenic status for stretches on the Gallatin
Speaker 1: and Madison.
Speaker 2: What does that do? Like, what give me your thinking
Speaker 2: on that? Like? What does that do? Is it? Is
Speaker 2: it a symbolic gesture like.
Speaker 3: You know, all right, and it's looking at the gallat
Speaker 3: and you know, and and and and those basins in
Speaker 3: the matter. One is that when you when you put
Speaker 3: protection on rivers, so you're you're set back, making sure
Speaker 3: the flow doesn't get doesn't remains, et cetera. In the
Speaker 3: In the case of the River Act, it started at
Speaker 3: the county level. They first came to my office in DC,
Speaker 3: the group behind it, and said, Oh, I got this
Speaker 3: great plan. We're going to do all these rivers, thousands
Speaker 3: of miles of rivers, is gonna put them on protection.
Speaker 3: And said, well, what do the counties think about it? Oh,
Speaker 3: we hadn't talked to the county commissioners.
Speaker 2: Ah, well, going right to the big dog.
Speaker 3: You know what, uh, you know, I'm a congressman, former
Speaker 3: former you know, secretary. I go to the county commissioners
Speaker 3: because the county commissioners of the front line, you know,
Speaker 3: their their sheriff is voted in, the county commissioners are
Speaker 3: voted in. There the front line and if you want
Speaker 3: my support, you got to go to the county commissioners
Speaker 3: and get their support too. And they did, you know,
Speaker 3: good on them. They went in, they worked it, They
Speaker 3: got county commissions. They they adjusted the scope where you
Speaker 3: had all sides. You had the government side, you know
Speaker 3: with me, and you had the county commissioners, and you
Speaker 3: had the local the local enthusiastic groups. You know there
Speaker 3: there are a lot of them that all got together
Speaker 3: and said this is the right plan. And then because
Speaker 3: I'm a representative and I represent people and I'm glad
Speaker 3: to do it, is if everyone agrees you know what,
Speaker 3: we'll go forward. Because I also think it's important enough
Speaker 3: to make sure that your kids had the same experience
Speaker 3: on the Madison and the Gallaton as you did. The
Speaker 3: reason why we live in Montana is because the Gallaton
Speaker 3: isn't the Sacramento River. That we understand how important it
Speaker 3: is on flows and temperature and species in riparian banks
Speaker 3: and all that, you know, should be and looked at
Speaker 3: as part of Montana our legacy that we're going to
Speaker 3: also be behind for the next generation. So I'm glad
Speaker 3: to do it. The process is, it starts in the
Speaker 3: House we'll get a committee hearing on it. It's not
Speaker 3: a contentious issue because I think we did it right.
Speaker 3: We went at the front line and it's uh, you know,
Speaker 3: frontline driven, and then I'm sure that Senator you know,
Speaker 3: she and Danes, well we'll pick it up on that side.
Speaker 3: So I'm actually fairly optimistic that the scope is right
Speaker 3: and you had a consensus on it, and it protects
Speaker 3: you know, two beautiful rivers and I think that you
Speaker 3: and I spend a lot of time on rightfully so
Speaker 3: because they are gorgeous rivers, and I just want to
Speaker 3: make sure that again your kids and your grandchildren can
Speaker 3: have the same experience.
Speaker 2: What's the timeline on something like that look like that, Well, we're.
Speaker 3: In government shutdown right now, so I'm sure not not
Speaker 3: not much as moving at the at the moment, but
Speaker 3: I'm pretty optimist that it'll move forward. You things take time, Uh,
Speaker 3: good things take take more time. But you know, I
Speaker 3: think I think we're on a good role because we
Speaker 3: did it right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, on right right, meaning that that procedure
Speaker 1: high that local commission.
Speaker 3: You know, people in Utah got really upset when monuments
Speaker 3: were put in place that they had no say. Matter
Speaker 3: of fact, not only did they not have a say,
Speaker 3: they had just the opposite. They were stoniestly against it.
Speaker 3: Both the State House, the State Senate, and the representation
Speaker 3: all were against that, and yet happened. And you've gotta
Speaker 3: you gotta, you gotta be sensitive the state's rights, even
Speaker 3: though it's federal property and and monuments. For everyone's listening,
Speaker 3: you know, the president's authority to designated monument. Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 3: really pushed it. And it's called the Antiquities Act, and
Speaker 3: it's delightfully short. It's it's only about a page and
Speaker 3: as four conditions. One, you have to have an object
Speaker 3: to protect that object by by law, by definition is
Speaker 3: sign as historic, prehistoric, you know, or geologic. Example, historic
Speaker 3: would be Battleground geologic, the Devil's Tower, which, by the way,
Speaker 3: that's what I was gonna throw out that that's the
Speaker 3: first monument. Like Teddy Roseil, I visited that place amazing.
Speaker 1: And secondly, it's very understandable when you look at it,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, I know where you're going. You're like
Speaker 1: where it's like that thing?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, and you know, the monument at the time was
Speaker 3: twelve hundred acres, so there's a pushback is a landgrap
Speaker 3: but again you have to have something something that to preserve.
Speaker 3: And secondly, it has to be on federal land. You
Speaker 3: can't designate a monument on state or private land. It
Speaker 3: has to be federal. So some of the recent designations
Speaker 3: and monuments also were on state and private land, which
Speaker 3: is illegal and I think also important.
Speaker 1: Well because they were those places were encompassed within the encompassed.
Speaker 3: But what happens is you start restricting access. You you
Speaker 3: start changing prescription on grazing, on time, and so you
Speaker 3: put a lot of pressure on either the state for
Speaker 3: income because a lot of state properties like Montana best
Speaker 3: and highest use the schools, generate income from the property.
Speaker 3: Or as your private land rights, you do have some
Speaker 3: right to the enjoyment of your property, and when that's
Speaker 3: diminished because of a government either it's a action, then
Speaker 3: that's a taking. But it lastly, is smallest area compatible
Speaker 3: to protection of the object, and that's important. For instance,
Speaker 3: if you're going to designate a battlefield a monument, then
Speaker 3: it would be logical and the extent of that battlefield
Speaker 3: would be where the battle took place or very close by.
Speaker 3: It's not in the case of Bear's Ears, which was
Speaker 3: a famous one. It's not fifteen hundred square miles. Then
Speaker 3: you go, well, fifteen hundred square miles, and for listeners
Speaker 3: that remember Bearsiers, it.
Speaker 2: Was, oh, this is quite a toll.
Speaker 3: So President Clinton went in and he designated Bearziers. I
Speaker 3: didn't see the property, but Bearziers was about fifteen hundred
Speaker 3: square miles of which eight hundred thousand acres was wilderness.
Speaker 3: Now tell me in a wilderness what protections in the wilderness?
Speaker 3: You don't have none. And then there was an entirety
Speaker 3: of a national forest in there that had no monuments.
Speaker 3: I mean it had no areas of known existence of
Speaker 3: anything historical, no Indian artifacts, no dwellings. What it was
Speaker 3: was there could be, there could be.
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 3: So you can't designate the monument of what could be?
Speaker 3: And it's small or sty compatible. So when I did
Speaker 3: a review with the state of Utah and with the
Speaker 3: governor and locals, I I looked at it and I
Speaker 3: made the recommend recommendation. Then President Trump is that on
Speaker 3: the eight hundred thousands of wilderness, return it back to wilderness.
Speaker 3: It has all the protection it needs. On the national forest.
Speaker 3: Return it to National Forest the rest of it a
Speaker 3: reasonable boundary. Uh. And the boundary that I recommended was
Speaker 3: larger than Bryce Canyon and Zion Park combined. And still
Speaker 3: there was there was pushback from it. But at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, it was the right decision. You've
Speaker 3: got to follow the law on monuments.
Speaker 4: Same thing with but you got you got absolutists like
Speaker 4: you got absolutes like like like like, I'm kind of well,
Speaker 4: you got absolutists like me who would look, would look
Speaker 4: and be like, maybe.
Speaker 2: Uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Admit like a certain level of manipulation here where you'd
Speaker 1: look and you'd be like, I I.
Speaker 2: Like the the goal. I like the goal of preserving
Speaker 2: untouched landscape.
Speaker 1: And and if this is how we got to get there,
Speaker 1: then this is how we got to get there. And
Speaker 1: I understand that that winds up, you know, being something
Speaker 1: that's that's legally exposed, and it's an approach that's legally vulnerable,
Speaker 1: as we see with a lot of these ping pong
Speaker 1: issues that aren't acts of Congress.
Speaker 3: Well, and it's interesting the Bears Ears. You have two
Speaker 3: sections of the Great Navo Nation, the Navajo Nation in
Speaker 3: Utah was against the monument, primarily because they didn't want notoriety.
Speaker 3: They do a lot of ceremonial, you know, events on
Speaker 3: that land, and they were staunchly against the monument. They
Speaker 3: Navajos and Arizona, where you just had the oposite of you.
Speaker 3: They wanted the monument, and they they viewed the monument
Speaker 3: as a step towards a national park, or they viewed
Speaker 3: the monument as a step towards a reconciliation of a
Speaker 3: land return, and so that was kind of their their view.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, I viewed it in
Speaker 3: the terms of what was written in the law as that, yes,
Speaker 3: there is app there's ZOONI, there's a there's a lot
Speaker 3: of historical and geological features that I think they would qualify.
Speaker 3: I wasn't President Obama, so I gave President Obama deference.
Speaker 3: I wasn't President he was, so he decided that he
Speaker 3: would sign it, and so I gave deference of it
Speaker 3: within the law. But again, the boundaries that I proposed
Speaker 3: is still in litigation, by the way, were larger than
Speaker 3: Zion and Bryce Canyon combined. There's not one inch, by
Speaker 3: the way, that left the federal state, not one inch
Speaker 3: of land left the federal state is how it was
Speaker 3: designated in for what use and when. But that's an example.
Speaker 3: I think you're rightfully brought it up. There's there's people
Speaker 3: that will give no quarter on either side because either
Speaker 3: they think it's a slippery slope or the government doesn't
Speaker 3: have the right or states rights. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: people that are lined up that that get angry when't
Speaker 3: you even have a discussion about it. And you know
Speaker 3: this leads to the largest thing is we need to
Speaker 3: get the anger out of the discussion. It's the distraction
Speaker 3: of getting things done. And and look at what's what's
Speaker 3: the purpose? The purpose is to maintain and preserve and
Speaker 3: protect our outdoor legacy, to improve public access where we can,
Speaker 3: and to manage our forests and our wildlife, to make
Speaker 3: sure that the herds are are healthy into the future
Speaker 3: and our force remain the same. Uh. You know that's
Speaker 3: that's the goal, right and and and and how do
Speaker 3: you reach the goal? Well, you work together to do it.
Speaker 3: You you look at that at threats and there are you
Speaker 3: identify what's the source of the threat. Why do people
Speaker 3: want to sell land?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 3: Why why are people so angry? Is it because of
Speaker 3: housing costs, well, housing costs are high. But and housing
Speaker 3: it's say you have a million dollar home, which impostman. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's hard to believe it. There's hardly any home that's
Speaker 3: not a million dollars.
Speaker 1: But yeah, look at a million homes someone coming from
Speaker 1: So I'm not I'm not like picking on or I'm
Speaker 1: just pulling the state out of you know, thin air,
Speaker 1: like someone coming from Missouri. And if you said, hey,
Speaker 1: point out a million dollar homes, well they're not going
Speaker 1: to be pointing out a million dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and even Missouri, you know, so fort of a
Speaker 3: cost of a home is permitting, and and permitting includes
Speaker 3: curbs and sewer and water. Right, then you have construction costs.
Speaker 3: Materials are not coming down, you're then you have to
Speaker 3: have some profit. Uh. And then you have land costs.
Speaker 3: Of that group, land costs generally and oftentimes are are
Speaker 3: the least the least expensive part. And again we talked
Speaker 3: about if it's public housing we want, that's tens of acres,
Speaker 3: it's not. It's not hundreds or hundreds of thousands of acres. Right,
Speaker 3: And if the purpose is to provide housing, then then yeah,
Speaker 3: but if you don't have infrastructure. Then building a house
Speaker 3: in the middle of the dirt farm without without water
Speaker 3: and sewer, it's not going to get very far. So
Speaker 3: you have to, you know, look at it and evaluate.
Speaker 3: You know, what's the purpose again. You know, if you
Speaker 3: sell land public land. Once you sold, it's gone, you're
Speaker 3: not going to get it back. George Will said that
Speaker 3: you're not making any more land. So I think again again,
Speaker 3: the point is, I think you look at things, evaluate
Speaker 3: highest and best use, and go back to the American
Speaker 3: conservation ethic that gid us to this point of why
Speaker 3: we have the federal state we do.
Speaker 1: I want to move to one where I believe you
Speaker 1: and I are in perfect agreement.
Speaker 3: That's scary.
Speaker 1: Grizzly bear delisting absolutely, and why it fits in with
Speaker 1: some of the theme of what we're talking about for listeners.
Speaker 1: Grizzly bears were listed for Endangered Species Act protection very.
Speaker 2: Early on in the Act.
Speaker 1: When they were listed, we, I mean, the American people,
Speaker 1: all the system agreed on what recovery would look like.
Speaker 2: They put numbers to it.
Speaker 1: Grizzly bears reached that agreed upon recovery threshold.
Speaker 2: Thirty years ago. I'm a little bit lost in time twenty.
Speaker 1: Five years ago, thirty years ago, they they hit the
Speaker 1: numbers that everyone agreed would be recovery. A thing about
Speaker 1: the Endangered Species Act. I think that only two percent
Speaker 1: of the things that go on the Endangered Species Act
Speaker 1: come off because they recovered. Things might come off because
Speaker 1: we realized they were extinct. Things might come off because
Speaker 1: we realized that they weren't actually warranted in the first place.
Speaker 1: But rarely does an animal just rarely do we recover
Speaker 1: an animal. We did with peregrine falcons, we did with
Speaker 1: bald eagles. When we when bald eagles hit recovery, it
Speaker 1: was a big celebration. They were removed from the Endangered
Speaker 1: Species Act protection. But somehow with grizzlies we hit recovery
Speaker 1: and they won't delist them, and and and speaking to
Speaker 1: the frustrations, is it winds up making a mockery of
Speaker 1: the Endangered Species Act, and it turns the Endangered Species
Speaker 1: Act into a thing where people hear it and they
Speaker 1: reflexively go oh brother, yeah, Like it breeds the frustration
Speaker 1: because you're like, we set up, we set up plan,
Speaker 1: we achieved the plan, and then someone says, nope, I'm
Speaker 1: moving the goalpost because I don't want to live in
Speaker 1: a world where someone might do something bad to a
Speaker 1: grizzly bear.
Speaker 2: So I no longer care about what the Act intended.
Speaker 2: I just cared about using it as a legal weapon
Speaker 2: to protect my own personal interests.
Speaker 3: Well and in Danger Species Act, by the way, Dick Nixon,
Speaker 3: people forget about that. Yeah, Dick Nixon and uh in space,
Speaker 3: in Danger Species Act, Clean and Clean Air Act, Clean
Speaker 3: Water Act. It was all Dick nixonble No, he had
Speaker 3: Democratic Congress. But you know Dick Nixon, all right, he's
Speaker 3: a He's the one that signed it.
Speaker 1: I had someone there to explain to me that he
Speaker 1: didn't actually care about any of that stuff, and I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't look into it.
Speaker 3: He signed it. But you know, on two points. One
Speaker 3: is is when is you rightfully point out the Endangered
Speaker 3: Species Act, the solid idea about it is absolutely essential
Speaker 3: to protecting species and make sure we leave a legacy.
Speaker 3: But it can be abused, and when it is abused,
Speaker 3: that creates anger and frustration.
Speaker 2: And people just want to be done with the But.
Speaker 3: It spills out into other species, right because if they
Speaker 3: if they see the grizzly bear, which has recovered. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you go to Wilvando, every outbuilding has you know,
Speaker 3: hot wire on it. They had had a tourist camping
Speaker 3: right next to the restaurant and got mauled killed.
Speaker 2: You see it.
Speaker 3: You know you can't go out there in a bike
Speaker 3: anymore with a b begun. We have too many grizzlies.
Speaker 3: There's the right number of grizzlies. Let's go by science
Speaker 3: and manage the grizzly. And then there's then they have
Speaker 3: somehow concocted. Now there's three separate species of grizzlies. There's
Speaker 3: the Continental. The Continental, there is the Greater Yellowstone, and
Speaker 3: there the Yak, and each of those are different. The
Speaker 3: study was completed on the Greater Yellowstone that population has recovered.
Speaker 3: When I was Secretary, I led the effort, took it
Speaker 3: off the list, and then was put on back on
Speaker 3: the list when I left the Continental. That study has
Speaker 3: recently been completed that species are recovered, and those are
Speaker 3: the ones that are in Levando in the Northwest, and
Speaker 3: the Yak there was never endangered because the way the
Speaker 3: Endangered Species Act is, you only count the ones that
Speaker 3: are in North America, only count the ones that are
Speaker 3: in the United States. We don't, we're blind. The ones
Speaker 3: that are in in Canada, well, this the northern or
Speaker 3: the Yak grizzly Only a small section of their habitat
Speaker 3: is actually in the US. Most of the habitat is north.
Speaker 3: But all of a sudden, if if the numbers in
Speaker 3: the in the South, the smaller, you know, the smaller
Speaker 3: section where they live, if that numbers can't prommegate the
Speaker 3: entire species, then they remain in the list. And it's
Speaker 3: nuts with.
Speaker 2: No acknowledgement of the habitats.
Speaker 3: With no acknowledgement, and you got and if you've been
Speaker 3: up there, the forests are dead. They have the canopy.
Speaker 3: Everything below the canopy is dead because the tree density
Speaker 3: is too great. They're dead and dying trees. There is
Speaker 3: no grasses. Grizzly bears don't eat grass, and underlets do.
Speaker 3: But if less there's grass, you know, there's nothing to
Speaker 3: feed on. Pretty you know, pretty much they're having the
Speaker 3: transit hundreds of miles for food. Uh and their food
Speaker 3: oftentimes in the Northwest, and Libby happens to be a
Speaker 3: garbage can because garbage cans are available because there's food.
Speaker 3: There's no food out there, but you know, it's a
Speaker 3: management issue, and we should celebrate that the species has recovered.
Speaker 3: I mean we we all should do a barn dance
Speaker 3: and celebrate and then go, all right, these are the
Speaker 3: numbers we're gonna We're gonna monitor that species very closely.
Speaker 3: It's just off the list. This is the numbers that
Speaker 3: we're going to target it to and manage. Just like
Speaker 3: we manage elk herds, we manage cattle, we manage things.
Speaker 3: The only thing, the only two things we seem not
Speaker 3: to manage are grizzly bears and wild horses and burroughs. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and both of them become dude.
Speaker 1: I don't even put that on our list. But that's
Speaker 1: another one. But we'll not we can avoid that one.
Speaker 1: But let's stand grizzlies for a minute, because what like
Speaker 1: one of the things like being an optimist, you know,
Speaker 1: try to be an optimist.
Speaker 3: I look, I'm an optimist.
Speaker 2: We should be well, I.
Speaker 1: Look, and I'm like, you got republican you know, you
Speaker 1: got a republican government Montana.
Speaker 2: You got a republican governor Idaho. You get a republican
Speaker 2: government Wyoming.
Speaker 1: We have a Republican delegation, We have a Republican in
Speaker 1: the White House. I'm like, perhaps in the next four
Speaker 1: years would be great. It seems like everything's really aligned
Speaker 1: to delist the Grizzly Bears and hand them back to
Speaker 1: state management.
Speaker 2: Is that enough timers is just too legally complicated.
Speaker 3: No, I I think we should in can we have
Speaker 3: a little problem with a couple of judges.
Speaker 1: Like it's like a person a person a person in Missia,
Speaker 1: person in Mozilla.
Speaker 3: He's from Malta.
Speaker 2: I know, but it's like it's like a god. It's
Speaker 2: like a godlike position.
Speaker 3: Yeah, every time it's always moved the bar. But I look,
Speaker 3: you know, you don't you don't give up. It's the
Speaker 3: right thing to do because the numbers in the science
Speaker 3: behind it is that it's truthful. So I do think
Speaker 3: and it's not you know, republic and Democrats not really
Speaker 3: quite frankly, the way I see the world, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm kind of red, white and black.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: But what I'm saying is what I'm saying is, uh,
Speaker 1: the power, the power.
Speaker 3: Should align to get things done when we don't need to.
Speaker 1: Like without fully understood like what And I know everybody
Speaker 1: has their own priority about just saying when I looked
Speaker 1: at it, I'm like, that would be a great outcome here.
Speaker 1: You know, there's other things I care about that will
Speaker 1: be compromised, but would love to see this come through.
Speaker 1: But it's like you gotta you moved, like you move
Speaker 1: to D list, like the US Fishwaliley Service moves to
Speaker 1: D list.
Speaker 2: Then they make a plan, but then it just gets
Speaker 2: it just gets litigated.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, And I would say that's part of the
Speaker 3: issue is Congress has to do our job to make
Speaker 3: sure that there is an off ramp based on science
Speaker 3: on the Endangered Species Act. But when it's abused, it
Speaker 3: creates anger on both sides. One is that you are
Speaker 3: thinking about taking an animal off the list, so I'm
Speaker 3: angry about that, and you're not taking the animal off
Speaker 3: off the list because it's recovered. I'm angry about that.
Speaker 3: So I think it's always better look at what's the goal.
Speaker 3: The goal is independent of opinion. The goal is to
Speaker 3: have a healthy number of species, but make sure the
Speaker 3: species that was identified, once it meets that objective, then
Speaker 3: it's off the list. Congress has to do our job
Speaker 3: to make sure that once those numbers have been verified,
Speaker 3: that in fact gets off the list, and doesn't get
Speaker 3: litigated for another series of discovery. Oh what about the
Speaker 3: relationship between the monarch butterfly and the grizzly? Have you
Speaker 3: looked at that? Yeah, No, I haven't looked at it.
Speaker 2: That's that's always the play.
Speaker 3: The play.
Speaker 1: The play is not to question how many bears are
Speaker 1: out there. The play is the goal, like but did
Speaker 1: you consider this?
Speaker 3: But but did you discovery?
Speaker 1: It's never like, hey, there's not actually enough of them.
Speaker 1: It's always like some it's like a technicality.
Speaker 3: And and you know, we also reward lawsuits because they
Speaker 3: you if you bring a loaf lawsuit forward, you have
Speaker 3: eleven tenants of that of that lawsuit, and you lose
Speaker 3: on ten of them. But when a minor one, you're
Speaker 3: still going to get fully funded. So you're you're our taxpayers,
Speaker 3: you'll pay for this nonsense. Enough's enough, We're thirty six
Speaker 3: trillion dollars in debt. I can spend. I can see
Speaker 3: a lot better expense of taxpayer dollars. Then to defend
Speaker 3: a species that by all numbers and by science has
Speaker 3: recovered enough enough, but Congress has to adjust it to
Speaker 3: make sure that the abuse is stopped.
Speaker 1: So if you crystal balled it like, when will that happen?
Speaker 1: I mean, we eventually got there on wolves, right, it
Speaker 1: took a long time. We got there on wolves, at
Speaker 1: least in the northern Rockies. The northern Great Lakes are
Speaker 1: still dealing with the.
Speaker 3: Problem, and in Colorado is just being introduced to the
Speaker 3: problem and they're not very happy about it.
Speaker 1: But what are the odds or not, however you want
Speaker 1: to put it, like, what are the chances that we
Speaker 1: would see grizzly dlisting in the next handful of years?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, you have influence.
Speaker 2: I've been talking about this since I was.
Speaker 3: But look, you don't. You don't give up. That's you
Speaker 3: never quit, uh, you know, with with with Danes and
Speaker 3: she he and Montana before of us, you know, I yeah,
Speaker 3: it's certainly if priority. I think probably the number one
Speaker 3: priority is is peace. But after peace, you know, the environment.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm an optimist. It can get done. I
Speaker 3: think Berghum understands the importance of it. And you know,
Speaker 3: if you're in New York or Florida, you know, grizzly
Speaker 3: bears probably aren't at the top.
Speaker 2: Of your list. But look, we what black bears are?
Speaker 3: Black bears? You know, think of a bigger black bear,
Speaker 3: a lot bigger. But you know this is where you know,
Speaker 3: the four of us we get along well. We talk
Speaker 3: at least once, if not twice a week, and I'm
Speaker 3: pretty confident we'll see the Greater Yellowstone Grizzly go off
Speaker 3: the list. I think it won't be too long before
Speaker 3: the Continental and the Yak. We're gonna have to change
Speaker 3: the laws so we can we can. You know, it's
Speaker 3: ridiculous if you if you have again, if your if
Speaker 3: your habitat is just a small area, but but but
Speaker 3: absentte boundaries. If the proponers the bears live up up
Speaker 3: in Canada, then there should be some formula to have
Speaker 3: some compensation for those bearris. A lot of them are
Speaker 3: coming from Canada and coming down, eating and returning.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to resist the urge to give listeners my
Speaker 1: standard thirty minute explanation of distinct population segments. But when
Speaker 1: we're one, uh, when when one Congress from Zinkie talking
Speaker 1: about the Northern Continal Divide the Greater Yellstone. Basically, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a geographical sort of system by which we
Speaker 1: point out areas that could potentially even have grizzlies or
Speaker 1: that have suitable habitat. So instead of talking about grizzlies
Speaker 1: in Golden Golden Gate Park, where there were grizzlies once
Speaker 1: upon a time, we're talking about the places where there's
Speaker 1: suitable habitat and the potential for a population that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then they go, well, it's just a subspecies.
Speaker 3: Is a greater Yellowstone so much different than the continental
Speaker 3: in the act, The answer is no. And then if
Speaker 3: you got to go to another subspecies, there's a subspecies.
Speaker 3: If you go further out Montana, there's a cornfield out
Speaker 3: by Chester that the grizzly bears have gone all the
Speaker 3: way out. The chest corn.
Speaker 2: Corn that sit in that cornfield, you know, more or
Speaker 2: less all fall.
Speaker 3: Now, that could be a subspecies too. It's it's the
Speaker 3: it's the corn grizzly. Of course I'm being facetious.
Speaker 1: But no, I understand there is there is a tool.
Speaker 1: There's an environmental tool that gets used where if someone
Speaker 1: you know, you might point out like, hey, we're this
Speaker 1: species is imperiled, and and people will say, well, it's
Speaker 1: not because they're all over the place. And then what
Speaker 1: you do is your place, you say, well, this one's
Speaker 1: a little different well, and you know, and it's like
Speaker 1: there's like splitters and lumpers into if.
Speaker 3: You're worried about d n A, then they're doing transplanting,
Speaker 3: you know, programs, and then they'll they'll grab a bear
Speaker 3: from one area and send another bear. If if you
Speaker 3: if you're worried about the gene pool is beginning, you know,
Speaker 3: so reduced, yeah, and yeah, et cetera. But it goes
Speaker 3: back to science. But I'm an optimist on on that
Speaker 3: and then danger species. You need sixty votes in the Senate.
Speaker 3: That's one of the hurdles. So it has to be bipartisan,
Speaker 3: and I think a vehicle for that is we should
Speaker 3: have the discussion in the public Lands Caucus. That's very
Speaker 3: very bipartison and very full spectrum by the way of
Speaker 3: political tone, from the ultra conservative to the l ultraliberal.
Speaker 3: But the common thread, uh is public lands and and
Speaker 3: there and both sides are deeply passionate about public lands.
Speaker 3: The management is a little different in the perspective of
Speaker 3: how to manage it, but they're passion That's a great start.
Speaker 3: At least people are passionate about about about the team.
Speaker 3: A lot of people are passionate about you know, the
Speaker 3: Bobcats and until the Grizzly Bobcat game.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you something I don't want
Speaker 1: you to take personally. You and I don't agree on everything,
Speaker 1: but I don't agree with my wife on everything.
Speaker 2: Well, so you're you're in her company. Yeah, I gave
Speaker 2: you a hit.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't agree with myself all the time.
Speaker 3: Ask my wife. So but but you know, but again,
Speaker 3: it helps if a person has passion, right, and it
Speaker 3: also helps to listen.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's kind of what I wanted to end on.
Speaker 1: Here is a thing that I've appreciated being uh, you know,
Speaker 1: one one of your constituents. The thing I've appreciated about
Speaker 1: you is you have a you cultivate intentionally or naturally.
Speaker 1: You cultivate a tonal that implies compromise, that implies giving
Speaker 1: people the benefit of the doubt, that implies like, let's
Speaker 1: hear all the ideas made the best idea win. You
Speaker 1: point out, you know, talking what we're talking about red
Speaker 1: and blue. You point out being red, white and blue. Right,
Speaker 1: you talk about taking the heat down. Like, dude, this
Speaker 1: is stuff that that I love to hear. I haven't
Speaker 1: read the article yet. I saw a thing this morning
Speaker 1: that most it was a poll. I didn't read ain
Speaker 1: the details of the poll. Who did the poll, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but just said in a poll, most Americans
Speaker 1: think that the divisions in this country cannot be resolved.
Speaker 1: Which is just sickening to hear that. What's your take?
Speaker 1: I mean, you go, you go, you go out of
Speaker 1: your way to like you said, you go audio way
Speaker 1: to take the heat down, and you go audio way
Speaker 1: to like be a gentleman and to point out this
Speaker 1: is America. Let's figure things out, like like are you
Speaker 1: gonna how do you keep that up well?
Speaker 3: And and how do you how do you get the
Speaker 3: tone and the anger out of it? Right? I guess
Speaker 3: leadership leadership at every level. Uh, the school teachers should
Speaker 3: be talking about looking tone. You know. That's that's celebrate
Speaker 3: our diversity of thought. That celebrate critical thinking, and that's
Speaker 3: that celebrate the solution minded people. Uh. That that celebrate
Speaker 3: our ability as a as a as a great nation
Speaker 3: to get things done. But it has I think it
Speaker 3: has to happen both from the top, uh, and and
Speaker 3: also from from from the from the bottom up. And
Speaker 3: anyone that has a voice I think should be saying
Speaker 3: the same voice. Uh, you know, related as a Charlie
Speaker 3: Kirk incident. You know, terrible. Yeah, anyone that would celebrate
Speaker 3: the death of a father, to celebrate the death of
Speaker 3: a husband over political descent is a is a real problem.
Speaker 3: And and where where they get it from. I don't know. Man.
Speaker 2: My kids would come home from school and they would
Speaker 2: tell me insane things that are being said at school.
Speaker 2: I'm like, listen my kids in speech and debate. I'm like,
Speaker 2: that man was.
Speaker 1: Killed at a debate where he's inviting the people that
Speaker 1: disagree with him most to come up and share their opinion.
Speaker 2: He was killed at a debate.
Speaker 3: To your point, he advocated debate. He had debated do
Speaker 3: you approve me wrong? On an intellectual capacity?
Speaker 2: And whoever disagrees most is the front of the line.
Speaker 3: And and and and have at it. But it was
Speaker 3: a It was an event of communication, of deliberation, of debate.
Speaker 3: It should never resolve to violence. And I can tell
Speaker 3: you this is not my first rodeo. The anger out
Speaker 3: there is a distraction from getting things done. When you
Speaker 3: have anger. It doesn't allow a con conversation on affordable housing.
Speaker 3: It doesn't allow conversation on economics and prosperity and and
Speaker 3: and how to break through an environment that that's really
Speaker 3: difficult for especially young people to get a job and
Speaker 3: get a house. Uh, you know, how do we how
Speaker 3: do we address that when there's so much anger you
Speaker 3: can't even have the discussion if you want to talk
Speaker 3: about affordable housing to talk about you know, things like
Speaker 3: title when you buy a house. You don't buy a house,
Speaker 3: you buy a title, right, and it's the title.
Speaker 2: It's the title you buy and sell.
Speaker 3: Right, And so we should look at you know, how
Speaker 3: do we open up so people can have access to
Speaker 3: a title? Is it? Is it? Uh? You know six
Speaker 3: pluses eight plexes is a condos making it easier for
Speaker 3: people to own title because that's what gains equity and
Speaker 3: so but if if your life is destined to rent,
Speaker 3: uh the entirety of your existence. Uh yeah, you know
Speaker 3: that's that's a change from the American dream.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: The American dream is a couple of cars, a house.
Speaker 3: You know, send the kids to school. They're gonna have
Speaker 3: more opportunity than you did. Diminishing it. You know, it's
Speaker 3: probably not possible to if you live in New York
Speaker 3: City to buy it, buy a building or a block.
Speaker 3: But you can buy a long term lease on on
Speaker 3: an apartment with title and sell that. So there's other
Speaker 3: ways to do it. But you can't get there if
Speaker 3: you're so angry. You clinch your fists and you shut
Speaker 3: off your ears, and all you're going to do is
Speaker 3: is become angry.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've been a seal. I've seen a
Speaker 3: lot of things in my life. I've seen I've seen
Speaker 3: the very best of humanity and I have seen the worst.
Speaker 3: I have absolutely seen the worst in humanity. But I
Speaker 3: remain an optimist. Uh that always good will prevail. And
Speaker 3: you know, one of the nice things about it is
Speaker 3: that we do live in Montana. We're here in Bozeman.
Speaker 3: So sometimes the problems are over the horizon. They're concerned
Speaker 3: because that they're over horizonment in this country. And I
Speaker 3: think the only way to address it is that we
Speaker 3: all should address it, because we all rise and fall
Speaker 3: on the same tide. And you know, go to the
Speaker 3: neighbor you you really dislike and salo, yeah, yeah that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're talking about divisions making it that we can't
Speaker 1: get projects done. I just worry about divisions that make
Speaker 1: it the the the American We can't get the American
Speaker 1: experience done, the American experiment done, you know, Like I
Speaker 1: just I don't know, man, I've just been like really.
Speaker 4: Tore up about I think I think it should be
Speaker 4: really really hit like with like with with with.
Speaker 1: The death of Charlie Kirk. It was like not just
Speaker 1: that tragedy, but sort of the the the mindsets that
Speaker 1: came out of that and some of the opinions that
Speaker 1: came out of that.
Speaker 4: Stunning it Like it hit dude, It like hit me
Speaker 4: like a I've been having like a cry, like a
Speaker 4: like a little bit of a of a like an
Speaker 4: emotional crisis about just since those days.
Speaker 2: It's been hard since those days, Like not.
Speaker 1: Just the like I feel bad, like I feel terrible
Speaker 1: for the person's family, but the symbolism of it and
Speaker 1: this idea that you would this idea that people would
Speaker 1: come out and and act like they were glad about
Speaker 1: something like that, and then the way they would just
Speaker 1: be leveraged by everybody, and the way the motivations of
Speaker 1: the shooter would be leveraged. I don't know, man, just
Speaker 1: made me feel sick, Like I still feel kind of
Speaker 1: sick from it.
Speaker 3: But we should feel sick because it's one it should
Speaker 3: be unacceptable, and sometimes we're a loss of words. But
Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's a value to reflect
Speaker 3: and it's only evil if we don't change. And maybe,
Speaker 3: you know, there's not much of a silver lining in
Speaker 3: in Charlie's death, but maybe we'll give us a moment
Speaker 3: of reflection in the watershed moments that we don't want
Speaker 3: to be that country. We don't want to have shootings
Speaker 3: on political disagreements. We don't want to have anger because
Speaker 3: what as a results in it results in the dismantling
Speaker 3: of a great nation, uh, dismantling of our our fabric
Speaker 3: as as Americans. We're we are bonded by one nation
Speaker 3: under God, so we should hopefully we were rally. I'm
Speaker 3: seeing some signs of it. You know. It's it's it's my,
Speaker 3: it's my you know, prayer that we don't snap back
Speaker 3: to where we were, that we actually move forward on
Speaker 3: it and and his death will have some positive outcome, uh,
Speaker 3: you know if from it. It's only positive if if
Speaker 3: it's recognized and we we change our tone and actions
Speaker 3: uh to it, and and that that have to come
Speaker 3: from from everybody. It didn't happen overnight. This anger was
Speaker 3: allowed to brew, and in some cases it was promoted. Uh,
Speaker 3: you know, calling someone a Nazi three thousand times on TV.
Speaker 3: Eventually someone goes, oh, it must be a Nazi because
Speaker 3: you said, I is it just just you know, I
Speaker 3: understand freedom of speech, but you know you can articulate,
Speaker 3: you know, and like my mom said, you can you
Speaker 3: know you can use your words?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I told dude.
Speaker 1: I told my kids, I'm like, when all this is
Speaker 1: going on, I was like, hey, man, I like, I
Speaker 1: have opinions that are controversial. I'm an outspoken hunter, which
Speaker 1: in some people's minds is controversial.
Speaker 2: I go to colleges and give talks and talk to people.
Speaker 3: I like, I hear you kill animals.
Speaker 1: Well, I imagine, like I'm saying, like, if someone I
Speaker 1: told my kids, someone shoots me out of the college campus,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be people that are like, well, he deserved it,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, how are you going to feel in
Speaker 1: that moment?
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: It's just like I don't want to keep around that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure glad you came by the talk.
Speaker 2: Here's there's there are some.
Speaker 3: Good things as that you know, the spirit of Americans
Speaker 3: that we're all Americans. And I get I've seen I've
Speaker 3: seen humanity it's worst and I've seen himanity the best. Uh.
Speaker 3: We have an opportunity, uh to make sure we learned
Speaker 3: from this and move on. And I think if if
Speaker 3: leadership across the board on both sides of the aisle,
Speaker 3: and there's probably three or fourth different sides in the
Speaker 3: aisle of folks out there, but all of this should
Speaker 3: should recognize and and and push back. And I'm seeing
Speaker 3: that with with you know a lot of tone of
Speaker 3: the media, people that are are in the influence you know,
Speaker 3: world say the same thing, talk about it not all,
Speaker 3: but I'm I'm seeing some some good signs. And hey,
Speaker 3: why it's not perfect. H You wake up the morning
Speaker 3: the best you can. You influence those things as you
Speaker 3: can influence and accept kind of the things you can't.
Speaker 3: You don't you don't quit, you don't give up. You're
Speaker 3: passionate about your ideas and you kind of associate sometimes
Speaker 3: with people that are also passionate. And it's not so bad.
Speaker 3: Once in a while go out and meet someone that
Speaker 3: you don't would normally not have a conversation with in
Speaker 3: the house. Believe it or not, I'll go over the
Speaker 3: Democrats side of the aisle. I'll sit down and uh
Speaker 3: I have I have. I have a group of people
Speaker 3: with distinctly different backgrounds in mind. Uh, sit down, we
Speaker 3: have a I have conversation with it. I've I've learned
Speaker 3: about the Deep South a lot, uh from from from
Speaker 3: comper conversations.
Speaker 1: Listen, I watched you. You don't know this. I've watched
Speaker 1: you do this now. I watched you go up and
Speaker 1: out of your way and engage with of all things,
Speaker 1: a democrat.
Speaker 2: I watched you go across the room and do it. Well.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you a sick I have a lot of
Speaker 3: friends that are ras too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I saw that and I appreciated it. Man,
Speaker 1: I appreciated it.
Speaker 3: Well. I don't think our problems are going to be
Speaker 3: solved from one side of the aisle or the other.
Speaker 3: And I think the problems it's always the kind of
Speaker 3: the middle lanes that look at and most people, you know,
Speaker 3: I just want government to function, and they just just
Speaker 3: want to cover cover the basics and make sure you
Speaker 3: have a functional government and the resources are put where
Speaker 3: people need them. I think there's a Christian aspect of it. Look,
Speaker 3: if someone someone's hurting and then you shouldn't walk past.
Speaker 3: You know, you should provide some help. Handout is always
Speaker 3: better than it then, or hand up is better than
Speaker 3: a handout. But in some cases, you know, people just
Speaker 3: aren't able to be you know, they're going to make
Speaker 3: a lot of mistakes in life, and they're going to
Speaker 3: continue to make stakes.
Speaker 2: So what do you do.
Speaker 3: You either can incarcrate them or you try to provide
Speaker 3: some opportunity to reform. I'm gonna redemption and guy, you know,
Speaker 3: try to put him in a program where where you
Speaker 3: know they they work and at something. You know, everyone
Speaker 3: can do something, and and work is healing. Work provides
Speaker 3: purpose a lot of times self worth evaluation. So get
Speaker 3: them in something that they feel good about, even if
Speaker 3: it's picking up garbage. I pick up garbage, I clean
Speaker 3: toilets at parks. I'm happy with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, congress some zincie, thanks for coming on, uh
Speaker 1: talking about conservation issues, talking about American patriotism.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it and just and just around around the block.
Speaker 3: I always enjoy and thanks for what you do. By
Speaker 3: the way, I think, Uh, you're you're You're insightful. I
Speaker 3: thank you. You drive the issues.
Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 3: You have a great following for a reason is that
Speaker 3: I think you bring up some some hard hitting UH
Speaker 3: issues and UH and probably most of all, I understand
Speaker 3: you're a pretty good hunter.
Speaker 1: M I got good I got friends that appoint me
Speaker 1: in the right direction.
Speaker 3: I heard you got a good scope.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much,